Cardinal Adam Easton (c. 1330-1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat 9789048550654

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Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397)

Church, Faith and Culture in the Medieval West Series editors: Brenda Bolton, Anne J. Duggan and Damian J. Smith The essential aim of this series is to present high quality, original and international scholarship covering all aspects of the Medieval Church and its relationship with the secular world in an accessible form. Publications have covered such topics as The Medieval Papacy, Monastic and Religious Orders for both men and women, Canon Law, Liturgy and Ceremonial, Art, Architecture and Material Culture, Ecclesiastical Administration and Government, Clerical Life, Councils and so on. Our authors are encouraged to challenge existing orthodoxies on the basis of the thorough examination of sources. These books are not intended to be simple text books but to engage scholars worldwide. The series, originally published by Ashgate, has been published by Amsterdam University Press since 2018.

Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397) Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat

Edited by Miriam Wendling

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic, III.D.10 (Antiphonarium), fol. 131v. Copyright National Library of the Czech Republic. Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 652 8 e-isbn 978 90 4855 065 4 doi 10.5117/9789463726528 nur 684 © M. Wendling / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Preface7 Abbreviations9 Figures and Examples

11

Introduction

15

1. Adam Easton and the Great Schism

29

2. The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180: Adam Easton’s copy of Richard FitzRalph’s De pauperie Salvatoris

65

The Early Years of Adam Easton: from Norwich via Oxford to Avignon and Rome Joan Greatrex

Patrick Zutshi

Lynda Dennison

3. Adam Easton and the Lutterworth Wall Paintings Revisited

101

4. Easton and Dante: beyond Chaucer

119

5. Adam Easton and St Birgitta of Sweden: a remarkable affinity

139

6. Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary

155

7. Between Tradition and Innovation: the sepulchral monument of Adam Easton at S. Cecilia in Trastevere

175

Miriam Gill

Nick Havely

Ann M. Hutchison

Miriam Wendling

Claudia Bolgia

8. Adam Easton’s Manuscripts Patrick Zutshi

207

Index225 Index of Manuscripts227

Preface That a figure of such a varied life and output as Adam Easton had not had scholarly monograph dedicated to him since Leslie Macfarlane’s doctoral thesis was completed in 1955 is surprising. A move to rectify this was undertaken by Joan Greatrex and Christopher de Hamel with a conference devoted to Easton, at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in April 2014. It is to them that the first thanks of this volume must be given. We thank Anne Hudson, Nicholas Vincent and Julia Bolton-Holloway for their papers at the conference, which are not in the present volume. Patrick Zutshi travelled to Avignon to carry out further research on Easton’s books for the catalogue, found at the end of this volume, as well as contributing an article on Easton and the Schism, and many thanks are due to him for this exceptional undertaking. Further thanks are due to Gill Cannell and Metta de Hamel for on-the-ground organization of the conference. Finally, thanks are due to a small group of singers who gave us a musical impression of parts of Easton’s Office for the Visitation – something which had not been heard in the Corpus Christi Chapel for hundreds of years, if it had ever been sung there previously: Winifred Fisher, Catherine White, Frank Lee and Patrick Welche. Thanks to the choir as well for the spontaneous madrigals that accompanied the conference punt trip to dinner in a marvellous atmosphere! This volume would not have been possible without the cooperation of a large number of librarians at a similarly large number of institutions, who allowed the authors of the papers in this volume access to the manuscripts necessary to undertake the project and gave permission for the publication of images from their collections. Further thanks to Brenda Bolton, without whose guidance this volume would never have materialized. For the time to work on this project, as well as for his humour throughout the editing process, thanks are due to David Burn at KU Leuven. Final thanks must go to my colleagues, particularly Marianne Gillion, and my family, Patrick and Katrin, for their patience. Miriam Wendling Candlemas 2019

Abbreviations BAV BIHR BRECP BRUO CFBC EHR JBAA JEH Mon. MS TLAAS

Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research J. Greatrex, Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury, c.1066–1540 (Oxford, 1997) A.B. Emden, Biographical Register University of Oxford, 3 vols (Oxford, 1957–59) Congregazioni Femminili Benedettine Cassi English Historical Review Journal of the British Archaeological Association Journal of Ecclesiastical History Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia, Monarchia, in Dante Alighieri: Opere minori 3.1, ed. P.V. Mengaldo and E.B. Nardi (Milan and Naples, 1996) manuscript Transactions of the Leicestershire Architectural and Archaeological Society



Figures and Examples

Fig. 2.1. Fig. 2.2. Fig. 2.3. Fig. 2.4a. Fig. 2.4b. Fig. 2.5a. Fig. 2.5b. Fig. 2.6a. Fig. 2.6b. Fig. 2.7a. Fig. 2.7b. Fig. 2.8a. Fig. 2.8b. Fig. 2.8c.

Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus 75 Christi College, Cambridge Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 1r. By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford 76 Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r. By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford 77 Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford78 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows 78 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 198, fol. 91v 79 (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows 79 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford80 Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton 80 College, Oxford Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5, fol. 7r (detail). 81 The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows 81 of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 112r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford82 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316, fol. 88v 82 (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 49v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford 82

Fig. 2.8d. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12, fol. 210v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St 82 John’s College, Cambridge Fig. 2.9a. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 178r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford83 Fig. 2.9b. Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 26r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton 83 College, Oxford Fig. 2.9c. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A. 12, fol. 29r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St 83 John’s College, Cambridge Fig. 2.9d. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316, fol. 109v 83 (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Fig. 2.10a. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12, fol. 53v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St 84 John’s College, Cambridge Fig. 2.10b. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 210v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford84 Fig. 2.10c. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 83v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford84 Fig. 2.11a. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 245v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of 85 Pembroke College, Oxford Fig. 2.11b. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 47r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of Pem85 broke College, Oxford Fig. 2.11c. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 11r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of Pembroke College, Oxford 85 Fig. 2.12. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 88r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 86 Fig. 2.13. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 90r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 87 Fig. 2.14a. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5, fol. 7r (detail). 88 The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Fig. 2.14b. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316, fol. 8r (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford Ex. 6.1. Accedunt laudes virginis Ex. 6.2. Accendit ardor spiritus Ex. 6.3. Venit ex te sanctissimus Ex. 6.4. Non fuit Christus Ex. 6.5. Surgens maria Ex. 6.6. Incipits Fig. 7.1.

Fig. 7.2. Fig. 7.3. Fig. 7.4. Fig. 7.5. Fig. 7.6. Fig. 7.7. Fig. 7.8. Fig. 7.9. Fig. 7.10. Fig. 7.11.

88 163 164 166 169 171 172

New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bequest of Mrs A.M. Minturn, 1890), manuscript leaf with Incipit of the Office of the Visitation, detail, from an antiphonary. Tempera, ink and gold on parchment, Venice, 177 c.1400. Photo: www.metmuseum.org Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam 179 Easton (d. 1397). Photo © Alinari, Firenze Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, bier, shield of the English Crown. Photo: author 180 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam 180 Easton, bier, shield of Cardinal Easton. Photo: author Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam 180 Easton, short side of bier, foliated cross Photo: author Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, short side of bier, foliated cross, detail. Photo: author180 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam 181 Easton, gisant. Photo © Vasari, Roma Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon (d. 1397), gisant, head. Photo © Vasari, Roma 181 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, gisant, head (frontal view). Photo © Vasari, Roma 182 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam 183 Easton, gisant, head (side view). Photo © Vasari, Roma Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, marble screen from the dismembered tabernacle of the Madonna Advocata in S. Maria in Aracoeli, the donor Francesco Felici, 1372. Photo: author 184

Fig. 7.12.

Fig. 7.13. Fig. 7.14. Fig. 7.15. Fig. 7.16. Fig. 7.17. Fig. 7.18. Fig. 7.19. Fig. 7.20. Fig. 7.21. Fig. 7.22. Fig. 7.23. Fig. 7.24. Fig. 7.25. Fig. 7.26.

Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, marble screen from the dismembered tabernacle of the Madonna Advocata in S. Maria in Aracoeli, the donor’s wife, Caterina Felici, 1372. Photo: author 184 Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, cloister, marble statue of Pope Boniface IX, c. late 1390s–early 1400s. Photo: author 185 Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, cloister, marble statue of Pope Boniface IX, head, c. late 1390s–early 1400s. Photo: author185 Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Philippe 186 d’Alençon (d. 1397), gisant, head. Photo © Vasari, Roma Reconstruction of tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon. Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere. From Küh187 lenthal, pl. 24 Vatican City, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 3084 (Joseph-Marie Suarès, Schedae manuscriptae), fol. 282r Photo © 2017 189 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Naples, S. Chiara, tomb of Marie de Valois (1331–2). 193 Photo © Alinari, Firenze Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, Madonna and Child, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo 194 © Vasari, Roma Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. 195 Photo © Vasari, Roma Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. 195 Photo © Vasari, Roma Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma 196 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma 196 Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, left aisle, end wall, small 198 pillar flanking the altar. Photo: author Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, left aisle, end wall, small 203 door. Photo: author Vatican City, Vatican Grottoes, tomb of Pope Urban VI 205 (d. 1389) from Old St Peter’s. Photo: author

Introduction The Early Years of Adam Easton: from Norwich via Oxford to Avignon and Rome Joan Greatrex Abstract Joan Greatrex sets up our understanding of Easton’s background, tracing what we know from the few surviving documents of his early life, from the early education that he is likely to have received up to the time that he joined the household of Simon Langham. Keywords: Easton, Norwich, Oxford

Given the considerable significance of Adam Easton (c.1327/1330–1397) in so many fields, it is remarkable that, over the past ninety years, this monk-scholar, outstanding preacher, distinguished theologian, diplomat and ultimately cardinal, has attracted only occasional scholarly attention. The essays brought together in this volume attempt to redress the imbalance by offering new insights on various aspects of Easton’s life and work. Noted for displaying consistent loyalty to the papacy through his actions and writings alike, traces of Easton’s origins and early life, nevertheless, remain few and far between. What does survive includes some evidence for his date of birth and family background, his formative years as a Benedictine monk in the Cathedral Priory of Norwich, his period of study as a monk student at Gloucester College, Oxford – to the head of which a remarkable letter from the Prior of Norwich emphasizes Easton’s indispensability to his home institution – and the circumstances preceding and leading up to his arrival at the Papal Curia in Avignon. Modern research in the field of medieval English Benedictine studies was led by the Oxford historian, William Pantin who, between 1931 and 1937, published a magisterial three-volume collection of documents on

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_intro

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the General and Provincial Chapters of the Black Monks.1 In 1936, Pantin’s short but seminal note on Easton’s Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis2 served to encourage a young scholar, the late Leslie Macfarlane, to choose Easton’s life and writings as the ideal subject for doctoral research in the University of London.3 In 1953, two years before submitting his thesis, Macfarlane discussed the background to Easton’s sworn testimony, solicited on two separate occasions by the Roman authorities in 1379 to illuminate the circumstances surrounding the turbulent election of Urban VI during the previous year. 4 In 1955, Pantin’s 1948 Birkbeck Lectures, published as The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, briefly discussed Easton as a personality5 but Macfarlane’s short biographical entry in 1968,6 together with his doctoral study remained the basis of subsequent work until the 1990s, when Easton, as a monk student from Norwich Cathedral Priory who had progressed to Oxford,7 took his place in the Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury, c.1066–1540.8 Not long afterwards, in a monograph on The English in Rome, 1362–1420, Margaret Harvey included two detailed, informative chapters concerning Easton’s later career in Avignon and Rome9 while, in 2004, the late Barrie Dobson provided a succinct and masterful summary of Easton’s career for the New Oxford Dictionary of National Biography – a model of historical writing all too seldom achieved.10 More recently, although Macfarlane’s thesis remained unpublished in his lifetime, it has now been digitalized and made accessible through the services of the British Library.11 1 W.A. Pantin, ed., Documents Illustrating the Activities of the General and Provincial Chapters of the English Black Monks, 1215–1540, 3 vols, Camden Series, 3rd Ser., xlv, xlvii and liv (London, 1931–37). 2 W.A. Pantin, ‘The Defensorium of Adam Easton’, EHR, 51 (1936), 675–80. 3 L.J. Macfarlane, ‘The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B.’, 2 vols, PhD dissertation, University of London, 1955. 4 Idem, ‘An English Account of the Election of Urban VI, 1378’, BIHR, 26 (1953), 75–85. 5 W.A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), 175–81. 6 L.J. Macfarlane, ‘Adam Easton’, Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ascetique et mystique, doctrine et histoire, vi (Paris, 1968), cols 5–8. 7 J. Greatrex, ‘Monk Students from Norwich Cathedral Priory at Oxford and Cambridge’, EHR, 106 (1991), 555–83, especially at 556, 576, 578, 580. 8 BRECP, 502–3. 9 M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 188–237. 10 R.B. Dobson, ‘Easton, Adam (c. 1330–1397)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8417. 11 Available at http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.282794 (accessed 8 March 2018).

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While the antiquarian historians, John Bale (1495–1563)12 and Thomas Tanner (1674–1735),13 provide contradictory statements on Easton’s parental background, there is little if any doubt that the family name of Easton, de Easton or Eston, was derived from the village of Easton in Norfolk, six miles to the north-west of Norwich.14 The exact year of his birth is unknown but, from Easton’s own evidence, it must have occurred between 1327 and 1330. This may be deduced from the two public instruments of 1379 to which he attested in Rome, one in March and the other in November of that year. In the first he stated that he was ‘forty years and more’,15 while in the second he claimed to have ‘crammed for thirty years and more in the world’s great centres of learning’.16 Macfarlane argues persuasively for the earlier date of 1327, thus making Easton’s second statement more likely on the grounds that it was rare for professed monks to be sent to university before they had attained the age of twenty-one or twenty-two.17 In common with other promising young boys, Easton probably received his early instruction in reading and grammar from the parish priest of St Peter’s church at Easton. At some time between 1346 and 134818 he sought admission to the Cathedral Priory of Norwich, a monastic community which numbered some sixty-four monks on the eve of the devastating plague known as the Black Death.19 This Benedictine monastery, unlike most of the other Benedictine abbeys and priories in England, served a dual role: it was not only a monastic community but also a cathedral chapter.20 The head of the former had the lesser title of 12 Bale was bishop of Ossory (1552–60). John Bale, Index Britanniae Scriptorum quos […] collegit Ioannes Baleus/John Bale’s Index of British and Other Writers, ed. R.L. Poole and M. Bateson, Anecdota Oxoniensia (Oxford, 1902), part 9, 4. 13 Bishop of St Asaph (1732–35). For Easton’s career and writings, see T. Tanner, Bibliotheca britannico-hibernica (London, 1748), 266. 14 Easton was not an estate in the hands of the Cathedral Priory although many of the Norwich monks were from families living on monastic property. N.P. Tanner, The Church in Late Medieval Norwich 1370–1532, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Studies and Texts 66 (Toronto, 1984), note at 25. 15 Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, 17, fol. 46, ‘xl annorum et ultra’; Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, ii, 20. 16 Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, 17, fol. 70, ‘quod xxx annis et amplius maiora mundi studi frequentavi’; Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, ii, 27. 17 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 1, n. 2. 18 Ibid., pt 1, 2 n. 2, where he suggests this date for Easton’s profession which would have taken place a year after his entry. Harvey prefers the year 1330 for his date of birth. Eadem, The English in Rome, 188. 19 Norwich Record Office, Dean and Chapter Records, DCN 2/3/7 (1347/8). Two years later, the number of monks had been reduced to 34. DCN 2/3/1 (1349/50). 20 The others were Bath, Canterbury, Coventry, Durham, Ely, Rochester, Winchester and Worcester.

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prior while the diocesan bishop was recognized, albeit reluctantly by the monks, as the titular abbot. On account of this anomaly – the cathedral serving simultaneously as the monastic church and the seat of the episcopal throne – the monks of Norwich were obliged to share their church with the local community for episcopal and diocesan functions. As a young novice in Norwich, Easton was taught by the novice master and, at the end of his first year – during which time he would have listened to three successive readings of all seventy-three chapters of the Rule of St Benedict – he was solemnly professed as a Benedictine monk. Over the next five to seven years, he was prepared for ordination, a four-stage process leading from acolyte and subdeacon to deacon and priest, the ceremony for each stage being performed by the diocesan bishop. Easton’s intellectual potential must have been recognized during the introductory years of monastic study which accompanied his training for the priesthood. Unfortunately, the surviving medieval catalogues of the cathedral library at Norwich are both few and far from complete, but there can be no doubt that by the early fifteenth century the priory possessed a wide range of books, calculated to have numbered some 1600 volumes by the early fifteenth century.21 He was, in fact, one of the few promising young monks selected to continue their education and, during his stay in Oxford, he lived at Gloucester College, the house of studies established for Benedictine monks.22 Macfarlane suggests that sometime between 1350 and 1351 he joined his fellow monk, Thomas Brinton (c.1320–1399), who had preceded him;23 he is also of the opinion that he spent his early years in Oxford completing lectures in the normal Arts course which he would have begun in the Norwich cloister.24 Corroboration for this comes from Easton’s possession of an astronomical tract and also of the four volumes of Aristotle’s Meteora, both texts in use at this time for the Natural Philosophy course.25 Although the exact date of his arrival in Oxford remains unknown, he was certainly there in 1352 when he and a fellow monk were recalled ‘for certain reasons’ by William Bateman, bishop of Norwich (1344–55). Among these reasons there may have been a ‘spirit of rebellion’ which would have led to the accusation that Easton and his friend had removed books, goods 21 That is, after the acquisition of Easton’s own books. R. Sharpe et al., eds, English Benedictine Libraries: the shorter catalogues (London, 1996), 288–90. 22 BRECP, 502–3; H. Wansbrough and A. Marett-Crosby, eds, Benedictines in Oxford (London, 1997), 41–2, 54, 58. 23 Pantin, English Church, 182–5; BRECP, 487. 24 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 2–3. 25 Ibid., i, 3, 61–2, 90, 88.

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and precious plate from the priory church and had put some of these to ‘nefarious use’. The accused were not only ordered to return, bringing with them everything that belonged to the cathedral priory but were also to appear within the space of three days on pain of excommunication should they fail to heed the bishop’s warning.26 We may never know what underlay this stern episcopal mandate – such struggles being far from unknown between seculars and regulars – but Easton responded in a surprisingly forceful manner considering his relative youth and inexperience. In a letter of 5 June 1352, he argued that as a scholar and a student, he had the prior’s licence to remain at Oxford until 12 June of that year. The prior to whom he referred was Simon Bozoun, about whose recent death he seems not to have been informed.27 He further complained that he was not summoned when Laurence de Leck was elected prior on 24 April,28 and that this omission had led him to appeal to the pope, then Innocent VI (1352–62), against the bishop and also against the sub-prior for failing to recall him as required.29 This exchange of correspondence and the circumstances which provoked it, together with the temerity of a scholar of more or less thirty years of age who had dared to make an appeal to the pope, does not appear to have harmed Easton’s Oxford career in the least. In 1355/6, by which time he was certainly deep in his studies on the Bible and the Sentences of Peter Lombard, he was summoned back to Norwich to preach in the cathedral on 14 August, the vigil of the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary.30 The next positive information concerning his status and whereabouts between 1357 and 1363 is contained in a remarkable letter sent from Nicholas de Hoo, prior of Norwich,31 to the prior studentium or head of Gloucester College. The college had requested that Easton, then approaching the end of his studies but having again been temporarily recalled to Norwich, should return to Oxford the following year on the grounds that ‘out of the whole order of Black Monks there are scarcely to be found three bachelors 26 Lydford, John Lydford’s Book, ed. D.M. Owen, Devon and Cornwall Record Society, New Ser., 19 (20) (1974–5), 106–7.201; BRECP, 502. See the Appendix to this article for the Latin text and translation, below 26. 27 Simon Bozoun, prior of Norwich (1344–April 1352). See D.M. Smith and V.C.M. London, eds, The Heads of Religious Houses: England and Wales: II, 1216–1377 (Cambridge, 2001), 56. See also Lydford, John Lydford’s Book, 107, no. 202, and BRECP, 502. 28 Laurence de Leck or Leek(e), prior of Norwich (1352–57). See Smith and London, Heads of Religious Houses, 56. His election confirmed on 24 April 1352. 29 Lydford, John Lydford’s Book, 107, no. 202, and BRECP, 502. 30 Norwich Record Office, Dean and Chapter Records, DCN 1/12/29. 31 Nicholas de Hoo, prior of Norwich (1357–81). See Smith and London, Heads of Religious Houses, 56. His election was confirmed on 12 December 1357.

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studying theology at the present time’.32 Although Easton was the senior monk-scholar and the closest to obtaining his doctorate, Nicholas de Hoo wrote back to explain how urgent was the need at the priory for either Easton to remain or for Brinton, by then back in Oxford, to be recalled for a short time.33 Referring to Easton as the ‘subtle and experienced overseer of the reapers’,34 Prior Hoo made it clear that he was amply fulfilling his task to organize preaching by monks in the cathedral to confound and silence the mendicant friars who were accused of unorthodox teaching and unsound doctrine, and whose permission to preach in the cathedral had been withdrawn. Indeed, Hoo claimed that Easton’s exceptional preaching enjoyed such special favour among clergy and people alike that, should his absence from Norwich become known, then the friars ‘would at once come up like mice out of their holes, and we have no one else to resist them in wisdom or learning’.35 William de Saint-Amour (1200–1272) had first challenged the ‘intrusion’ of mendicants into academic positions in the University of Paris, defending bishops and other secular clergy against the friars in the strongest terms in his Collectiones, a copy of which Easton actually owned.36 In Easton’s day, the dispute had been taken up by Richard FitzRalph and the Benedictines were included since they were classed among the possessioners as owners of property who were losing not only tithes and burial fees but also their congregations to the preaching of the new orders.37 This letter was written as Richard FitzRalph was attacking the friars in Avignon and the English Benedictines were subscribing money to support him.38 32 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 692, fol. 116. Cited by Pantin, Documents, liv, 28–9, no. 203, and no. 1, ‘ut asseritis, quod vix de toto ordine nigrorum monachorum reperiantur tres bacularii insistentes studio theologico tempore tam instanti’; idem, English Church, 175–6, at 175 for the English translation. 33 Pantin, Documents, liv, 29, ‘Eapropter ne predicta vel hiis deteriora contingant, nobis videtur necessarium, vel confratrem nostrum Thomam de Brinton’ revocare, vel predictum confratrem nostrum Adam ad modicum retinere.’ 34 Ibid., ‘tanquam prepositum subtilem et sciolum’. 35 Ibid., ‘Si eius igitur absentia pateat in recenti, timemus quod concito exurgent tanquam mures de cavernis, nec superset de nostris qui eis resistat sapiencia vel doctrina.’ 36 M.-M. Dufeil, Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la polémique universitaire parisienne, 1250–1259 (Paris, 1972); J.D. Dawson, ‘William of Saint-Amour and the Apostolic Tradition’, Medieval Studies, 40 (1978), 223–38; P.R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton, 1986). For Easton’s copy of Collectiones, see Harvey, The English in Rome, 189 n. 9, citing Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 151. 37 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 5–9, 135–99; Harvey, The English in Rome, 189. 38 Pantin, English Church, 177.

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During the year 1363–4, Easton, by this time a bachelor of divinity, was back once more at Oxford in order to complete his studies. By then he would have been required to lecture on Peter Lombard’s Sentences and subsequently to give lectures on one book chosen from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. Following these tests, he would have had to undergo his Statutory Responsions to the regent masters in all the theological schools.39 In this same year the Norwich obedientiary known as the communar paid his travel expenses to Oxford on two occasions, for one of these with all his belongings, which would have included a small library of books, the total cost was 154s. 8d. 40 At some point during the following year he incepted, a two-stage procedure by which he formally received his university degree. This began with his disputation in vesperiis, a fragment of which has been unexpectedly found in a Worcester Cathedral manuscript, MS F. 65, 41 containing the statement that ‘the determination of Adam of Easton: whether [Adam] in the state of innocence had a direct vision of the divine essence’.42 Then, in the same manuscript on folio 20 verso, is a second statement: ‘the questio of Easton and the responsio of Radcliffe: whether Adam under the law of innocence had a direct vision of God similar to that received by the angels’.43 On a subsequent folio44 follows the statement: ‘the question discussed in the vesperiis of Adam of Easton, monk of Norwich, to the respondent, Nicholas Radcliffe’. The question under discussion was whether all vows made to God must be kept. 45 The responding bachelor, Nicholas Radcliffe, was a Benedictine monk of St Alban’s Abbey, a student at Gloucester College at the same time as Easton, and later, like Easton, an opponent of Wyclif. 46 Contributions to the heavy expenses of Easton’s inception are recorded on the accounts of several Norwich obedientiaries. These expenses included prescribed gifts to several of the university academic authorities in addition 39 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 9; Harvey, The English in Rome, 189. 40 Norwich Record Office, Dean and Chapter Records, DCN 1/12/30. 41 R.M. Thomson, ed., A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library (Cambridge, 2000), 40–1. The inclusion of these items in this manuscript probably results from the presence of a monk student from Worcester who made notes as he listened. 42 Worcester Cathedral, MS F. 65, at folio 13 recto: ‘Determinacio Ade de Estone. Utrum pro statu innocencie visionem habuit immediatam divine essencie.’ 43 Ibid., at folio 20 verso: ‘Dei essencie habuerat sicud natura, Q[uestio] Eston et R[esponsio] Radclyf. Utrum Adam ex lege status innocencie visionem immediatam angelica optinebat.’ 44 Ibid., at folio 21 recto: ‘questio disputata in vesperiis domini Ade de Estone monachi Norwyci responsali Nicolao Radclyf’. 45 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 94–114; 2, 1–13. 46 BRUO, iii, 1539; Harvey, The English in Rome, 189.

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to the costly inception feast to which a large number of dignitaries were by custom invited. 47 Shortly after the completion of his studies Easton was singled out by the provincial chapter of the English Black Monks as the most promising candidate eligible for promotion to the position of prior studentium of Gloucester College. This office has been described by Margaret Harvey as ‘the high point of a Benedictine monastic academic career, often followed by high office in the order or in one’s own monastery’. 48 His presence as prior studentium is attested on 20 September 1366. 49 At the same time he would have been serving his year as a regent master as required by the university statutes.50 Macfarlane rightly insists that this long period of study and teaching, amounting to about seventeen years in all, was crucial and formative with regard to Easton’s future recognition in the field of biblical scholarship and his reputation as a papal theologian.51 His reputation as a Hebrew scholar, acquired and honed largely during his stay in Avignon, is attested by two pieces of evidence.52 In the prologue of his Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis he states that he had worked for many years to produce a complete translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Latin, and among his surviving books is a copy of The Book of Roots by David Kimhi (1160–1235).53 The date of Easton’s first encounter with Simon Langham,54 a fellow Benedictine monk, remains uncertain. The latter had been sent from the abbey of Westminster as a monk student to Oxford in the late 1340s, and by 1360 he had become the abbot of that community. Two years later he was provided to the see of Ely, and in 1366 the monks of Canterbury were successful in electing him as their archbishop. In this latter role Langham became also the nominal abbot of the cathedral priory and, as such, he was involved with the affairs of Canterbury College, the monastic house at Oxford for student monks from Canterbury.55 With their shared background 47 BRECP, 502. 48 Harvey, The English in Rome, 191. 49 Ibid., 190, and Pantin, Documents, liv, 60. 50 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 10. 51 Ibid., i, 10. 52 For the significance of the learned ghetto in Avignon, see Harvey, The English in Rome, 192. 53 Macfarlane, 143–5, and Harvey, The English in Rome, 192, 232–3. Easton’s copy of the second book of Kimhi’s Hebrew Bible dictionary is now MS 218 in the library of St John’s College, Cambridge. 54 For biographical details of Langham, see BRUO, ii, 1095–7, and also E.H. Pearce, The Monks of Westminster (Cambridge, 1961), 57–8. 55 W.A. Pantin, Canterbury College, Oxford, 4 vols, Oxford Historical Society, New Series (Oxford, 1946–85) viii, vol. 3, 14–20.

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as Oxford-educated Benedictines there would have been ample opportunity for an initial meeting. Langham was appointed cardinal priest of San Sisto in September 1368,56 and he resigned as archbishop shortly after this date in order to take up his new appointment.57 Easton had travelled to the Curia, then located in Avignon, earlier that same year and returned bearing a message for Edward III with regard to papal taxation.58 Harvey speculates that this appointment may have been prompted by Langham. 59 She also suggests that when Langham departed for the Curia in the spring of 1369, Easton probably accompanied him.60 From this time on Easton was Langham’s socius, the term which he used to describe himself and which is recorded in several Vatican documents.61 He was present at the Curia in May 1370 and witnessed the papal order settling the dispute over the management of Canterbury College which removed the seculars and reinstated the Canterbury monks.62 He accompanied Langham on a diplomatic mission to restore peaceful relations between England and France between 1371 and 1373, which took him to Paris in May 1371; and he was probably with Langham on a visit to Westminster Abbey in October of this same year.63 From this time onwards Easton’s activities remain hidden, although he is known to have played a significant role in Langham’s household in Avignon. At the time of Langham’s death in July 1376 in Avignon he described himself as having been capellanus commensalis to the cardinal since 1368. He was a beneficiary as well as one of the executors of Langham’s will and, in the latter role, was responsible for fulfilling the terms.64 Macfarlane attributes Easton’s writing of the Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis to Langham’s influence by drawing his attention to the writings of Wyclif and to the dangerous implications of his attacks against the

56 Simon Langham (22 Sept 1368, translated to Palestrina 1372). C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi, 2 vols (Regensburg, 1898), i, 45. 57 BRUO, ii, 1096. 58 W.H. Bliss and J.A. Twemlow, Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal letters, 14 vols (1893–1960), iv, 27. 59 Harvey, The English in Rome, 191. 60 Ibid., 191. 61 Ibid. She concludes that this is a more accurate term than the English ‘secretary’. 62 Pantin, Canterbury College, Oxford, iii, 201–6, which is a copy of the document removing Wyclif from the wardenship of the college. 63 Harvey, The English in Rome, 191 64 Ibid., 192

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Benedictine order and the ecclesiastical hierarchy.65 This, his major work, was intended as an introduction to the study of the proper limits of ecclesiastical and secular power, but only the first of the proposed six volumes seems to have been completed. The source of Easton’s ideas can be traced back to his student days at Oxford and to the lively debates in which he would have participated there; and no doubt his preaching experience against the mendicants when recalled to Norwich would have sharpened his intellectual probing. In the prologue to this work he states that his interest in the subject dated back some twenty years.66 The impact of the Avignon papacy fostered growing doubt with regard to the limits of papal authority and resulted in increasing pressure on the part of secular authorities to challenge the claim to the supremacy of theocratic government. Residence in the Curia in exile brought home to Easton the formidable implications that underlay the questioning of the papal prerogative with regard to temporal affairs. The increase of political tension brought about by the Schism strengthened the conviction that it was his task to prove the supremacy of papal rule over all affairs both of church and state. It was in Avignon that he had studied Hebrew under Jewish teachers in order to have a clearer understanding of the Bible, in particular of the four books of Kings which were especially relevant for his purpose.67 By 1381 Easton had acquired all Wyclif’s major writings68 and it was probably his influence that lay behind Gregory XI’s condemnation of a number of Wyclif’s conclusions as early as 1377.69 He had also acquired a complete copy of the De Pauperie Salvatoris of Richard FitzRalph.70 These were his two principal opponents whose anti-clerical stance was based on the conviction that the church and clergy should be deprived of all temporal authority and rights. 65 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 14. Harvey provides an astute and penetrating outline of Easton’s argument as developed in the Defensorium in eadem, The English in Rome, 213–20. 66 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 143. 67 Ibid., i, 144–5. He was concerned about the accuracy of Jerome’s translation, Harvey, The English in Rome, 192. 68 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 14–15. As early as November 1376 Easton had requested copies of Wycliffe’s works from the abbot of Westminster; these would have included his De potestate regali and De civili dominio. Macfarlane cites here Pantin, Documents, liv, 76–7. 69 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 145–6. 70 This is now Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180. Katherine Walsh states that Easton was very likely to have been present in Oxford in 1356–57 when FitzRalph launched the part of his De pauperie Salvatoris which initiated the controversy between the mendicants and the seculars. See K. Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), 472–3. For a biographical summary of the career of FitzRalph, see BRUO, ii, 692–4.

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With the return of Gregory XI to Rome in 1377 the Avignon exile came to an end, but the pope’s death in March 1378 necessitated an election under difficult circumstances and with unfortunate results. Easton was an eyewitness to the events that followed and one of several who suffered in the papal cause. Unfortunately for him, as Macfarlane remarks, he was alive during a period of extreme political tension within western Christendom and, as a result of the Schism, it was the fate of his Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis to become a mere academic exercise.71 Nevertheless, again according to Macfarlane, Easton merits our admiration for several reasons. The courtesy and respect with which he addressed his opponents, for example, his unswerving loyalty toward the papacy, and his integrity as demonstrated in his writings and his actions.72 Moreover, he was both a Benedictine theologian and a biblical scholar; his Defensorium had been rooted within the Victorine tradition of scholarship73 and his remarkable and profound knowledge of the Hebrew Scriptures. Finally, Macfarlane concludes that he ‘wrote rather to show forth the truth as he saw it, than for any popular acclaim’.74 It is surely legitimate to wonder why Easton never returned to his community in Norwich. Had he lost touch with his brethren during so long an absence? For over thirty years he had remained abroad but, from time to time, he was involved in negotiations at the Curia on behalf of the English Benedictines. For example, he is known to have obtained a papal bull in 1383 on behalf of the presidents of the English Benedictine chapter, but the details remain uncertain because the document was stolen in transit.75 The remaining evidence provided in these pages suggests that he decided to remain in Rome, rather than return to the cathedral priory in Norwich where he would have found himself in a community of strangers. There is, however, one puzzling entry in three Norwich obedientiary accounts for the year 1389/90. The master of the cellar, the almoner and the prior of the cathedral priory cell at King’s Lynn all include contributions towards the expense of transporting Easton’s books to Norwich. The master of the cellar specified that his payment was toward covering the cost of transport from Flanders to Norwich while the other two obedientiaries merely referred to 71 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 255. 72 Ibid., i, 247, 249. 73 This is made clear by his many references to the writings of Hugh of St Victor for example, and by several references to Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 243–4, provides a list of all the authors quoted. 74 Ibid., i, 256. 75 Pantin, Documents, liv, 81–2.

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the expenses related to the carriage of the cardinal’s books.76 He may have intended to hand over some of his personal book collection for the benefit of his brethren in Norwich or, alternatively, he may have been contemplating a possible return home; but there is no further evidence to confirm that a consignment of his books reached Norwich until 1407, ten years after his death.77 The chapters that follow in this volume will provide the reader with details of the broad range of Easton’s significant achievements in his later career and of the price that he paid for being present at the centre of the conflict at the time of the Schism. The succinct judgement of David Knowles merits our thoughtful consideration. ‘His [Easton’s] ability is unquestionable, and he did nothing, so far as is known, to further his advancement, from which in fact he reaped more sorrow than honour, and both in his opposition to the outrageous behaviour of Urban VI and in his advocacy of the Swedish saint he shows a sense of spiritual principles and obligations. At the least he is, as he has been justly called, “one of the worthiest products of the English Benedictines’ contact with Oxford”.78 Finally, it is perhaps legitimate to wonder whether or not Easton remained a Benedictine at heart, one who continued to be faithful in his obedience to the Rule or, because of his exceptional intellectual gifts, scholarly expertise and continuing pre-eminence at the centre of church polity, one who was seduced at least in part by a degree of self-justifying ambition?

Appendix Item no. 201 from John Lydford’s Book, pp. 106–7 W.[illiam Bateman] permissione divina N.[orwich] Episcopus dilecto filio B.[?] etc. salutem Nos dudum fratres Jo.[?] et A.[dam Easton] monachos nostre cathedralis ecclesie Nor’ professos in universitate Oxon’ exercicio scolastico insistentes certisque causis decrevimus ad ecclesiam nostram predictam eorumque monasterium revocandos eosque cum certis monicionibus revocavimus in nostris litteris patentibus. Et licet premissa 76 Norwich Record Office, Dean and Chapter Records, DCN 1/1/65, 1/6/23, 2/1/17. The three contributions came to the impressive total of 78 s. 7 d. 77 See the final chapter in this book concerning Easton’s book collection. 78 D.M. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, Vol. II: The End of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1961), 57–8.

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ad eorum noticiam provenissent ipsi tamen spiritu rebellionis assumpto dictis mandatis et iniunccionibus nostris huiuscunque parere contemptibiliter non curarunt libros bona et iocalia magna et preciosa ecclesie nostre predicte penes se contra nostram et capituli nostri voluntatem dampnabiliter retinentes et ea seu eorum aliqua ut fertur in usus eorum nepharios consumentes. Vobis igitur iniungimus et mandamus quatinus tam in ecclesia nostra cathedrali predicta publice et solempniter quam eos personaliter in loco quo degent moveatis iterum ex habundancia […] quos eciam tenore presenci monemus primo secundo et tercio ac peremptorie ac sub excommunicacionis pena quatinus infra trium dierum spacium a die monicionis etc.

Translation W[illiam Batemen] by divine permission bishop of Norwich, to his beloved son B.[?] etc., greetings.79 For certain reasons we ordered the professed brothers Jo.[? Thomas Brinton] and A[dam Easton], monks of our cathedral church of Norwich who are continuing their scholarly studies at the University of Oxford to return to our aforesaid cathedral church and to their monastery. This command with several admonitions was sent by our letters patent and, although this has come to their notice, they have replied by a contemptible gesture of resistance to our orders and injunctions.80 Moreover, against our will and that of the cathedral chapter they have failed to take care of the books and of numerous other costly valuables belonging to our church.81 In fact they have retained these and other items and have wickedly wasted them, thus incurring the threat of damnation. We therefore order and command you to appear in our cathedral church in person and in our presence together with the numerous items you have wrongfully removed […] and by the tenor of these presents we issue a threefold warning of excommunication if you fail to appear within three days. 79 It should be noted that, as the second paragraph makes clear, this is a ‘form letter’, the first paragraph supplying the details of the incident which resulted in the formal denunciation in the second paragraph. For this reason, John Lydford, a prominent canon lawyer (c.1337–1407), had copied it into his memorandum book as a form for possible future reference. 80 Bishops from the ranks of the secular clergy often had an uneasy relationship with their cathedral chapter when it was composed of members of religious orders who were, in this case, Benedictine monks (see p. 17); this is made clear here by the harsh accusatory language. 81 Monk students had permission to take with them books from the monastic library and other articles which they needed in their university lodgings.

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About the author Joan Greatrex has taught at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and Carleton University, Ottawa. Her publications include A Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories (1997) and the English Benedictine Cathedral Priories, Rule and Practice, c.1270–c.1420 (2011).

1.

Adam Easton and the Great Schism* Patrick Zutshi Abstract Adam Easton, a monk of Norwich cathedral priory and a doctor of theology of Oxford University, accompanied Simon Langham to the papal Curia in 1369 after Langham had been elevated to the cardinalate. Easton remained at the Curia and in 1378 witnessed the turbulent election of Urban VI in Rome, which led to the Great Schism of the western Church. In 1379 Easton’s testimony concerning the circumstances of this election was solicited twice. Following his promotion to the cardinalate by Urban in 1381, Easton became involved in a conspiracy involving five other cardinals against the pope. He was the only cardinal to survive and to be reinstated. These two episodes form the main subjects of the chapter. An appendix prints Easton’s first testimony along with marginal comments deriving from adherents of Urban’s rival as pope, Clement VII of Avignon, that seek to undermine it. The text illustrates the nature of contemporary debate concerning the validity of the election of Urban VI and the legitimacy of the respective claimants to the papacy. Keywords: Easton, Great Schism, Avignon, Urban VI, Simon Langham, Clement VII

Adam Easton, the Benedictine monk of Norwich cathedral priory, accompanied Simon Langham when the latter moved from England to the Curia in 1369, Langham having been elevated to the cardinalate by Pope Urban V the previous year and having resigned the see of Canterbury.1 Doubtless Easton was a member of Langham’s household until the latter died in 1376 * I am grateful to Peter Linehan, Andreas Rehberg and Magnus Ryan for their assistance in preparing this essay. 1 A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols (Oxford, 1957–9), ii, 1095–7; M. Harvey, ‘The Household of Cardinal Langham’, JEH, 47 (1996), 18–44, at 18.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch01

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and in Avignon resided with him first in the livrée de Thury and then in the livrée d’Auxerre (later known as the livrée de Viviers).2 He did not hold an office in the household, being described simply as Langham’s socius.3 In Langham’s will, Easton is named as first of the personal beneficiaries, after the pope, two cardinals and certain religious establishments in Avignon, which suggests that he was close to Langham. He was an executor of the will, and this may be one of the reasons that he remained at the Curia following Langham’s death, rather than returning to Norwich. 4 Easton was also in demand in the Curia as a theologian. He was a doctor of theology of Oxford University,5 and prior to his promotion to the cardinalate he began a treatise in defence of papal power, the Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis, dedicated to Pope Urban VI.6 Easton accompanied the Curia to Rome when Gregory XI returned there from Avignon in 1376, and he was present in the city during the election of Urban VI in 1378. It was this turbulent election and the subsequent defection of almost all the cardinals who had elected Urban that led to the Great Schism of the Latin Church and the spectacle of two, and eventually three, men contending for recognition as rightful pope. On two occasions Easton’s testimony was solicited concerning the circumstances of Urban’s election. Following his promotion, Easton became involved, to a greater or lesser extent, in a conspiracy of five other cardinals against Urban. It is these two episodes that form the main subjects of the present chapter.

The election of Urban VI The cardinals elected Bartolomeo Prignano, archbishop of Bari and acting head (regens) of the papal chancery, as pope on 8 April 1378 at a conclave held in Rome. It was disrupted by the Romans and other Italians present in the city, who were urging the election of a Roman or at least an Italian as pope. Initially the result of the election was widely accepted, but the cardinals soon became discontented with Urban’s erratic behaviour and harsh rule. Most of them gradually withdrew from the papal court to Anagni. 2 See Harvey, ‘The Household of Cardinal Langham’, 20; J. Girard, Évocation du vieil Avignon (Paris, 1958), 276. 3 Harvey, ‘The Household of Cardinal Langham’, 21. 4 See R. Widmore, An History of the Church of St Peter, Westminster, Commonly Called Westminster Abbey (London, 1751), 185–6, 189. 5 BRUO, i, 620–1. 6 See W.A. Pantin, ‘The Defensorium of Adam Easton’, EHR, 51 (1936), 675–80.

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Recalling the turbulent circumstances of Urban’s election, they claimed that it was not a free and valid election but rather the result of coercion (per impressionem). They elected one of their own number, Robert of Geneva, as Pope Clement VII at Fondi on 20 September 1378.7 One of the main reasons that the ensuing schism was so protracted was that each pope succeeded in securing the allegiance of a substantial part of Europe. The division of loyalties partly reflected political considerations. The king of France was the principal supporter of Clement VII. France’s traditional enemy England remained loyal to Urban, as did the emperor. England’s traditional enemy Scotland followed France in going over to Clement VII. The four kingdoms of the Iberian peninsula (Aragon, Castile, Navarre and Portugal), on the other hand, were initially neutral. John I, king of Castile, was the leading figure in seeking to gather sufficient information to decide which candidate to acknowledge as pope. He and Peter IV, king of Aragon, instituted enquiries into the outbreak of the Schism which lasted from 1379 to 1386. They sent ambassadors to Avignon and Rome to interview witnesses, as well as interviewing Spaniards who had been present at the Curia in 1378 and had subsequently returned home. Their testimonies survive principally in the Libri de Schismate in the Vatican Archives, a vast collection of materials concerning the Great Schism assembled by Martín de Zalva, bishop of Pamplona.8 Apart from these testimonies, the Libri contain treatises in support of one or other of the contenders for the papal office or proposals for how the Schism might be ended. The Libri do not represent an official collection. They display numerous additions, alterations, corrections and marginal annotations, reflecting their use by Martín de Zalva, who was one of the most ardent and effective supporters of Clement VII. He treated these sources as an armoury to defend the legitimacy of Clement VII and his successor Benedict XIII (Peter de Luna). The Libri de Schismate include testimonies gathered preparatory to or during the hearings that John I held at Medina del Campo, which resulted in the king recognizing Clement VII as pope in 1381. In 1380 King John sent envoys to Avignon and then Rome; they interviewed eight cardinals who had participated in Urban’s election as well as others who had been present in Rome. All this evidence was available at Medina del Campo, 7 A perceptive recent study of the outbreak of the Great Schism is A. Jamme, ‘Renverser le pape: droits, complots et conceptions politiques aux origines du Grand Schisme d’Occident’, in Coups d’État à la fin du Moyen Âge?, ed. F. Foronda, J.-P. Genet and J.M. Nieto Soria (Madrid, 2005), 433–82. 8 Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vols 14–48.

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where proceedings began in November 1380.9 The major source for the proceedings is a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.10 This is quite different in character from the Libri de Schismate, for it contains an official record, drawn up by notaries public, of the proceedings. Over 170 testimonies, deriving from more than 150 men and one woman, about the outbreak of the Great Schism are extant, largely as a result of the investigations initiated by the kings of Castile and Aragon,11 although, as we shall see, the earliest group of depositions, from March 1379, resulted from private, rather than royal, initiative. Michael Seidlmayer and other scholars have analysed the depositions as the most valuable source concerning the election of Urban VI and the outbreak of the Great Schism.12 Yet the historical interest of the depositions is wider than this, for incidentally they provide valuable insights concerning the papal court and the city of Rome, among other topics.13 Margaret Harvey accordingly made use of Easton’s testimony in building up a picture of his life in the Curia,14 an approach that I shall attempt to pursue further in this essay. Given Adam Easton’s presence in Rome in April 1378, it was natural to seek his testimony, and he provided it on two separate occasions.15 He was one of five witnesses whom Mattheus Clementis interviewed in Rome from 3 to 13 March 1379. Peter IV, king of Aragon, had sent Mattheus as his envoy to Urban the previous year, albeit at Mattheus’s own request. The king described him then as his counsellor. Although the king recalled Mattheus, 9 M. Seidlmayer, Die Anfänge des grossen abendländischen Schismas (Münster, 1940), 38–43, 216–21. 10 Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 11745. 11 Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 207. 12 See especially Seidlmayer, Anfänge. Almost all the more recent literature is cited in A. Rehberg, ‘Le inchieste dei re d’Aragona e di Castiglia sulla validità dell’elezione di Urbano VI nei primi anni del Grande Scisma’, in L’età dei processi: inchieste e condanne tra politica e ideologia nel ‘300, ed. A. Rigon and F. Veronese (Rome, 2009), 247–304, to which should now be added X. Serra Estellés, ‘El Cisma de Occidente y la asamblea de Medina del Campo de 1380–1381 en el Ms. lat. 11745 de la Biblioteca Nacional de Francia’, Anthologica Annua, 57 (2010), 33–303. 13 See, e.g., P. Zutshi, ‘Jean de Cros and the Papal Penitentiary on the Eve of the Great Schism’, Francia, 37 (2010), 335–51; A. Rehberg, ‘Sacrum enim opinantur, quicquid inde rapina auferunt: alcune osservazioni intorno ai “saccheggi rituali” di interregno a Roma (1378–1534)’, in Pompa sacra: lusso e cultura materiale alla corte papale nel basso medioevo, ed. T. Ertl (Rome, 2010), 201–37. 14 M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 193–4, 196–7. 15 L. Macfarlane printed and discussed both depositions from Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 17, fols 46r–47r, 69v–71r, in ‘An English Account of the Election of Urban VI, 1378’, BIHR, 26 (1953), 75–85.

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the latter continued on his way. The interviews of March 1379 were a private initiative, as Mattheus himself makes clear in a report he prepared for Urban VI concerning his efforts, losses and sufferings in promoting Urban’s cause.16 He stresses the blandishments that the Clementists offered to draw him to their side; these he refused, to the extent that he would not even eat with Cardinal Peter de Luna.17 Mattheus’s strong Urbanist leanings did not deter him from visiting Avignon, where understandably he was regarded as a schismatic. His adventurous and chequered career included professorships at two Clementist universities, Avignon and Perpignan. Mattheus evidently hoped to be rewarded by Urban VI, who did indeed provide him to the archbishopric of Zaragoza, although he never gained possession of the see. He then moved to teach civil law at the safer Urbanist studium of Heidelberg.18 Of course, all the witnesses of March 1379 were favourable to Urban, and with their depositions a copy survives of the declaration by Francesco Tebaldeschi, known as the cardinal of St Peter, made shortly before his death, in which he asserted that Urban was the true pope.19 In his report to Urban VI, Mattheus vaunted the value of the depositions as showing the justice of the pope’s case.20 Mattheus’s associate in collecting the evidence was Alfonso Pecha, formerly bishop of Jaén. One of the testimonies, that of Bartholomeus de Zabriciis de Bononia, bishop of Recanati, is dated at Alfonso’s house in Trastevere21; and, as a resident in Rome at the time of Urban’s election, Alfonso 16 Printed by F. Bliemetzrieder in ‘Ein Bericht des Matthäus Clementis an Urban VI. (c.1381) über seine Arbeiten zu dessen Gunsten in Aragonien’, Studien und Mittheilungen aus dem Benediktinerund Cistercienser-Orden, 29 (1908), 580–6. See ibid., 580: ‘obtuli me Romam venturum expensis propriis, prout feci, et recepi certos testes pro informacione domini regis et eius consilii’. 17 Bliemetzrieder, ‘Ein Bericht des Matthäus Clementis’, 582–3. 18 See H. Finke, ‘Drei spanische Publizisten aus den Anfängen des grossen Schismas: Mattheus Clementis, Nikolaus Eymerich, der hl. Vicente Ferrer’, Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, 1. Reihe: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, 1 (1928), 178–95, at 177–81; Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 75–6. 19 Printed in A. Theiner, ed., Caesaris S.R.E. Card. Baronii, Od. Raynaldi et Jac. Laderchii […] Annales ecclesiastici, Vol. 26: 1356–1396 (Bar-le-Duc, 1872), 311. On this document, see the testimony of ‘Iacobus camerarius cardinalis S. Petri’, in L. Gayet, Le Grand Schisme d’Occident, 2 vols (Florence, Berlin and Paris, 1889), ii, Pièces justificatives, 25–6. Urban VI was accused of having falsified it: S. Fodale, La politica napoletana di Urbano VI (Rome, 1973), 22 n. 30; A.M. Voci, ‘Giovanna I d’Angiò e l’inizio del Grande Scisma d’Occidente’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 75 (1995), 178–255, at 239. 20 Bliemetzrieder, ‘Ein Bericht des Matthäus Clementis’, 581: ‘Et prout v[estra] s[anctitas] scit, reveni de Roma cum certis attestacionibus testificantibus de iusticia vestre sanctitatis et manu publici notarii subscriptis, que hodierno die a multis auree nuncupantur.’ 21 Printed in Gayet, Le Grand Schisme d’Occident, i, Pièces justificatives, 114–18.

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appears as a witness in his own right.22 Alfonso had moved to Rome following his resignation of his see, which he appears to have occupied only from 1367 to 1368, although the precise date of his arrival in Rome is uncertain.23 He is thereafter described as a hermit, but there is no evidence that he entered an established eremitical order. Prior to the outbreak of the Schism, he was a confident of Cardinal Peter de Luna.24 However, like Mattheus, he was an active supporter of Urban.25 G.G. Meersseman argued that he was the author of an invective (with the incipit ‘Quid agitis’) against the cardinals assembled at Anagni dating from August 1378.26 In his Informaciones in favour of Urban VI, Alfonso explained that he had consulted various holy figures and heard certain revelations, including those of Fr Peter of Aragon, OFM, uncle of the king of Aragon, who believed that Urban was the true pope. Alfonso preferred to put his trust in this testimony rather than in legal argument.27 The Informaciones, however, also contain arguments from canon law for the validity of Urban’s election.28 In a revised version of the Informaciones, the Conscripcio bona sub triplici via de eleccione […] Urbani 22 Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 75–6, 208–10, 353. For cardinals, curialists and others resident in Trastevere, see A. Rehberg, ‘Il rione Trastevere e i suoi abitanti nelle testimonianze raccolte sugli inizi dello scisma del 1378’, in L. Ermini Pani and C. Travagini (eds.), Trastevere: un analisi di lungo periodo, 2 vols (Rome, 2010), i, 257–317. 23 See A. Jönsson, Alfonso of Jaén: his life and works with critical editions of the Epistola solitarii, the Informaciones and the Epistola Serui Christi (Lund, 1989), 40–2. 24 See M. Seidlmayer, ‘Peter de Luna (Benedikt XIII.) und die Entstehung des Grossen Abendländischen Schismas’, Spanische Forschungen der Görresgesellschaft, 1. Reihe: Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kulturgeschichte Spaniens, 4 (1933), 206–47, especially 213–14, 233–4, 246–7; Jönsson, Alfonso of Jaén, 195. 25 See Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 133–5; E. Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges: Alphonse of Pecha as organizer of Birgittine and Urbanist propaganda’, Mediaeval Studies, 18 (1956), 19–49. 26 G.G. Meersseman, ‘Spirituali romani, amici di Caterina da Siena’, in his Ordo fraternitatis: confraternite e pietà dei laici nel medioevo, 3 vols (Rome 1977), i, 535–73; printed by F. Bliemetzrieder, ‘Raimund von Capua und Caterina von Siena’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 30 (1909), 231–73, at 242–65, but here attributed to Raymond of Capua. 27 The Informaciones is printed in Jönsson, Alfonso of Jaén, 185–203. See ibid., 192–3: ‘Tunc ego ad maiorem abundanciam satisfaccionis mee consciencie secrete incepi aliquos amicissimos et familiarissimos Dei requirere, vt michi indicarent, quid in oracione senciebant de ista materia. Qui quasi vno ore respondentes dixerunt, quod indubitanter Vrbanus VI apud diuinum consistorium et Dei voluntatem verus est papa […] Audiui eciam aliquas diuinas reuelaciones, quas dicti amici Dei super hoc in oracione existentes habuerunt a Deo, inter quos eciam audiui, quod frater Petrus de Aragonia, Frater Minor, auunculus Regis Aragonie habuerat super hoc speciales et expressas reuelaciones a Christo pro regibus Castelle et Francie et aliis vniversis gentibus. Propter quod firmiter per viam Spiritus certificatus Vrbanum VI esse verissimum papam, quia maior et firmior certitudo est illa, quam habent sancte persone a Deo, […] quam illa certitudo, que habetur per aduocatos et iudices in libris cartarum et litera mortua.’ 28 Jönsson, Alfonso of Jaén, 200–3.

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pape sexti, he refers to his impartiality, as a Spaniard, concerning the Schism: ‘non sum suspectus in causa et discordia que super papatu versatur’.29 The record of Easton’s deposition introduces him in a manner calculated to lend weight to his testimony: ‘venerabilis et reverendus pater honestus, magister Adam de Eston, magister magnus et profundus in sacra pagina, monachus Norwicensis’.30 To the question of whether the cardinals acted out of fear following Urban’s election, which referred to the canonistic standard of ‘the fear which befalls a constant man’,31 Easton replied in the negative. He rejected the view that the cardinals’ pretence of having elected the Roman cardinal, Francesco Tebaldeschi, as pope, after the Romans had broken into the conclave, was the result of fear.32 The Urbanist bias of the proceedings is evident in the question put to Easton of whether he had further arguments for the ‘truth’ of the election.33 In response, he gave various examples of the cardinals’ behaviour to show that they accepted Urban as the legitimate pope. He mentions the clothing of Urban in papal garments ‘in capella parva palatii sancti Petri’ and describes how an unnamed cardinal took Easton to pay his respects to the new pope.34 Easton’s first testimony survives not only in the Libri de Schismate but also in a manuscript in the Vatican Library (Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3934). This manuscript, which was not used by Leslie Macfarlane in his edition of the deposition, contains a collection of texts concerning the Great Schism and the Council of Basel, and the sections concerning the Schism appear to be similar in character to the Libri de Schismate.35 It includes copies of the five depositions received by Mattheus Clementis.36 The particular interest of the depositions in Vat. lat. 3934, including Easton’s, is that they display extensive annotations in a Clementist sense. Similar annotations occur in 29 F. Bliemetzrieder, ‘Un’altra edizione rifatta del trattato di Alfonso Pecha, vescovo resignato di Iaën, sullo scisma (1387–88), con notizie sulla vita di Pietro Bohier, Benedettino, vescovo di Orvieto’, Rivista Storica Benedettina, 4 (1909), 74–100, at 83. 30 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 79. 31 Ibid., 79: ‘interrogatus si fuerit talis timor qui in constantem virum cadere debuisset’. 32 Ibid., 79: ‘Interrogatus quare ergo finxerunt Romanum papam, hoc est dominum sancti Petri cardinalem, respondit quod Romanorum rumor seu clamor solum fuerat de Romano petendo, sed non fuit talis timor qui in constantem cadere debuisset. Et cardinales dubitantes ubi dubitacio esse non debuisset, finxerunt prefatum Romanum papam.’ 33 Ibid., 79: ‘Interrogatus si scit aliquas fortiores coniecturas fortificantes veritatem antedicti negotii et libere electionis domini Urbani pape VI.’ 34 Ibid., 80. For the cardinal’s identity, see below at n. 54. 35 For a careful description of these sections, see J. Perarnau i Espelt, ‘Alguns volums manuscrits de la Biblioteca Vaticana relatius a Benet XIII’, in Jornades sobre el Cisma d’Occident a Catalunya, les Illes i el País Valencià, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1986–8), ii, 479–530, at 479–83. 36 Vat. lat. 3934, fols 115–30.

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the Libri de Schismate, but unfortunately in the case of Easton’s first deposition and many others the condition of the paper is poor, the handwriting is extremely cursive, and the extremities of the annotations have been cut away. It is nonetheless evident that the largely illegible annotations to Easton’s deposition in the Libri de Schismate are identical to those in Vat. lat. 3934, which can be read with relative ease. I print both the testimony and the annotations from this manuscript in the Appendix. This Appendix enables one to see how adherents of Clement VII responded to the Easton’s evidence and arguments in favour of Urban VI. Some comments merely allege Easton’s factual inaccuracy; for instance, the clothing of the new pope occurred not in the ‘capella parva’ but ‘postea in secreta camera, ut est moris’. Others point to contradictions between Easton’s evidence, on the one hand, and that of the cardinals and even that of the statement of Urban’s case known as the Factum Urbani, on the other. With reference to the question of whether the ‘rumor vel clamor Romanorum’ continued after the election, the annotator claims that Easton’s assertion that it did not is contradicted by the testimony of Enecus de Vallterra, bishop of Segorbe, who was one of thirteen witnesses interviewed at Barcelona in 1379.37 The critique of Easton is based mainly on the principle of Romanocanonical judicial procedure that the witness must specify the grounds for his testimony, known as the causa dicti.38 While evidence deriving from what the witness himself had seen was of high value, evidence from hearsay was normally rejected.39 The annotators pointed to passages where Easton failed to specify these grounds or where he claimed knowledge on the basis of what was no more than hearsay. Thus, Easton’s statement that he had seen the cardinals consenting to provisions made by the pope in consistory was rejected, since these were made ‘in secreto consistorio ubi nullus est nisi papa et cardinales’. On the other hand, it is worth mentioning that some statements which might have been regarded as damaging to the Clementist position were not challenged, for instance, that certain cardinals received the Eucharist from the hands of Urban, that a cardinal offered to 37 Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 210. His testimony is printed in J. Perarnau i Espelt, ‘Nous fons de la Biblioteca Vaticana sobre el Cisma d’Occident i Catalunya’, in Jornades sobre el Cisma d’Occident a Catalunya, les Illes i el País Valencià, 2 vols (Barcelona, 1986–8), i, 145–203, at 184–90. The passage concerning the continued clamor occurs on p. 187. 38 See, e.g., Tancred, Ordo iudiciarius, 3.9.1, in Pillii, Tancredi, Gratiae libri de iudiciorum ordine, ed. F.C. Bergmann (Göttingen, 1842), 237. For fuller discussion see P. Zutshi, ‘Romano-canonical procedure at Medina del Campo in 1380–1381’, in F.J. Hernandez, R. Sanchez Ameijeiras and E. Falque, eds, Medieval Studies in Honour of Peter Linehan (Florence, 2018), 557–89. 39 See Tancred, Ordo iudiciarius, 3.9.2, in Pillii, Tancredi, Gratiae libri, 239.

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take Easton to pay his respects to the new pope and did so the next day; and that the cause of the Schism was not the invalidity of the election of Urban but his harsh treatment of the cardinals. There is a contrast between Easton’s mode of argument and that of the annotators. Easton stands largely outside the legal framework within which the debate over Urban VI’s election was conducted. It is true that on one occasion Easton mentions the degree of fear sufficient to invalidate a legal act, using the standard canonistic expression (‘non fuit talis timor qui in constantem cadere debuisset’). 40 However, this is only in response to a question with the same terminology (‘interrogatus si fuit talis timor qui in constantem virum cadere debuisset’). More typical is his explanation of why the cardinals pretended that they had elected the Roman cardinal Francesco Tebaldeschi as pope: ‘Et cardinales dubitantes ubi dubitacio esse non debuisset, finxerunt prefatum Romanum papam.’ The annotations, on the other hand, depend heavily on legal argument. As we have seen, they reject testimony where the causa dicti is not stated or is insufficient, most commonly when it is de auditu. The tone is set by the very first gloss, on ‘dixit se tantum scire’. The annotator here rejects the use of the verb scire: ‘et false secundum quod apparet infra in redicione cause huius dicti que facit de auditu auditus’. Easton is later taxed somewhat facetiously with lack of familiarity with Clement V’s constitution Pastoralis cura (Clem. 2.11.2). This constitution ruled that Robert of Anjou, king of Naples, was not bound by Emperor Henry VII’s citation of him to Pisa, among other reasons because it was not safe for Robert to appear there. 41 In November of the same year, Easton again testified in Rome concerning the election of Urban VI, now as part of a more extensive enquiry involving twenty-three witnesses. 42 Two men were responsible for gathering the testimonies. One of them was Nicolaus Misquinus, OP, whom Urban VI had created cardinal priest of S. Ciriaco on 18 September 1378. 43 The other 40 For this concept, see S. Kuttner, Kanonistische Schuldlehre von Gratian bis auf die Dekretalen Gregors IX., Studi e Testi 64 (Vatican City, 1935), especially 309–13. 41 E. Friedberg, ed, Corpus iuris canonici, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1879–81), ii, col. 1152: ‘Esto igitur, quod rex ipse alias ad praemissa fuisset legitime per imperatorem citatus: numquid debuit venire ad iudicem, exercitu feroci ac grandi, ipsique citato, (ut praemittitur,) odioso stipatum? Numquid etiam debuit comparere in loco admodum populoso, multum potenti, ac praefacto in eum odio provocato? Quis enim auderet, vel qua ratione audere aliquis teneretur consistorii talis subire iudicium, et se in hostium sinu reponere, ac ad mortem per violentam iniuriam, non per iustitiam inferendam, ultroneum se offerre?’ 42 For what follows, see Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 211–16. 43 See C. Eubel, Hierarchia catholica medii aevi sive summorum pontificum, S. R. E. cardinalium, ecclesiarum antistitum series ab anno 1198 usque ad annum 1431 perducta, 2nd edn (Münster, 1913),

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was a Hieronymite friar called ‘Frater Petrus de Yspania’ or ‘Frater Petrus de Guadalfajara’; he was the brother of Alfonso, former bishop of Jaén (their family came from Guadalajara).44 Both Nicolaus and Petrus were Urbanists, and all the witnesses were adherents of Urban, although Petrus later changed his allegiance. 45 According to Alfonso’s Conscripcio bona sub triplici via de eleccione […] Urbani pape sexti, the king of Castile had sent Petrus to Rome to gather information. 46 Easton’s second testimony is much longer than the first. The same applies to that of Bartholomeus de Zabriciis, who occurs in the enquiries of both March and November. 47 Easton insists that the cardinals were not coerced into electing an Italian, employing the usual terms impressio and metus. He claims that he was secretly looking out for such behaviour among the Romans and would have reported it to the cardinals. He stresses that the cardinals, their secretaries and others openly discussed Bartolomeo Prignano’s candidature prior to the conclave; in other words, it did not arise only during the conclave as a result of pressure from the Romans. 48 It was the Limousin cardinals who were principally responsible for Urban’s election, which they regarded as free and holy. 49 They were the ‘fautores et auctores’ of the new pope.50 Easton rehearses the evidence that the cardinals acknowledged Urban as pope after his election, and in greater detail than in his first testimony; for instance, they enthroned him and crowned him, for three months they attended public and private consistories, the cardinal deacons received communion from him.51 These are actions of the cardinals collectively. However, Easton also recalls the conduct of individual cardinals or his conversations with them. Bertrand Lagier, cardinal priest of S. Cecilia, known as the cardinal of 23–4. On Misquinus, see G.-G. Meersseman, ‘Etudes sur l’ordre des Frères Prêcheurs au début du Grand Schisme, IV’, Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, 27 (1957), 168–99, at 170–4, 177, 183–8. 44 See Á. Huerga, ‘La obra literaria de Alfonso Fernández Pecha’, Hispania Sacra, 33 (1981), 199–227, at 201–3. 45 See Rehberg, ‘Le inchieste’, 282–4. 46 Bliemetzrieder, ‘Un’altra edizione’, 97: ‘Multa et multa alia scio et habeo in scriptis per informaciones solempnes, quas frater meus carnalis, scilicet, Petrus de Yspania, fundator ordinis sancti Jeronimi, habuit me presente a multis solempnibus viris iuramento precedente in Romana curia, quando Rex qui dicitur Castelle misit eum ambaxiatorem super exploracione et inquisicione istius materie ad Romam et Ytaliam.’ 47 His second deposition is printed in Gayet, Le Grand Schisme, i, Pièces justificatives, 92–114. 48 See Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 82. 49 Ibid., 82. Cf. Zutshi, ‘Jean de Cros’, 335–6. 50 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 83. 51 Ibid., 85.

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Glandèves, prior to entering the conclave, had written to Prignano telling him that he would be elected pope and requesting promotion to the see of Ostia and a bishopric for a relative. It is the relative who is said to have been Easton’s informant. Urban did indeed make Glandèves cardinal bishop of Ostia, and the latter conferred holy orders as bishop, which he would not have done had he rejected Urban’s election.52 Easton reports a conversation with Cardinal Guillaume d’Aigrefeuille, who claimed that Urban’s election was the work of the Holy Spirit, words that Easton immediately reported to Pierre de Monteruc, known as the cardinal of Pamplona, one of the five cardinals who had remained in Avignon when Gregory XI moved the Curia back to Rome.53 D’Aigrefeuille was the cardinal, unnamed in the earlier deposition, who took Easton to pay his respects to the new pope.54 Easton later dined with Peter de Luna, known as the cardinal of Aragon and the future Benedict XIII of Avignon, who stated that he had intended to elect Prignano from the beginning of the vacancy of the apostolic see. When Easton lunched with Cardinal Jacobo Orsini, the latter described Urban as having been elected ‘ex magna gracia’.55 Another Italian cardinal, Pietro Corsini, the cardinal of Florence, stated on various occasions that Urban was the legitimate pope.56 Cardinal Robert of Geneva was conspicuous in affirming Urban’s legitimacy.57 Jean de Cros, the cardinal of Limoges, issued letters as cardinal penitentiary dated by the pontif icate of Urban VI.58 Jean de Cros, Guy Malesset, cardinal of Poitou and Cardinal Pierre de Vergne all asserted in Easton’s presence that Urban was the true pope, while Robert of Geneva, Simone Brossano, cardinal of Milan, Pietro Corsini and Jean de la Grange, cardinal of Amiens, wrote letters to the emperor announcing Urban’s free election.59 In this way Easton adduces specific evidence that the vast majority 52 Ibid., 82–3 (see also 84). 53 Ibid., 83. Cf. O. Přerovský, L’elezione di Urbano VI e l’insorgere dello scisma d’occidente (Rome, 1960), 43–5. 54 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 83–4. 55 Ibid., 84. 56 Ibid., 85: ‘Item dominus Florentinus eundem Urbanum papam legitimum reputavit diversis vicibus in Roma, dum cum eo de materia huiusmodi colloquebar.’ 57 Ibid., 85: ‘Item de domino Gebenense inter omnes dominos pluries affirmavit de veritate papatus istius domini nostri pape.’ 58 Ibid., 85. On these letters, see Zutshi, ‘Jean de Cros’. 59 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 84–5; cf. Annales ecclesiastici, ed. Theiner, xxvi, 294. For letters from these cardinals to the emperor, see F. Bliemetzrieder, ‘Der Briefwechsel der Kardinäle mit Kaiser Karl IV. betreffend die Approbation Wenzels als Römischen Königs (Sommer 1378)’, Studien und Mittheilungen aus dem Benediktiner- und Cistercienser-Orden, 29 (1908), 120–40. For

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of the cardinals regarded Urban’s election as canonical. Although it was rather more damaging to the Clementist position than his earlier testimony, Easton’s second testimony, unlike the first, was not annotated by Martín de Zalva and his collaborators. The second testimony provides valuable evidence of Adam Easton’s activities in Rome and an insight into his standing there, evidence which is not found elsewhere. One of the most striking features is the frequency with which he consorted with cardinals. He may have had particularly close links with the Limousins, for he describes himself as a frequent visitor to Guillaume d’Aigrefeuille and he was a correspondent of Pierre de Monteruc.60 He mentions that d’Aigrefeuille secured the appointment of Bertrand de Veyraco to take letters concerning Urban’s election to the emperor, and a letter of credence from the cardinal to the emperor on behalf of Bertrand refers to Bertrand as his uncle.61 These two cardinals were, together with Easton and others, the executors of Langham’s will.62 It may well be that Guillaume d’Aigrefeuille was Easton’s preferred candidate to succeed Gregory XI. He makes it clear that he had his own favourite, although he does not name him.63 Langham had been generous to Easton, bequeathing him 200 florins of the apostolic chamber as well as certain objects.64 This was twice the sum that Langham’s auditor, Thomas Southam, received.65 The legacy, together with his provision to the parish church of Somersham, which Langham had held, were probably now Easton’s main means of support.66 Macfarlane states that he was proctor of the English Benedictines at the Curia.67 I have found no evidence that this was the case, but it would explain his continued residence at the Curia. Easton possessed and rebuilt a house at Anagni, and letters from Robert of Geneva to the count of Flanders, see M. Harvey, ‘The Case for Urban VI in England to 1390’, in Genèse et débuts du Grand Schisme d’Occident (Paris, 1980), 541–60, at 543–4. 60 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 83. 61 Ibid., 85; Bliemetzrieder, ‘Der Briefwechsel der Kardinäle’, 126. 62 Widmore, An History of the Church of St Peter, 189. 63 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 82. 64 Widmore, An History of the Church of St Peter, 185–6: ‘Item lego domino Adae de Eston monacho Norwicensi, sacrae paginae professori, ducentos florenos camerae, et meliorem lectum meum cum cooperculo de variis purato, item ciphum deauratum de opere Calicis, de quo solebam potare cum cooperculo ejusdem, ita quod nichil aliud vendicet ratione alicuius promissionis vel laboris.’ 65 Widmore, An History of the Church of St Peter, 186. On Southam, see Harvey, ‘The Household of Cardinal Langham’, 29–30, 33. 66 See Harvey, ‘The Household of Cardinal Langham’, 21. 67 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 75. See also M. Harvey, Solutions to the Schism: a study of some English attitudes 1378–1409 (St Ottilien, 1983), 16.

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he had sufficient wealth to lend money to Eckhard von Dersch, bishop of Worms, when the latter was asked to transmit letters from Robert of Geneva to the emperor, Charles IV.68 A Birgittine connection may account for Easton’s contact with the bishop of Worms, for according to a late source, the bishop conveyed a manuscript of Birgitta’s Revelaciones to the emperor.69 Easton’s testimony shows that it was not only cardinals with whom he associated. He recalls a conversation with one Egidius de ‘Velinse’, in which he (Easton) lamented that his favoured candidate did not have sufficient votes to be elected pope (he does not name the candidate, but he was one of the cardinals).70 Easton also mentions contacts with fellow-countrymen who were resident in the Curia. One of them was William Andrew, OP, bishop of Achonry in Ireland (later translated to the see of Meath). Andrew, while staying with the Curia at Tivoli in the summer of 1378, when almost all the cardinals had deserted Urban, was the recipient of letters of the cardinal penitentiary, Jean de Cros, which he showed to Easton.71 Easton visited another Englishman, Master Nicholas Frattion, who was a protégé of the duke of Lancaster.72 He resided ‘in domo penitentiarii Anglie in Roma’. There was always one English-speaking minor penitentiary in office; and at this time, it was Lawrence Child, OSB, who, like Easton, was an executor of Simon Langham’s will.73 Easton recalls a conversation with Roger Foucault, dean of Saint-Emilion, who had accompanied Cardinal d’Aigrefeuille in the conclave. Foucault spoke in English, in reply to a 68 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 85. For the letter of Robert of Geneva to the emperor, see Bliemetzrieder, ‘Der Briefwechsel der Kardinäle’, 124–5, 130–1. For the bishop of Worms, who was one of the proctors sent by the emperor and his son to Gregory XI, see ibid., 123–6, 129, 136–8. 69 Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges’, 31 n. 80. 70 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 82: ‘veni ad dominum Egidium de Velinse, magnum virum’. The reading ‘Velinse’ is not certain. It may be a reference to the auditor of the Rota Guy Bellemère, who appears as ‘Egidius de Vellamar’ in the deposition of Fernandus Petri, dean of Tarazona, printed in A.D. de Sousa Costa, ed., Monumenta Portugaliae Vaticana, iii/1: A península ibérica e o cisma do ocidente (Montariol, Braga and Oporto, 1982), 59. See above at n. 63. 71 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 85. Andrew refers to letters of the cardinal penitentiary in his own deposition: Zutshi, ‘Jean de Cros’, 340 and n. 31. For his career, see Meersseman, ‘Etudes sur l’ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, IV’, 179–81; BRUO, i, 36; T. Kaeppeli, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi, ii (Rome, 1975), 88–9; B. Schwarz, Kurienuniversität und stadtrömische Universität von ca. 1300 bis 1471 (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 602. 72 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 85. He does not occur in S. Armitage Smith, John of Gaunt (London, 1904), or in E.C. Lodge and R. Somerville, eds, John of Gaunt’s Register (1379–1383), 2 vols, Camden Third Series, 56–7 (London, 1937). 73 His entry in BRUO, i, 414–15, does not mention the office of minor penitentiary, but see T. Majic, ‘Die Apostolische Pönitentiarie im 14. Jahrhundert’, Römische Quartalschrift, 50 (1955), 129–77, at 165, where he is called ‘Childitz’.

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question from Easton, to the effect that Urban was the rightful pope (Easton does not specify in which language he addressed Foucault).74 Foucault was soon to be sent as an envoy of the rebellious cardinals to England, where he was imprisoned.75 Easton’s testimony concerning the Great Schism illustrates the social milieu of this Benedictine monk, living far away from his cathedral priory.76 In addition to his contacts with cardinals and curialists, his association with the circle of St Birgitta of Sweden is noteworthy. As has been mentioned, Alfonso, the former bishop of Jaén, organized the first series of testimonies in favour of Urban VI together with Mattheus Clementis. Three of the witnesses then, Alfonso, Easton and Katherine of Sweden, were also prominent in promoting Birgitta’s canonization.77 Katherine was the daughter of Birgitta and was later canonized herself.78 Alfonso had had close relations with Birgitta from his arrival in Rome until her death in 1373, and he was the principal editor of her Revelaciones.79 When he heard that Bartolomeo Prignano was likely to be elected pope, Alfonso sent Katherine to see him, in order to further her mother’s canonization.80 Easton arrived in Rome only after Birgitta’s death, but he was devoted to her memory and wrote a defence of her in response to an attack by an unnamed author from Perugia; it was completed shortly before her canonization by Boniface IX (7 October 1391).81 Given Birgitta’s strong opposition to the popes’ residence in Avignon and her dislike of French influence over the papacy, her canonization can be seen as reinforcing the Roman obedience during the Schism. As the socius and executor of Stephen Langham, Easton may have enjoyed a certain status in the papal court. Cardinal Corsini indeed offered to recommend him to the new pope out of reverence for the late Cardinal 74 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 84. See Harvey, Solutions to the Schism, 17–19; Harvey, The English in Rome, 197. On Foucault, see also Harvey, ‘The Case for Urban VI’, 542. 75 Harvey, Solutions to the Schism, 12–15, 22–4. 76 See Harvey, The English in Rome, 197. 77 Cf. Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges’, 22. 78 Her testimony is printed in Annales ecclesiastici, ed. Theiner, xxvi, 360. 79 See M. Seidlmayer, ‘Ein Gehilfe der hl. Birgitta von Schweden: Alfons von Jaen’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 50 (1930), 1–18; Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges’. 80 See Alfonso’s Informaciones in Jönnson, Alfonso of Jaén, 195: ‘Et quia ego per quatuor vel quinque dies, antequam intrarent conclauem, verisimiliter vidi, quod dictus Archiepiscopus tunc Barensis debebat eligi […], ideo tunc iui ad dominam Catherinam, filiam beate Brigide, cuius negocium promoueo in curia et persuasi sibi, quod iret ad dominum Archiepiscopum et ei maximam reuerenciam faceret et negocium canonizacionis sue matris valde efficaciter recommendaret, ex eo quod ego credebam, vt ipse eligeretur in papam.’ 81 Harvey, The English in Rome, 204–5, 220–2, and see below at n. 161.

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Langham.82 However, it is likely that his standing in the Curia derived mainly from his reputation as a theologian. His testimony records that he had frequented studia for thirty years and more,83 and that Cardinal Jacobo Orsini entrusted him and two other magistri with ‘examining’ the Feast of the Transfixion of the Blessed Virgin Mary.84 Easton was evidently pleased that Urban requested many theological works from the Franciscan cardinal, Bertrand Lagier, principally commentaries on the Acts of the Apostles. The pope was interested in the question of why certain foods prohibited in the past were now permitted. He further promised that theologians would enjoy his patronage.85 Easton was a theologian, and he had the attitudes of a theologian. In particular, his theological studies appear to have engendered in him a distrust of secular or human sciences. He asks what accounted for the ‘mirabilis et dolenda mutacio’ of the cardinals – that is, their turning against Urban after having elected him. Rather than explaining the change in the entirely plausible terms of Urban’s brusque and tactless behaviour towards the cardinals, which alienated them, Easton cryptically identifies as the principal cause ‘sciencias seculares’.86 He reverts to this theme a little more fully when he exclaims: ‘Et absit a seculo ille error nephandissimus contra scripturam sacram per humanas sciencias adinventus, et per quosdam dominos publicatus, quod levis metus sufficit ad invalidandum electionem aliquam ipso iure.’87 What does Easton mean by the ‘human sciences’? It was the canonists principally who conducted the debate over the validity of Urban VI’s election, and Easton could hardly have included canon law among the ‘human sciences’ despite the traditional rivalry between theology and canon law. 82 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 85: ‘offerens se pro me multa facere penes dominum nostrum papam ob reverenciam domini mei mortui cardinalis’. 83 Ibid., 82: ‘xxx annis et amplius maiora mundi studia frequentavi’. 84 Ibid., 84: ‘commisit ii magistris et mihi examen cuiusdam festi ordinati de transficcione beate Virginis, et tempore Urbani moderni sibi responderam de eodem’. See Harvey, The English in Rome, 193–4. 85 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 84: ‘idem Urbanus multa theologica petiit ab eodem et precipue de actibus apostolorum, quare fuit proibitum in lege de comestione ciborum hodie licitorum, […] dicens quod faceret theologis multa bona’. Macfarlane reads ‘theologia’ for ‘theologis’. Urban seems to have had in mind Acts 15: 19–20, 28–9. See also Acts 11: 3–4, 7–9. 86 Ibid., 81: ‘Unde vero dictorum dominorum hec mirabilis et dolenda mutacio inolevit? Credo sciencias seculares, quibus in sacramento ecclesiastico fidei non debet firma fides immutabilis adhiberi, causam precipuam pululasse.’ In his earlier deposition, however, he describes Urban’s attitude to the cardinals as ‘rigorosus et asperus eorum moribus consuetis’ (ibid., 80). 87 Ibid., 82.

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However, much of the argumentation on both sides derived from texts of Roman, rather than canon, law. Thus, Baldus’s first consilium in favour of Urban VI from 1378 was based primarily on civilian texts.88 On the opposing side, the treatises by Petrus Raymundi de Barreria, bishop of Autun (created a cardinal by Clement VII), and by Cardinal Peter de Luna are heavily dependent on Roman law.89 Admittedly both treatises post-date Easton’s testimony of November 1379, but Roman law remains the most likely discipline covered by the despised human sciences.90 The denunciation of the cardinals attributed to Alfonso Pecha also criticizes their attachment to Roman law, calling them ‘clientuli legistarum’.91 Easton points to one error for which these sciences are responsible: the idea that slight fear (levis metus) is suff icient to invalidate an election, an error said to have been published by certain cardinals. This appears to be a surprising assertion, for the cardinals claimed that it was fear of death, in other words, something quite different from levis metus, that had forced them to elect Urban. Thus, the cardinals’ so-called manifesto of 2 August 1378 (with incipit ‘Cum propter falsam assertionem’) alludes frequently to the fear of the death which dominated the election: the ultramontane cardinals, who formed the majority, ‘propter vitandum mortis periculum, alias non facturi, prout etiam tunc dixerunt, condescenderunt ut Ytalicus eligeretur’; some of the Italian cardinals expressed similar sentiments; one of the Italians refused to vote ‘propter notoriam impressionem quam videbat’; and the cardinals feared that, if they impugned the election while they were still in Rome, ‘omnes interfecti fuissent, cum 88 H.G. Walther, ‘Baldus als Gutachter für die päpstliche Kurie im Grossen Schisma’, Zeitschrift der Savigny-Stiftung für Rechtsgeschichte, 123 (kan. Abt. 92) (2006), 392–409, at 403. 89 See F. Ehrle, ‘Die kirchenrechtlichen Schriften Peters von Luna (Benedicts XIII.)’, Archiv für Literatur- und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters, 7 (1900), 515–75, at 571–5; Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 145–7, 153–5. Petrus Raymundi’s treatise is printed in C. Egassé du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, 6 vols. (Paris, 1665–1673), iv, 529–55 (Tractatus factus in favorem Electionis Clementis Papae VII a reverendissimo D. Petro de Barreria Cardinali Eduensi contra D. Ioannem de Lignano). 90 Meersseman, ‘Spirituali romani’, 552, reached the same conclusion. 91 Bliemetzrieder, ‘Raimund von Capua und Caterina von Siena’, 250 (‘legum humanarum doctores, ubi legem inmaculatam Domini dimisistis?’), 261–2 (‘quomodo audetis leges civiles contra per vos factam eleccionem de Christo vicario allegare, qui per canones estis prohibiti ipsas leges audire, nec frustra; perpendebant enim canonum conditores quod ex studio legum in clero hec cavillaciones et hec pericula sequerentur. Numquid obsecro scient determinare aut poterunt iura civilia de potestate aut veritate vicarii Jesu Christi? […] Audite ergo, o duces cleri, nunc facti prochdolor! clientuli legistarum: in factis que naturam et naturalia cuncta transcendunt, nunqum pro probacione vel improbacione michi adducatis verba hominum damnatorum’), 263 (‘Nec michi allegentur leges de iurisdiccionibus acquirendis vel de manumissione servorum’).

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causa impressionis continue perduraret’.92 The cardinals made similar claims in the letter in which they announced the election and coronation of Clement VII.93 There can be no doubt that the fear portrayed by the cardinals met the canonistic standard of the fear that moves a constant man (or iustus metus)94; and the treatises in support of Clement argued the same.95 The earliest of these treatises, by the inquisitor Nicholas Eymerich, OP, attempted to define such fear and specifically excluded ‘verberacio levis’.96 Petrus Raymundi also sought to def ine iustus metus. While he did not discuss levis metus, he argued that iustus metus could arise from popular tumult, even if there was no physical violence; the application of this to Urban’s election is obvious.97 Conversely, one of the Urbanist arguments was that, if the cardinals experienced fear, it was only levis metus which was insufficient to invalidate the election. In his address to the king of Castile, Francesco Uguccione of Urbino, bishop of Faenza and one of Urban’s representatives at Medina del Campo, concluded: ‘si quis metus fuerit in cardinalibus, fuit & esse debuit levis, & sic vanus, qui nullum actum vitiat, nedum electionem papae secundum jura. Et si asserunt graviter timuisse ubi non debebant, non eis de jure credendum.’98 Similarly, Franciscus de Siclenis de Papia, another representative of Urban at Medina del Campo, denied in his allegationes that levis metus was sufficient to invalidate the election.99 92 E. Baluze and G. Mollat, eds, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, 4 vols (Paris, 1910–22), iv, 173–84; Dykmans, ‘La troisème élection’, 227–39. 93 E.g. ‘Et sic nos et quidam alii ex dictis cardinalibus, qui etiam proposueramus non eligere extra dictum collegium, ad evitandum dumtaxat mortis periculum, quod alias nobis procul dubio imminebat, predictum virum pestiferum Bartholomeum, natione Ytalicum, contra propositum nostrum hujusmodi in papam, licet de facto, repente per verbum eligimus abusive duximus nominandum’ (Baluze and Mollat, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, iv, 189). 94 On which see Kuttner, Kanonistische Schuldlehre, especially 308–14. 95 E.g. Petrus Raymundi: ‘Patet etiam quod non fuit metus periculi tantum sed mortis, & sic talis qui cadit in constantem. Patet etiam quod iste metus non est verisimilis tantum, sed probatus eo quod est notorius’ (du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, iv, 537). 96 Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 158 n. 151. On the author, see C. Heimann, Nicolaus Eymerich (vor 1320–1399): praedicator veridicus, inquisitor intrepidus, doctor egregius (Münster, 2001). 97 Du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, iv, 533–4: ‘iusta causa suspicionis metus tamen alias non probabilis, etiamsi damnum non sequatur, habetur pro iusto metu, qui reddit electionem nullam […]: ergo multo magis iusta est et probabilis, quia sunt sufficientes iniuriae illatae per populum Rom. tumultuose commotum, qui non facile retinetur et resisti non potest.’ See also ibid., 532, 535–6, 540–1. 98 E. Martène and U. Durand, eds, Thesaurus novus anecdotorum, 5 vols (Paris, 1717), ii, col. 1093. 99 Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 14, fol. 126r.

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The Urbanists naturally rejected the cardinals’ claim that they acted out of fear of death in the election.100 However, I have not found a text by a cardinal or anyone else which enunciates the doctrine of levis metus that Easton mentions. No def inite conclusion can be drawn from this, for the contemporary literature concerning the outbreak of the Great Schism is extensive and not all of it is in print. 101 Nonetheless, if such a view were ever put forward, it was untypical; and it is possible that Easton was adopting a standard polemical technique in exaggerating his opponents’ position.

Conspiracies of the cardinals against Urban VI After the death of Francesco Tebaldeschi on 6 September 1378, not a single cardinal remained with Urban.102 He created some twenty-five cardinals at a stroke later that year, and a further six in 1381.103 In the second creation he promoted Adam Easton.104 Easton stands out as the only Englishman in an overwhelmingly Italian College, although in the first creation Urban had offered William Courtenay, bishop of London, a cardinal’s hat, which he declined.105 Between the death of Thomas Jorz in 1310 and the elevation of Simon Langham in 1368, there had been no English cardinal, and following Langham’s death that was again the case.106 It is understandable that Urban should have wished for an English cardinal, for King Richard II and

100 For Baldus, see, e.g., W. Ullmann, The Origins of the Great Schism: a study in fourteenth-century ecclesiastical history (Hamden, 1972), ch. VIII. 101 For Clementist treatises, see F.P. Bliemetzrieder, ed., Literarische Polemik zu Beginn des grossen abendländischen Schismas (Kardinal Petrus Flandrin, Kardinal Petrus Amelii, Konrad von Gelnhausen): ungedruckte Texte und Untersuchungen, Publikationen des Österreichischen Historischen Instituts in Rom, 1 (Vienna, 1910); Seidlmayer, Anfänge, ch. IV. 102 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, i, 21, 23 n. 1. For the date of Tebaldeschi’s death, see Meersseman, ‘Spirituali romani’, 568 n. 1. 103 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 23–4. The precise number of cardinals in the first promotion is uncertain: see A. Jamme, ‘Réseaux, stratégies de communication et storytelling au début du Grand Schisme d’Occident’, in Gegenpäpste: ein unerwünschtes mittelalterliches Phänomen, ed. H. Müller and B. Hotz (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2012), 261–84, at 268 and n. 32. 104 For his titular church, see L.J. Macfarlane, ‘The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B.’, 2 vols, PhD dissertation, University of London, 1955, i, 20 n. 2. 105 W. Dahmus, William Courtenay, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1381–1396 (University Park and London, 1966), 39, 188–9; Harvey, The English in Rome, 198. 106 See J. Dendorfer and R. Lützelschwab, eds, Geschichte des Kardinalats im Mittelalter (Stuttgart, 2011), 229.

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the church in England were amongst his firmest supporters.107 A further consideration was doubtless that Easton was known in the Curia as a distinguished theologian: it is likely that he was involved in the condemnation by Gregory XI of the works of John Wyclif 108; he was consulted on theological and devotional matters both before and after his promotion 109; and he was the author of, among other works, a defence of papal power.110 In this respect, too, Easton was exceptional, for canon law was much commoner than theology as an academic training for cardinals.111 Urban VI’s problems with cardinals did not end with the desertion of almost the entire college in 1378. He had a tendency to lose cardinals that amounted to more than carelessness. In addition to William Courtenay, three men declined his offer of the cardinalate in 1378, and – what was much worse – two of them (Petrus Raymundi de Barreria and Leonardus a Griffonio, OFM) accepted promotion by Clement VII.112 A fourth, Guterius Gometii, bishop of Palencia, was created a cardinal by Urban and acted as one of his representatives at Medina del Campo, only to transfer his allegiance to Clement at the end of the proceedings there.113 In 1383 Urban deprived Bartolomeo Mezzavacca, the cardinal of Rieti, of his office, since he, together with five other cardinals, had declined to accompany the pope on his expedition to the kingdom of Naples.114 The following year at Nocera Urban proceeded to another mass-creation of cardinals. According to a source extremely antagonistic to Urban, a letter from Margaret, queen of Naples, to the anziani of the commune of Bologna, this was his reaction to the cardinals’ opposition to his desire to depose Charles of Durazzo, king of Naples, and to renew the deposition of Mezzavacca, who, it seems had been 107 See E. Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme (Paris, 1933), chs II–VI; Harvey, ‘The Case for Urban VI’. 108 M. Harvey, ‘Adam Easton and the Condemnation of John Wyclif, 1377’, EHR, 113 (1998), 321–34. 109 See, especially, Harvey, The English in Rome, ch. X. 110 Pantin, ‘The Defensorium of Adam Easton’. 111 See D. Girgensohn, ‘Wie wird man Kardinal? Kuriale und ausserkuriale Karrieren an der Wende des 14. zum 15. Jahrhundert’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 57 (1977), 138–62, at 150; Dendorfer and Lützelschwab, Geschichte des Kardinalats im Mittelalter, 240–3. 112 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 24 n. 2; A. Segre, ‘I dispacci di Cristoforo da Piacenza, procuratore mantovano alla corte (1371–1383)’, Archivio Storico Italiano, serie V, 44 (1909), 253–326, at 279. 113 M. Dykmans, ‘Du conclave d’Urbain VI au Grand Schisme: sur Pierre Corsini et Bindo Fesulani, écrivains florentins’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 13 (1975), 207–30, at 214 n. 27. 114 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 23; N. Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme d’Occident, 4 vols (Paris, 1896–1902), ii, 65; P. Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo da Prata (Rome, 1957), 167; Fodale, La politica napoletana, 81–2.

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reinstated. The letter claims that he created twenty cardinals, many of them from Naples who were unworthy of the honour.115 The creation of fifteen, if one includes those who declined this promotion, is documented.116 This was a significant episode in the rise to dominance of a group of Neapolitan families over the papacy, which is one of the characteristics of Urban’s pontificate.117 In 1385 five cardinals, including Mezzavacca, in a letter addressed to the clergy of the city of Rome, denounced Urban’s faults as contributing to the division of the Church; his arrogance and obstinacy were such that they likened him to a madman; his orthodoxy was suspect; and the cardinals announced that they had withdrawn from his obedience and that others should do the same.118 This remarkable document would be even more remarkable if it had been published. This can hardly have been the case, for one of the cardinals who issued it, Pileo da Prata, known as the cardinal of Ravenna, rejoined the Curia at Genoa – a most unsafe course of action if the contents of the letter should come to the pope’s attention. Soon after this, Urban even promoted him to be cardinal bishop of Tusculum. However, Pileo and another cardinal, Galeotto de Petramala, cardinal deacon of S. Agatha, who was not one of the five authors of the letter, were accused of plotting 115 H.V. Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke zur Geschichte des Papstes Urban VI.’, Historisches Jahrbuch, 4 (1893), 820–33, at 822: ‘Et quamquam ex hiis aliqui exteri per aliquos de virtute notantur, ciuitatis huius numero ciues septem de tali promocione sunt omnes male contenti et pro maiori parte reputant se indignos. Quid de eis dicunt alii, pro honore patrie tacemus.’ Cf. G. Erler, ed., Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, libri tres (Leipzig, 1890), 80–2; Fodale, La politicaa, 108, 110. 116 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, 24–5. 117 See A. Esch, ‘Das Papsttum unter der Herrschaft der Neapolitaner: die führende Gruppe Neapolitaner Familien an der Kurie während des Schismas 1378–1415’, in Festschrift für Hermann Heimpel zum 70. Geburtstag, 3 vols (Göttingen, 1972), ii, 713–800. 118 The letter is printed in Baluze and Mollat, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, iv, 298–301 (Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo, 344, no. 533): ‘ad tantam superbiam, in vanam gloriam, intractabilitatem ac obstinatam pertinaciam, ita ut videatur insano similis et furenti, se supra extulit, adeo quod omnino, spretis nostris et aliorum cardinalium predictorum consiliis, quecumque etiam ardua et majora dicte Ecclesie negotia pro sue inordinate voluntatis arbitrio indecenter et perniciose disposuit et totaliter pertractavit, multasque iniquitates et detestabilia scelera commisit et cotidie commitit; […] ordinat et disponit qualiter dictum scisma non solum nutrire, sed etiam adaugere, ac Ecclesie predicte statum amplius perturbare et funditus evertere possit. Propter que merito se reddidit de fide suspectum […] et verisimiliter timentes quod ipse statum dicte Ecclesie omnino dissipet et confundat, et nequeuntes absque gravi offensa Dei et gravi remorsu conscientie iniquos eius et ineptissimos actus et detestandos mores ipsumque de fide suspectum amplius tolerare, ab ejus obedientia et subjectione nos omnino subtraximus […] et tandem […] deliberatum et concordatum est quod deinceps domino Urbano vel ejus monitis seu mandatis, etiam per quoscumque alios Christi fideles nullatenus debeat obediri.’ See Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo, 182–7.

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against Urban. They fled from the Curia and placed themselves under the protection of Gian Galeazzo Visconti of Milan. In a letter of 8 August 1386 they denounced Urban as the cause of the Schism. They even commented favourably on the cardinals who had elected and then deserted him: they had fled from him ‘non propria passione incitati sed publico bono intenti’. In the light of these remarks, it is not surprising that Pileo and Galeotto were soon to join these cardinals and to transfer their allegiance to Clement VII.119 One of the crimes that the letter of the five cardinals and the letter of the cardinals of Ravenna and Petramala ascribed to Urban was the imprisonment and torture of six of their fellow-cardinals, including Adam Easton.120 This resulted from an alleged plot to seize Urban devised by the cardinals in league with Charles of Durazzo and his wife, Margaret. The king, having ousted Joan, queen of Naples, who was an ally of the French and adherent of Clement VII, with the support of Urban, had by now fallen out with the latter.121 The principal account of these events is the De scismate by Dietrich of Niem, a prominent curialist who was at Nocera for much of the time and was personally involved in the interrogation of the conspirators.122 However, the De scismate was written some twenty-five years after these events.123 Another valuable and detailed source is the Cosmidromius by Gobelinus Person, who was a clerk of the apostolic chamber; but he was not as close to the events as Dietrich and on 9 November 1385 he left Nocera for Benevento.124 Among the other narrative sources are the Chronicon Siculum and Thomas Walsingham’s Historia Anglicana.125 The versions of Dietrich and Gobelinus differ, which no doubt reflects the fact that Gobelinus was 119 Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 827–31; Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme, ii, 118; Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, i, 23; Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo, 188–99, 281–3, 346; L. Tacchella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI a Genova (1385–1386) e l’eccidio dei cardinali (Genova, 1976), 94–6. 120 Baluze and Mollat, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, iv, 299–300; Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 829–30. 121 For the background and for subsequent events in the kingdom of Naples, see H. Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten zur Papst- und Konziliengeschichte im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert’, Abhandlungen der Historischen Classe der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 22 (1893), 4–7; G. Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim (Theodericus de Nyem): sein Leben und seine Schriften (Leipzig, 1887), I. Teil, Drittes Kapitel; Valois, La France et le Grand Schisme, ii, ch. II; E.G. Léonard, Les Angevins de Naples (Paris, 1954), 453–76; Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo, ch. VI. 122 Erler, Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, 77–110. For Dietrich’s curial career, see Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim, I. Teil, Zweites Kapitel. 123 See H. Heimpel, Dietrich von Niem (Münster, 1932), 291. 124 Cosmidromius Gobelini Person, ed. M. Jansen (Münster, 1900), 97–121; Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim, 75 n. 3. 125 Chronicon Siculum incerti authoris ab anno 340 ad annum 1396, ed. G. de Blasiis, Società Napoletana di Storia Patria (Naples, 1887), 54–66; J. Taylor, W.R. Childs and L. Watkiss, eds and

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more favourably disposed towards Urban than was Dietrich. Dietrich does not report any confessions that the cardinals made under torture. He does, however, mention that Bartolomeo Mezzavacca, who was then in Naples, in consultation with certain other cardinals who were with Urban at Nocera and Bartholomeus de Placencia, raised the question of whether it was legitimate for the cardinals to appoint a suitable curator or curatores to oversee a mentally deficient or negligent or useless pope. Mezzavacca put this question and twelve further questions to certain excellent masters of theology and distinguished doctors of both laws. Their responses, which came into Dietrich’s hands, were contradictory. Dietrich records that ‘multi cardinales huiusmodi vidissent articulos et raciones illisque inhererent’.126 Gobelinus, on the other hand, states that five cardinals (Easton was not among them) planned to capture Urban in the consistory, to produce articles against him accusing him of heresy, to consign him to the flames and to replace him with another pope. When he learnt of the conspiracy, Urban seized the cardinals and also Easton, who confessed under torture that he had been aware of the plot; he was imprisoned with the other cardinals for having failed to reveal it to the pope.127 The cardinals were deprived of their honours and benefices, their familiars dispersed and their houses confiscated.128 On the other hand, the account in the Chronicon Siculum does not differentiate Easton’s involvement from that of the other five cardinals.129 This source mentions that the cardinal of Genoa, and then each of the five other cardinals, publicly confessed to a plot to seize the pope and take him to Naples (where he would have been in the power of his enemy Charles of Durazzo). The pope trans., The St Albans Chronicle: the Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols (Oxford, 2003–10), i, 742–8, 776–8. 126 Erler, Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, 77–9. Dietrich describes Bartholomeus as ‘quondam Bartholomeo de Placencia, procuratore antiquo in Romana curia satis audace et ingenioso, qui solitus erat plerumque defendere malas causas, ut quomodolibet lucraretur exinde’. Bartholomeus is probably the man of this name mentioned with two others as socii and auditores of the Italian cardinals, Pietro Corsini, Simone Brossano and Jacobo Orsini: Gayet, Le Grand Schisme, ii, Pièces justificatives, 69. He does not appear to be identical with the Bartholomeus de Placencia, OFM, who occurs in I. Collijn, ed., Acta et processus canonizationis beate Birgitte, 10 parts (Uppsala, 1924–31), 653 (index). 127 Cosmidromius Gobelini Person, 100: ‘dominus Adam cardinalis de Anglia, cum eis comprehensus, dum tormentis subdebatur, consilium reliquorum se scivisse, non tamen eis consensum prebuisse dicebat. Sed quia scitum non revelavit, quasi favens conspiracionis sceleri una cum aliis carceribus mancipatur.’ Cf. L.C. Hector and B.F. Harvey, eds, The Westminster Chronicle, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1982), 106. 128 Cosmidromius Gobelini Person, 100. 129 Chronicon Siculum, 54, 56.

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then added ‘volebant me interficere, et volebant eligere in papam illum qui olim fuit Cardinalis Reatinus’ (that is, Bartolomeo Mezzavacca).130 A letter of Mezzavacca himself to the anziani of the commune of Bologna records similar accusations, which he denied.131 Queen Margaret besieged Urban in Nocera in 1385, but Urban escaped with the aid of certain noblemen from the kingdom of Naples who had previously been adherents of Clement VII. He took the captive cardinals with him to Genoa and, according to Dietrich of Niem, ordered the killing of their alleged co-conspirator, the bishop of Aquila, on the journey.132 A notarial instrument of 21 January 1385, rehearsed in a letter of Urban and purportedly issued by the six cardinals, gives an account of the conspiracy similar to that in the Cosmidromius: the cardinals, in league with Bartolomeo Mezzavacca, Pietro Tartari, abbot of Montecassino,133 the king and queen of Naples, and others, planned to seize and condemn Urban as a heretic, to incarcerate, depose and murder him, and to elect a new pope.134 Henry Simonsfeld, who printed the instrument from a formulary, regarded it as a forgery produced as Urbanist propaganda,135 but Salvatore Fodale rightly rejected this view.136 The instrument makes it clear that it was read out at a public consistory. The Chronicon Siculum states that this took place on 18 January 1385,137 but as the date is three days earlier than the date of the instrument this is unlikely to be correct. Irrespective of its genuineness, 130 Ibid., 55–6. The cardinals’ confession states that their aim was to replace Urban with Mezzavacca or another of their own number, Ludovico Donati, the cardinal of Venice, being mentioned by name (Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 43). 131 Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 824. 132 Erler, Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, 101. Dietrich comments: ‘Sed si papa potest mandare aut facere aliquem interfici absque irregularitatis nota, non recolo me legisse’ (ibid., 102). He has in mind that Urban might have incurred excommunication by ordering the death of the bishop and, in celebrating divine offices while excommunicated, irregularity. Petrus Raymundi, in a quite different context, answers the question by saying: ‘quod in inferioribus esset dispensabile, in Papa reputaretur dispensatum, cum non est qui dispenset; ipse enim superiorem non habet in terris’ (du Boulay, Historia Universitatis Parisiensis, iv, 533). Dietrich’s statement was one of the reasons for his work being placed on the Index: see Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim, 315 n. 1. For the bishop of Aquila, see Chronicon Siculum, 54; Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 822; Fodale, La politica napoletana, 183–5. 133 On this f igure, see A. Rehberg, Die Kanoniker von S. Giovanni in Laterano und S. Maria Maggiore im 14. Jahrhundert: eine Prosopographie (Tübingen, 1999), 279–80. 134 Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 41–5. 135 Ibid., 13–14. 136 Fodale, La politica napoletana, 116 n. 34. 137 Chronicon Siculum, 55. Mezzavacca’s letter of 24 February 1385 to the anziani of Bologna also refers to the notarial instrument (Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 824).

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the instrument is hardly a reliable guide to the rebels’ plans, for despite the claim that they freely admitted their crimes,138 it is known that they made their confessions under torture. A letter of Urban of 27 February 1385, which appeals to the faithful for aid against Charles of Durazzo, also mentions the conspiracy to accuse the pope of heresy, imprison and kill him, and elect a new pope. It records a further plan of the cardinals: ‘ad dandum nobis, ut eorum fatuis verbis utamur, curatores seu alias nos confundendum’.139 The reference to curatores sits uneasily with the rest of the conspirators’ alleged aims, for if they planned to depose and kill the pope, why were curatores necessary? Given that Dietrich of Niem independently confirms the interest of Urban’s opponents in curatores, as a check on a pope who had in so many ways shown himself to be unfit to govern the Church, that Dietrich had seen documentation concerning the legitimacy of recourse to curatores,140 and that the Chronicon regiense mentions Charles of Durazzo as favouring the appointment of a coadjutator,141 it seems likely that the appointment of one or more curatores was indeed the aim of the rebellious cardinals, and that their further confessions concerning Urban’s condemnation, deposition and murder were the result of torture. Dietrich of Niem evidently regarded the cardinals’ confessions as worthless for this reason; Bartolomeo Mezzavacca denounced them as such; the letter of the five cardinals described them as ‘nec vera nec verisimilia’; while for Pileo da Prata and Galeotto de Petramala they were ‘fictissimas confessiones’ extorted by the pope.142 The Chronicon Siculum, in recording that it was not the cardinals who admitted, but the pope who asserted, that the aim was to kill and replace him, seems to reinforce the view that the cardinals’ aim was rather to exert some kind of control over the pope.143 It was, moreover, not the first time that the appointment of curatores or similar measures had been mentioned as a possible solution for Urban’s erratic and damaging behaviour. In the summer of 1378, when Urban was 138 Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 42: ‘sponte et libere de certa nostra sciencia omni metu et coactione cessantibus’. 139 Ibid., 38. 140 See above, n. 126. 141 Chronicon regiense, in L.A. Muratori, ed., Rerum italicarum scriptores, 25 vols (Milan, 1723–51), xviii, 91: the cardinals and certain others ‘volebant dare sibi Coadjutorem, etiam ad instantiam Regis Caroli’. 142 Tacchella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI, 39; Baluze and Mollat, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, iv, 300; Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 829. 143 Chronicon Siculum, 55.

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staying at Tivoli and the ultramontane cardinals were at Anagni, there were negotiations between the two camps.144 The testimonies concerning Urban’s election show that some of the cardinals, believing that Urban was quite unsuited to the papal office but wishing to avoid a permanent rupture with him, suggested the appointment of curatores or coadiutores. Thomas Petra, canon of Patras, for instance, stated in 1380: ‘Item audivi asseri ante rebellionem cardinalium contra papam, quod pecierant ab ipso, ut deputaret sibi coadiutores ad regendum apostolatus officium, quia reputabant eum insanisse, […] Quos si deputasset, numquam rebellassent, ut tunc dicebatur et adhuc dicitur.’145 Cardinal Nicolaus Misquinus quoted Nicolaus Eymerich as saying that the cardinals were willing for Urban to remain pope ‘dummodo vellet recipere aliquos de istis cardinalibus in curatores, quia ipse est fatuus’, while Thomas de Acerno, bishop of Lucera, recalled the cardinals informing Urban ‘quod si volebat quod ipsi essent cum eo, volebant dare sibi unum coadjutorem, quia ipse non bene regebat Ecclesiam Dei nec eos’.146 This attempt to limit the powers of the most autocratic of popes came to nothing. Nonetheless, it is striking that the cardinals who had elected Urban faced the same problem that later confronted the cardinals whom he himself had created – that is, how to exercise some control over an unsuitable or even mentally unbalanced pope – and that they proposed similar remedies. It was generally accepted that a pope could be deposed only for heresy, a sentiment that Urban put into the mouths of the six cardinals in 1385.147 Given the failure of the proposal for curatores, Urban’s unwillingness to resign the papal office, and the lack of support at this stage for the idea of summoning a general council, the cardinals’ only recourse in 1378 was to cast doubt on the validity of Urban’s election. It was thus to their advantage that the disorders attending that election gave them considerable scope to impugn it. Hermann Heimpel offered a different analysis of the discrepancies between the accounts of Dietrich and Gobelinus to that proposed above, 144 They are scantily documented, but they are skilfully reconstructed by Přerovský, L’elezione di Urbano VI, 157–63. See also Fodale, La politica napolitana, 113 n. 29. 145 Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 264. Thomas Petra was a notary, scribe and abbreviator in the chancery of Urban VI and Boniface IX: see I. Aurora, ‘I documenti originali pontifici di Bari (1199–1400)’, Archivum Historiae Pontificiae, 39 (2001), 9–103, at 89. 146 Baluze and Mollat, Vitae paparum Avenionensium, ii, 847–8. 147 Their confession, dated 21 January 1385, states: ‘ipsi sanctissimo domino nostro utique vero catholico et christianissimo summo pontifici crimen heretice pravitatis juxta consilium dicti Reatini, cum crimen aliud Romano pontif ici impingi et de alio crimine Romanus pontifex condempnari non possit, imponentes’ (Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 42).

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preferring that of Gobelinus.148 His main reason for doing so was that Gobelinus mentions the plan to accuse and convict Urban of heresy, which represented the only grounds for deposing a pope. However, this alleged plan is revealed only in the cardinals’ confessions, which are, to say the least, of doubtful value, in Urban’s own pronouncements, and in narrative sources, of which the Cosmidromius is the principal example. It perhaps finds some support in the letter of the five cardinals which casts doubt on Urban’s orthodoxy.149 Nevertheless, the idea of appointing curatores – which, I should stress again, would hardly have been compatible with deposing the pope – is much better documented, in the statements of several witnesses to the events of 1378 and by Dietrich, who had actually read the opinions of theologians and lawyers on the subject sought by Mezzavacca. The plan to impose curatores on the pope may seem quite unrealistic, but it reflects the extremely difficult position in which the cardinals found themselves in 1378 and again in 1384. Another possible solution to the differences between the sources is found in the account of S. Fodale.150 He argues that there were two separate plots against Urban, the first involving the imposition of curatores, the second the pope’s seizure and condemnation. However, it must be admitted that Urban himself thought that there was only one plot, or at least portrayed the situation in this way.151 There were many appeals to Urban to release the six cardinals; this was, for instance, one of the aims of an embassy from Gian Galeazzo Visconti.152 There was even an attempt, probably inspired by Pileo da Prata and Galeotto de Petramala, to rescue them when they were held in Genoa.153 Five of the six seem to have been murdered in Genoa on Urban’s orders, although the sources disagree on how this was accomplished.154 Urban’s treatment of the cardinals was widely reported by contemporaries and did nothing to enhance his reputation.155 Dietrich of Niem records that Easton alone was released, 148 Heimpel, Dietrich von Niem, 187–9. See also Erler, Dietrich von Nieheim, 65–6, 75. 149 See above, n. 118. 150 Fodale, La politica napolitana, 112–23. 151 See Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 38. 152 The letter of Pileo da Prata and Galeotto de Petramala states that the embassy concerned three matters: ‘liberacionem cardinalium captiuorum, congregacionem cardinalium dispersorum et tercio ecclesie unionem’ (Sauerland, ‘Aktenstücke’, 828). 153 See Fodale, La politica napoletana, 176–8. 154 Erler, Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, 110 and n. 2; Fodale, La politica napoletana, 183–5. 155 E.g. Chronicon Regiense, 91: ‘MCCCLXXXV de mense Februarii D. Papa cepit septem [sic] Cardinales, & multos Episcopos, & Praelatos, quos gravissime tormentari fecit, […] quia fuit crudelissimus homo’, with the conclusion: ‘Hic papa malus fuit homo.’ The Informationes of Cardinal Bertrand Lagier, which date from before July 1380, had already accused Urban of

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into the custody of a clerk of the apostolic chamber. This was at the request of Richard II.156 On the other hand, Gobelinus attributes Easton’s survival to the fact that he was not one of the main conspirators,157 while Walsingham claims that his only crime was to say that the pope was too proud.158 Dietrich may well be referring to a request made by the embassy of Richard II which arrived in Genoa in October 1385.159 Dietrich’s account implies that both the release of Easton and the murder of the five other cardinals took place before the pope left Genoa, which was on 16 December 1386.160 Easton recalled the period of his captivity in a letter of 9 February 1390 to the abbess and convent of the Birgittine house of Vadstena in Sweden. The letter forms part of his Defensorium Sancte Birgitte. It states that, when he was unjustly imprisoned in the time of Urban VI, Easton called on Birgitta to intercede for his delivery and promised to work for her canonization. He fulfilled his promise with the Defensorium Sancte Birgitte; he was one of the cardinals whom Boniface IX appointed to consider her canonization; and the pope canonized Birgitta on 7 October 1391.161 Easton provided an account being ‘innocencium occisor’, claiming that, among other crimes, he had had over a thousand Frenchmen, Spaniards and men from Languedoc killed (Seidlmayer, Anfänge, 337). 156 Erler, Theoderici de Nyem De scismate, 103: ‘unum, scilicent prefatum dominum Adam, tituli sancte Cecilie, sub privato et ut pauperem monachum et solivagum ad supplicacionem eiusdem Richardi regis Anglie postea dimisit, non tamen omnino liberum, sed sibi quendam clericum camere apostolice Gallicum, qui ipsius curam ac custodiam gereret, deputando.’ Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges’, 43, is mistaken in saying that Easton was only released after Urban’s death. 157 Cosmidromius Gobelini Person, 122. Cf. Richard II to Urban VI: ‘persona […] vestre benignitatis testimonio inter alios concaptivos ut audivimus minus culpabile declarata’ (E. Perroy, ed., The Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, Camden Third Series, 48 [London, 1933], 63). 158 Taylor, Childs and Watkiss, The St Albans Chronicle, i, 742: ‘Cardinalis tamen Anglie nichil fatebatur preter id, quod dixisset papam esse nimis superbum.’ Cf. ibid., 746: ‘cardinalis Anglie nichil fatebatur nisi sicut prius, scilicet quod intollerabilis erat fastus pape’. 159 Cf. Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme, 294; Tachella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI, 92. 160 Tacchella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI, 98. Harvey, The English in Rome, 202, suggests that Easton had been released by mid-July 1387. 161 J. Hogg, ‘Cardinal Easton’s Letter to the Abbess and Community of Vadstena’, in Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order, ed. J. Hogg, 2 vols, Spiritualität Heute und Gestern, Analecta Cartusiana, 35.19 (Salzburg, 1993), ii, 20–6, at 24: ‘nuper tempore Urbani pape vi in tribulacione magna positus fueram sine causa, et eius furorem senciens et periculum grande nimis, quod mortem evadere non speravi sine sanctorum miraculo et sanctarum; inter alias sanctas veni ad devotam Brigittam antedictam ut ipsa intercederet pro me ad beatam Mariam et filium eius Christum, quod me a suis periculis tirannicis liberaret, et ad eius canonizacionem ponerem diligenciam meam totam, […] In tantum quod eius adiutorio singulari et meritis eius sanctis spero me fuisse a furoribus predictis tirannicis liberatum.’ See Colledge, ‘Epistola solitarii ad reges’, 42–4; O. Krafft, ‘Heiligsprechungen im Schisma’, in Gegenpäpste: ein unerwünschtes

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of his misfortunes for the English Benedictines, De sua calamitate (incipit ‘Dulcissime Domine, expectans expectavi’), which has not been traced.162 In 1387 the presidents and chapter of the English Benedictine province wrote to the pope begging for Easton’s reinstatement and sending Fr John Welles, D.Th., to explain their request more fully.163 Richard II made a similar plea.164 Urban, however, refused to reinstate Easton as a cardinal, although both Dietrich of Niem and Richard II’s letter make it clear that he enjoyed a measure of freedom after his release.165 A collection of treatises on dictamen and other works, compiled at the Benedictine abbey of Reading in the early f ifteenth century, contains four letters addressed to Urban VI on behalf of Easton while he was still imprisoned.166 The first two are alternative forms of a letter from Richard II, both dated 3 December [1385]. It seems to me doubtful that these letters emanated from the royal government and were sent to the Curia, and for the following reasons: 1) The pope is addressed in the form ‘Reverendissime pater’, rather than the usual ‘Beatissime pater’ or ‘Sanctissime pater’. 2) The letters contain the clumsy request ‘quatinus per nos et preces nostras ipsum patrem nec esse nec fuisse de collegio vestro privatum vestra auctoritate apostolica benignius declaretur’ or ‘quatinus […] ipsum patrem de collegio vestro nullatinus [sic] fuisse nec esse privatum auctoritate apostolica dignemini declarare’.167 This request is implausible, since the king was perfectly aware that Easton had been deprived of his office168; one would mittelalterliches Phänomen, ed. H. Müller and B. Hotz (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, 2012), 363–89, at 379–82. 162 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 24 n. 2, 89–90. 163 J. Raine, ed., Historical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers (London, 1873), 424: ‘gratiam et misericordiam petimus pro domino Adam de Eston, quondam cardinali Norwycensi, quatenus a vestra sanctitate, stillata gratiose plena venia de offensis, tantam emanasse praesentiat gratiam a fonte vestrae sanctissimae pietatis, ut, reaccepta stola prima, pariter et annulo, pristinisque benef iciis, ac caeteris quae ad cardinalatus pertinent dignitatem, laus vestra ubique praedicetur in gentibus’. For Welles, who died in the Curia, then at Perugia, in 1388, see BRUO, iii, 2008; C. von Nolcken, ‘Wells [Wellys], John (d. 1388)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/29014. 164 Perroy, Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, 63–4 (dated by the editor 1387–9). 165 See above, n. 157; Perroy, Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, 62: ‘audivimus quod sanctitas ipsa licenciavit eundem tantummodo ut in vestro sacro palacio liberum optineret incessum et in sanctitatis eiusdem aula comederet, non tamen in suo ordine consueto communione sibi libera cum amicis et aliis notis ut nobis asserit[ur], nimium refrenata’. 166 London, British Library, Additional MS 48179 (Yelverton MS 271), fols 8v–10v. See N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain, 2nd edn (London, 1964), 155. 167 BL, Add MS 48179, fols 9r–v. 168 Cf. Perroy, Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, 154.

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therefore expect the king rather to have asked for Easton’s reinstatement. 3) The dating clause of the letters, ‘Scriptum in palacio nostro apud Westm. iii die mensis decembr.’, differs somewhat from that of letters close under the privy seal, to which class these letters would belong.169 The royal letters are followed by an undated letter from the University of Oxford to the pope requesting his release and restoration to his previous condition. Then come two undated letters from the presidents of the English Benedictine chapter, one addressed to the pope, the other to Easton himself. The first requests his reinstatement ‘tam ad beneficia tam etiam ad prestinam [sic] dignitatem’; the second seeks to console Easton in his afflictions and sends him a copy of the letter to the pope. It seems to me likely that all five letters are rhetorical exercises (Stilübungen). This conclusion is reinforced by the appearance of the two Benedictine letters in a letter collection written in English hands of the late fourteenth century.170 Their texts are very close to those of the Reading manuscript, but each letter ends with ‘Amen’. They are followed immediately by three letters which are clearly fictive (the first bears the date ‘Scriptum in palacio regis de nichilo ubi S. nullus regnat’, while the third is from Melchisedech).171 All five letters are written on a separate gathering in a different, smaller hand from those of the sections which precede and follow them. These sections contain letters which undoubtedly were sent. The letters in the Reading manuscript may be literary exercises, but this does not mean that they are devoid of historical interest. These letters, the Benedictines’ letter of 1387, and Richard II’s correspondence and actions all indicate that there was considerable interest in England in Easton’s misfortunes. The king himself stated that sympathy for him was widespread.172 The king’s own concern, however, was not sufficient to prevent him from conferring one of Easton’s confiscated benefices, the deanery of York, on the keeper of the privy seal, Edmund Stafford, in about 1388.173 After his reinstatement by Boniface IX, Easton became involved in disputes concerning this and other benefices with the king and his protégés, causing 169 Cf., e.g., P. Chaplais, English Medieval Diplomatic Practice, Part I (London, 1982), i, 37. 170 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 358, fols 92r–v. For the manuscript, see M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1912), ii, 191–2. 171 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 358, fols 92v–93v. 172 Perroy, Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, 63: ‘nedum ex nostri cordis instinctu sed et magnatum et vulgi luctuoso clamore continuo nos pulsante pro persona tam digna et in gradu suo nacionis extraneo unica’. 173 Perroy, L’Angleterre et le Grand Schisme, 294 n. 6.

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Richard II to complain to the pope of his ingratitude.174 However, Easton supported Stafford’s provision to the see of Exeter in 1394.175 Urban VI moved from Genoa to Lucca in 1386. Here, of the eight cardinals who accompanied him, six were Neapolitans, which is suggestive of the narrowness of the basis of his support within the college.176 Urban returned to Rome only in 1388. There on 24 September he received an oath of fealty from Giovanni and Poncello, sons of the late Francesco Orsini. They undertook not to support in any way certain former cardinals. The list begins, as one might expect, with Robert of Geneva and includes five of the six alleged plotters of 1384–5, even though these men had almost certainly been dead for nearly three years.177 Easton is not named, reflecting his status at this time, no longer imprisoned but not yet restored as a cardinal. Some degree of rehabilitation is suggested by the fact that he was one of six theologians whom Urban commissioned in 1388 to investigate the suitability of the proposed new Feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and its liturgy.178 In 1389–90 Easton sent some of his books to Norwich Cathedral Priory, but it is uncertain whether this occurred before or after his reinstatement as a cardinal by Urban’s successor, Boniface IX.179 This took place on 18 December 1389, soon after Boniface’s election and coronation (2 and 9 November 1389). The speed with which the new pope acted no doubt reflected his view of Easton’s guilt with respect to the plot of 1384–5. It casts further doubt on the accusation that one of its aims was to kill Urban, for it seems unlikely that Boniface would have acted thus if he were convinced that this was the case.180 As Perrino Tomacelli, Boniface was already a cardinal (known as the cardinal of Naples) at that time, having been promoted on the same day as Easton,181 and he was present in the public consistory when the cardinals confessed their alleged crimes.182 On 174 See Perroy, Diplomatic Correspondence of Richard II, 153–8. 175 Stafford’s letter of thanks is printed in A. Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman: the life and times of Adam Easton (Lydney, 2006), 317. 176 Esch, ‘Das Papsttum’, 736. 177 Tacchella, Il pontificato di Urbano VI, 99–101. See also G. Tellenbach, ‘Beiträge zur kurialen Verwaltungsgeschichte im 14. Jahrhundert’, Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken, 24 (1933–4), 150–187, at 173–4. 178 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 200–16; Harvey, The English in Rome, 202–3. 179 P. Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal and His Books: the library and writings of Adam Easton’, in Der Papst und das Buch im Spätmittelalter (1350–1500), ed. R. Berndt, Erudiri Sapientia, 13 (Münster, 2018), 43–60, at 44–5. 180 Cf. above, nn. 140–3. 181 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, i, 24. 182 Simonsfeld, ‘Analekten’, 44; Chronicon Siculum, 55.

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18 December 1389 he also restored to office the most consistent opponent of Urban VI from within the College of Cardinals, Bartolomeo Mezzavacca.183 Boniface reinstated another cardinal whom Urban had deposed, Landolfo Maramaldo, the cardinal of Bari.184 The return of Cardinal Pileo da Prata to the Roman obedience in 1391 is even more striking evidence of the different circumstances that prevailed under Urban’s successor.185 Adam Easton was not a major actor in the Great Schism. He would no doubt have been closer to the events of Urban VI’s election if his patron Cardinal Langham had still been alive in 1378 and participated in the election. But Easton was sufficiently close for his testimony concerning the election and the outbreak of the Schism to be sought on two occasions. The second deposition, in particular, can be seen as damaging to the Clementist case, and in 1386 Cardinals Guillaume d’Aigrefeuille and Pietro Corsini sought to rebut his claims.186 The almost complete loss of the series of registers of common letters of Urban VI means that there is relatively little information concerning Adam Easton’s career and preferments during Urban’s pontificate.187 Nevertheless, it is clear that, as an Englishman and a theologian, he was something of an outsider in the College of Cardinals, and even in the plot against Urban VI which led to his downfall he was probably a peripheral figure. Yet he evidently felt some sympathy with an attempt to curtail the power of a pope of whose faults he and the other cardinals were all too aware.

Appendix The first testimony of Adam Easton Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3934, fols 130v, 125r–126r (the first paragraph appears separately on fol. 130v). The marginal annotations are in one principal hand and one or two further hands. Almost all the annotations are keyed to the testimony by signes de renvoi. The annotations are printed below, in italics and in square brackets, following the passages to which they refer. I have silently corrected a few errors in the text published by Macfarlane 183 Eubel, Hierarchia catholica, i, 23. 184 Ibid., i, 24. 185 Stacul, Il cardinale Pileo, 218–21. 186 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 77 n. 5, 78 n. 3. 187 For losses in the registers, see P. Zutshi, ‘Unpublished Fragments of the Registers of Common Letters of Pope Urban VI (1378)’, in Kurie und Region: Festschrift für Brigide Schwarz zum 65. Geburtstag, ed. B. Flug, M. Matheus and A. Rehberg (Stuttgart, 2005), 41–61.

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from Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 17, fols 46r–47v,188 but the text does not differ significantly in the two manuscripts. The transcript follows the spelling of the manuscript, but punctuation and capitalization are editorial. (fol. 130v) Anno, indictione, pontificatu, mense quibus supra, die viiiia dicti mensis marcii, venerabilis et reverendus pater et religiosus honestus magister Adam de Eston’, magister magnus et profundus in sacra pagina, monachus Nordoytensis,189 ordinis sancti Benedicti, etatis xl annorum et ultra, nacione Anglicus, testis iuratus receptus super premissis, dixit se tantum scire [et false secundum quod apparet infra in redicione cause huius dicti que facit de auditu auditus] quod ante conclave quod intrarent cardinales intus tractabant et ordinabant inter se de creacione et electione fienda reverendi patris domini Bartolomei, tunc Barensis archiepiscopi, nunc Urbani pape VI, tanquam ydoneum 190 et magis expertum de actibus curie Romane. Et causa istius electionis fuit discordia dictorum cardinalium, quidam volentes unum de Lemoicensibus, alii vero dominum sancti Eustachii, non concordantes, devenerunt ad antedictum. Interrogatus quomodo scit, respondit et dixit quod per multos familiares intrantes191 votorum dominorum cardinalium secretorum hoc scivit, et publice audivit de dicto Barensi fieri debere electionem [nota quallis sit ista sciencia cum sit de auditu auditus].192 Interrogatus si postquam fuerunt cardinales in conclave fuit rumor, qui asseritur fuisse, vel ante introytum, respondit quod ante introytum conclavis nullus rumor erat seu fuit, sed postquam intraverunt non set demum [nota verba cavillosa et inepta]. (fol. 125r) Post electionem eiusdem domini Barensis secretam [quomodo scis?] in conclavi prefato factam, interrogatus si fuit talis timor qui in constantem virum cadere debuisset, respondit quod non, nec credit quod propter talem rumorem debuissent [nota cavillosam depositionem] fecisse aliter quam fecissent. Interrogatus quare ergo finxerunt Romanum papam, hoc est dominum sancti Petri cardinalem, respondit quia Romanorum rumor [quem dicit fuisse superius electionem secretam et sic restrictio (?) petitionis Romani fuit post electionem] seu clamor solum fuerat de Romano petendo, sed non fuit talis rumor 193 qui in constantem cadere debuisset. Et cardinales 188 Macfarlane, ‘An English Account’, 79–80. 189 Recte Norwicensis. 190 Sic. 191 This refers to the familiares who accompanied the cardinals into the conclave. 192 This is the only annotation which is not keyed by a signe de renvoi, but it is clear to which passage it refers. 193 Recte timor?

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dubitantes [ergo dubitarunt et timuerunt et sic B. fuit per timorem electus] ubi dubitacio [non bene legit c. Pastoral. de sen. et re iu. in cle.]194 esse non debuisset, finxerunt prefatum Romanum papam. Interrogatus quomodo scit, qui respondit quod multi in rumore existentes de Romanis eidem testi loquentes dixerunt quod si Gallicum eligissent, propter hoc dubitare cardinales de morte aut de corporis cruciatu dubitare195 non debuissent, nec fecissent nec erant intencionis [contrarium ostendebat opere unde cardinales non poterant de oculta intencione iudicare] faciendi. Interrogatus quomodo ergo in abscondito fecerunt [non est verum et intrusus in suis capitulis que domino regi sub bulla misit dicit contrarium]196 poni dictum dominum Urbanum papam VI, respondit et dixit quod cardinales, putantes displicuisse Romanis eo quia Romanum non elegerant, sepius requisiti per eosdem Romanos, dictum dominum Urbanum papam VI in abscondito tenuerunt ex abundanti cautela et omnia pericula [ergo pericula inerant] evitando. Interrogatus si scit aliquas fortiores coniecturas fortificantes veritatem antedicti negocii et libere electionis domini Urbani pape VI, respondit et dixit quod vidit quosdam cardinales venire de castro sancti Angeli, ubi stabant absque timore et stare semper [contrarium aparuit manifeste] potuissent absque timore prefato, et alios venientes de domibus suis ad palatium, ubi erat dictus electus, ita quod omnes simul prefati cardinales poterant facere partes duas omnium de collegio cardinalium pro tunc in Romana curia existencium; et prefati cardinales diu cum dicto domino papa de electione facta eiusdem tractaverunt [per hoc non eligitur papa nec electio confirmatur]; tandem in capella parva palatii sancti Petri ipsum vestibus antiquis expoliarunt [non nisi solum capa] et de novo vestibus [vestibus papalibus non fuit indutus in capella sed postea in secreta camera, ut est moris] papalibus induerunt more solito pontificum Romanorum, et sibi assistebant cantantes ‘Te deum laudamus’, pulsata campana, ut est moris. Interrogatus (fol. 125v) si pro tunc rumor vel clamor Romanorum interfuisset tunc respondit quod non, ymo non vidit aliquos ibidem existentes preter curiales [hoc est falsum and in lighter ink: et contrarium deponit episcopus Segobicicen. (?),197 in fine xvii t(estis)].198 Post hec vero publicarunt nomen eius Urbanum VI ad 194 Clem. 2.11.2 (Friedberg, Corpus iuris canonici, ii, cols 1151–3). Titulus 11 has the heading De sententia et re iudicata. 195 This word is superfluous. 196 A reference to the so-called Factum Urbani sent by Urban VI to John I, king of Castile. See Rehberg, ‘Le inchieste’, 274. 197 Recte Segobricen. 198 Martín de Zalva and his associates numbered the witnesses according to a system which has not yet been reconstructed. It is not clear whether the seventeenth witness is the same as

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populum [ergo populus erat ibi], ut est moris et electionem fuisse legitime celebratam. Interrogatus quomodo scit, quia presens fuit, et audivit, vidit, ut dixit. Interrogatus si particulariter de dicte electionis negotio habuit evidenciam certiorem, respondit et dixit quod die secunda sequente post publicationem electionis predicte venit ad domum cuiusdam cardinalis, de senioribus et maioribus inter eos, tempore collationis sue post prandium, et idem dominus cardinalis, ipso teste loquente non requirente, petiit ab eodem teste quomodo sibi placuit electio iam predicta. Et respondit dictus testis quod bene sibi placuit si fuit legitima199 [ergo dubitabat] celebrata; et statim idem dominus cardinalis affirmaverat puro corde [unde scis?] quod a tempore beati Petri non fuit papa magis sancte electus quam fuerit iste Urbanus VI, et quod credit firmiter quod Spiritus Sanctus in ipsa electione singulariter existebat, et quod ipsi elegerunt sanctum dominum atque dignum. Et idem cardinalis petiit, si fecerat reverenciam dicto domino nostro pape, et dixit quod non pro tunc, quia propter pressuram non potuit intrare. Et tunc dictus cardinalis fecit dictum testem dormire in domo sua illa die, ut facilius et celeriter dictam reverenciam exhiberet. Et statim post dormitionem idem cardinalis duxit dictum testem ad palacium appostolicum et presentavit eundem ad pedes domini nostri Urbani et ipsum eidem specialiter comendavit. Item dixit idem testis se audivisse predicta per ipsum asserta superius a pluribus aliis [non specificat et tamen omnes ostendant contrarium in facto] cardinalibus. Interrogatus si antedicti cardinales tractarunt reverenter eum ut verum papam dixit et respondit quod sic, quoniam vidit dominos cardinales quosdam recipientes Corpus domini de manu dicti domini nostri pape in festis solepnibus, 200 ut est moris; et (fol. 126r) in eius consistoriis existentes libere [quomodo scis?]; et ad promotiones per eundem dominum factas consentientes [in hoc non dicit verum quod vidit cum hoc fiant semper in secreto consistorio ubi nullus est nisi papa et cardinales]; et episcopatus et abbacias petentes et obtinentes nec non beneficia pro eis et familiaribus eorum obtinentes ad eorum peticionem. In testimonium cuius dixit interrogatus quod credit quod omnia hec scandala pervenerunt non ex eo quin non sit verus et legitimus papa sed pro eo quod ipse dominus noster papa quibusdam ex dictis cardinalibus fuerat rigorosus et asperus eorum moribus consuetis. the bishop of Segorbe, for in the copy of his testimony in Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 7110, fols 63r–70r, the bishop is designated as the ninth witness. In Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 17, fol. 46v, the entire annotation is in the same ink. 199 Recte legitime. 200 Sic.

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In a different hand and ink201: Et ego predictus Adam testificor me dictum testimonium reddidisse. In cuius rei testimonium mea manu propria hec descripsi et signetum meum apposui ad premissa.

About the author Patrick Zutshi is former Keeper of Manuscripts and University Archives at Cambridge University Library and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He is currently working on sources concerning the outbreak of the Great Schism of 1378.

201 Also in a different hand and ink in Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 17, fol. 47r.

2.

The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180: Adam Easton’s copy of Richard FitzRalph’s De pauperie Salvatoris Lynda Dennison Abstract Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180) has not yet received an art-historical appraisal, nor has the book been firmly dated or localized. Answers to these questions might be provided by assessing the artistic development of the illuminator of Corpus 180 and his hand in other works – as well as examination of closely related ones by other hands – in a period of production estimated to have spanned some forty years, and by charting the career and travels of Adam Easton. Where was Easton – Oxford, Norwich, London or Avignon – when the Pauperie was copied? The presence of elaborate penwork decoration in works attributable to the artist of Corpus 180 makes it possible to draw closer to a location of production for the Pauperie. The chapter also addresses the role of monastic establishments in the production of manuscripts at this time and in this context. Keywords: Illuminations, Richard FitzRalph, De pauperie Salvatoris, Corpus Christi College MS 180

After a distinguished clerical career in Oxford and Avignon, in 1397 Adam Easton bequeathed six barrels of books – a total of 228 volumes – to his former monastery of Norwich Cathedral Priory.1 The manuscript which 1 R.B. Dobson, ‘Easton, Adam (c. 1330–1397)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8417.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch02

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is the subject of this chapter, Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180,2 an illuminated copy of FitzRalph’s De pauperie Salvatoris, is one of the three surviving manuscripts out of 228 which Easton bequeathed to his former monastery.3 The subject-matter on folio 1r is unique in extant English illumination. The image effectively conveys the main thrust of the text – opposition to the friars (Figs. 2.1, 2.4b, 2.5b). In the historiated initial, Richard FitzRalph, theologian and archbishop of Armagh (‘Armachanus’) is seated writing his tome, while the adjacent border witnesses a graphic attack on the friars by devils who disport themselves on the shoulders of a Franciscan and Dominican. They stand on an exaggerated depiction of a winged devil, below which are two friars, a Carmelite and Austin friar; they, in turn, stand on two further caricatured devils. Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris has not as yet received an arthistorical assessment, nor has the book been firmly dated or localized4; it is these areas which will be explored in this chapter. There are two avenues of inquiry which might yield evidence for the dating and localization of the Corpus manuscript: the artistic development of the illuminator of the opening folio and the career and travels of Adam Easton. A third consideration must be the nature of the text and the script. Firstly, I will focus on the Pauperie Artist whose hand I suggest can be identified in other works, central to which is Oxford, New College, MS 242, a copy of Walter Burley’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics.5 This much mutilated volume, approximately twenty-five leaves of which have been excised, retains illuminated borders on folios 2r and 178r, as well as a historiated initial on 2 The manuscript can be accessed digitally at Parker on the Web with a description of its contents, based on M.R. James’s original description (A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 2 vols [Cambridge, 1912], i, 420–1), with full bibliography; bibliographical references relating to specific items will follow. 3 Dobson, ‘Easton’. 4 The forthcoming discussion represents work in progress on an aspect of book production which I have been pursuing and developing over a number of years. In order to set the present manuscript into its artistic and historical context it is thus necessary to briefly recount some of this research with appropriate references so that the reader can see the progression so far. I request the reader’s patience in this with reference to these accumulative writings. 5 J.J.G. Alexander and E. Temple, Illuminated Manuscripts in Oxford College Libraries, the University Archives and the Taylor Institution (Oxford, 1985), 33, no. 323, plate xxiii; L. Dennison, ‘The Significance of Ornamental Penwork in Illuminated and Decorated Manuscripts of the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century’, in Tributes to Kathleen L. Scott: English medieval manuscripts: readers, makers and illuminators, ed. M. Villalobos Hennessy (London and Turnhout, 2009), 31–64, at 38–41, 42. This chapter is a prelude to a larger study which I am planning on the development of border decoration and pen-flourishing in English manuscripts of the fourteenth century.

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folio 2r. Comparison of the opening page from each manuscript highlights a number of stylistic parallels (Figs. 2.1, 2.3). Notable characteristics are the rectilinear borders containing a distinctive serrated half-cabbage leaf and clusters of trefoil leaves. Comparison of details in each manuscript (Figs. 2.4a, b): the historiated initial from the Walter Burley and the mendicants from the Pauperie, gives a clear indication that the same artist participated in the two works. This is especially apparent in the three-quarter heads of the Benedictine and mendicants in each representation where the faces agree exactly in the rendering of the ears and the way in which the brow and nose are delineated in orange pigment in a single continuous line, with the pupil of the eye firmly fixed to the upper lid, and the depiction of the hands is identical. Although the penwork initials in the Pauperie are not especially distinctive, those in the New College Burley are. It is by examination of this penwork, coupled with elements of border decoration evident, for example, in the cabbage leaf forms in both the penwork initials and borders (Figs. 2.1, 2.3, 2.8a), that it is possible to draw closer to the origin of the artist and thus a location of production for the Pauperie and related works. A further parallel is that between the penwork initials of the serrated half-cabbage leaf from the Burley which occur in both the large and small penwork initials and the full version of this form, as in three of the borders of the Pauperie (Figs. 2.1, 2.8a). A copy of Ranulph Higden’s Polychronicon, Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 316,6 shares this distinctive type of pen initial of serrated leaf which replicate those found in the borders of the New College and Corpus manuscripts (Figs. 2.8a, b). In typical fashion the leaves are rendered in reserve against a red and plain parchment, cross-hatched, inner ground, the letter form comprising a parted initial delineated in red and blue abstract forms. A further penwork initial from the Burley, a fine example of which occurs on folio 178r (Fig. 2.9a), closely relates to another 6 N.R. Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 1 (1949), 1–28, at 18–19; F. Avril and P.D. Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire VIIe-XXe siècle, Bibliothèque Nationale, Département des Manuscrits, Centre de recherché sur les manuscrits enluminés (Paris, 1987), no. 207; see also L. Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular? The Artist of the Ramsey Psalter, now at Holkham Hall, Norfolk’, in Monasteries and Society in Medieval Britain: proceedings of the 1994 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. B. Thompson (Stamford, 1999), 223–261, at 227, for further discussion and bibliography; see also L. Dennison and N. Rogers, ‘A Medieval Best-seller: some examples of decorated copies of Higden’s Polychronicon’, in The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: studies in honour of Professor R.B. Dobson, proceedings of the 1999 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. C. Barron and J. Stratford (Donington, 2002), 80–99, at 87–9, 93–4; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 32, 35, 37, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45.

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in the Bodley Polychronicon on folio 109v (Fig. 2.9d), containing interwoven sycamores, one of the other motifs regularly found in this group of closely allied manuscripts. It is important to emphasize that these are not isolated instances but they occur in other copies of the Polychronicon, some of which will be discussed here.7 There is evidence that the Bodley Polychronicon, and another almost identical one, now in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 4922, have early press marks and a coat of arms indicating their original provenance as Norwich Cathedral Priory.8 By 1397, however, the Bodley Polychronicon had been appropriated by Thomas, duke of Gloucester, for his college of secular clergy which he had founded that year at Pleshey Castle, Essex, dedicated, as was Norwich Cathedral Priory, to the Trinity.9 On the first folio of the Norwich Cathedral Priory Polychronicon the same decorative repertoire of serrated half-cabbage and sycamore leaves occurs (Fig. 2.14b) as used in the penwork border of the Pauperie and the penwork initials and borders of the Burley.10 Furthermore, the lower border of the Bodley Polychronicon illustrates a kneeling monk and the arms of Norwich Cathedral Priory, as well as the fine depiction of four columbines, the latter a feature for later discussion (Fig. 2.14b). On the face alone of this evidence it might be construed that Adam Easton’s book, by association with the New College Burley and, importantly, with the Norwich Polychronicons, may also have evolved from Norwich, especially given Easton’s ongoing association with the priory there. But the answer is less simple, as further associated works indicate. Earlier research has established that the Bodley and Paris Polychronicons were illuminated by an artist who was clearly influential on other artists, some of lesser skill, 7 The decorative aspects of copies of the Polychronicon produced in England in the fourteenth century have been the subject of several of my publications; for a summation of this earlier research, see Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 31–7, with further discussion and related examples at 37–45, figures 8a (Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd. 1. 17); 8b (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316); 8c, 10d, 11d (Oxford, Balliol College, MS 95); 10c (Oxford, Balliol College, MS 86); and 11c (Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hatton 14), for further examples of the sycamore, and figures 10b (Cambridge, University Library, MS Dd. 1. 17); 13a (Oxford, Magdalen College, MS 205), for further examples of the serrated half-cabbage leaf. 8 Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 19; Avril and Stirnemann, Manuscrits enluminés d’origine insulaire, no. 207; see also Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 228; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 89, 93–4; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 32, 40. 9 This had occurred sometime between 1393 and 1397 (Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 18). 10 For an illustration of the full page (fol. 8r) of the Polychronicon, Bodley 316, see either Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 16, or eadem, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, figure 1.

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in approximately the last quarter of the fourteenth century.11 His key work is a psalter, MS 26 in the Library of the Duke of Leicester at Holkham Hall, Norfolk,12 originally intended for Ramsey Abbey. The border decoration,13 such as the paired daisy buds (top L), sycamores and serrated half-cabbage leaves, dragons biting onto rectilinear stems (upper border), as well as the columbine or aquilegia (a columbine occurs in the border to one of the other major Psalm divisions in the Holkham MS, that for Psalm 97), comprises a stock of decorative motifs which it shares with Bodley 316.14 Also assignable to this prolif ic artist are three further Polychronicons: Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.2.24, destined for St Augustine’s, Canterbury 15; London, British Library, Royal MS 14 C. IX, which, like the Holkham Psalter, was for Ramsey Abbey; and London, British Library, Royal MS 4 C. VI, an anonymous Commentary on Wisdom, presented by Thomas Besforde to Reading Abbey of which he was a monk.16 The indisputable Ramsey Abbey destination of the psalter, as its calendar clearly indicates, as well as the Ramsey and St Augustine’s Polychronicons, thus enlarge the sphere of provenance for these related works. The question of an original place of manufacture for these artistically connected volumes becomes yet more complex when it can be demonstrated that the Holkham Psalter 11 This artist’s corpus is discussed in Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 223–61. For further aspects and context of this artist’s career, see also L. Dennison, ‘The Suggested Origin and Initial Destination of London, British Library, Additional MS 44949, the M.R. James Memorial Psalter’, in The Legacy of M.R. James: papers from the 1995 Cambridge Symposium, ed. L. Dennison (Donington, 2001), 77–98. 12 For a description of this manuscript, see L.F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts, 1285–1385, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5, 2 vols (London, 1986), ii, 165–6, no. 143; i, 380, 382. This manuscript forms the nucleus of Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 223–61, plates 13, 15, 17, 21, 23. 13 The folio (fol. 22r) under discussion is plate 23 in Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’ 14 For an illustration of Psalm 97, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 17. 15 Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 228, 229, 231, 240, 243, 256, plate 19; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 89, 94; the monk kneeling outside the initial, praying to St Catherine, can be identified as Thomas Arnold, who was ordained acolyte in 1368 and priest in 1370. See A.B. Emden, Donors of Books to S. Augustine’s Abbey Canterbury, Oxford Bibliographical Society, Occasional Publications, 4 (Oxford, 1968), 5; on this manuscript, see also Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 36, 40, f igures 2, 12a; P. Binski and P. Zutshi, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: a catalogue of the collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, 2011), 171–2, no. 181. 16 G.F. Warner and J.P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London, 1921), i, 88, ii, 136; Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 228–9, 231, 234 n. 44, 240, 243, 246, 247, 256, plate 20; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 89, 94. For further elaboration on the stylistic correspondence between these works and others to which they relate, with contextual discussion, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 223–61; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, especially 87–90.

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Artist and associates can be identified in further Polychronicons intended for monastic destinations as widely spread as Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury,17 St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester,18 and Abingdon Abbey, the latter discussed below. Although different scribes occur in these books, it is fully apparent that they share the same distinctive border decoration and vocabulary of penwork initials. One further comparison should suffice in order to establish the existence of a repertoire of models circulating amongst penwork artists and border decorators working within a monastic context, the precise nature of which is as yet to be fully established. The work is a copy of John Mirifield, Breviarium Bartholomei, Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2,19 which has illuminated borders and a historiated initial by the Holkham Psalter Artist. The penwork in the Breviarium supports close comparison with that in the New College Burley, the illumination of which is by the Pauperie Artist. Comparison can be made of an idiosyncratic form of a wavy trefoil leaf highly characteristic of this group of pen flourishers present in both manuscripts (Figs. 2.10b, 2.11a). The Pembroke College manuscript was originally destined for Abingdon Abbey as the arms in the lower border testify (Fig. 2.11c). This positioning of the coat of arms and the distinctive foliage forms in turn recall the lower border in the Norwich Cathedral Priory Polychronicon (Fig. 2.14b). Another distinctive penwork form typical of these flourishers, that of the spear or heart-shaped leaf, occurs in both the New College Burley and the Abingdon Abbey Breviarium (Figs. 2.10c, 2.11b) and there are also instances of the serrated half-cabbage leaf in the Breviarium, agreeing with those in the Burley and others of this ‘group’.20 To reiterate, the New College Burley has initials and borders painted by the Pauperie Artist, whereas the Abingdon Abbey Breviarium has borders and initials painted by the Holkham Psalter Artist. The kinship of these 17 This is the Polychronicon, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B. 191, which is illustrated and discussed in Dennison ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 35–6, figure 7; see also O. Pächt and J.J.G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford, Vol. 3: British, Irish, and Icelandic schools (Oxford, 1973), 65, no. 722. 18 This is the Polychronicon, now MS 89 at Corpus Christi College, Oxford; see Oxford College Libraries, 34, no. 337, plate xxiii; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 89–90, plate 32, with further bibliography, where as well as other parallels in its decorative repertoire with Bodley 316 and related works it shares the distinctive columbine motif in the lower margin; Dennison ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 33 (the plate number in ‘Medieval Best-seller’, n. 12, is given in error as 37 although it is correctly quoted in n. 30 as plate 32). 19 N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Vol. III: Lampeter-Oxford (Oxford, 1983), 671–4; Alexander and Temple, Oxford College Libraries, 36, no. 358, plate xxiv; Dennison ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 36, 41, 44, 45, figures 3, 9d, 12b. 20 As on fols 62r, 73r (in the flourishing) and 152v in Pembroke 2.

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manuscripts is thus manifested not only by their decoration but also by their monastic destinations. A conclusion drawn from earlier studies is that the Holkham Psalter Artist, who may have been the originator of the penwork forms which closely replicate those of the illuminated borders, was semi-itinerant, with a probable base at one or two monastic centres.21 It is estimated that his career spanned a period of some forty years from c.1360–c.1400. The monasteries where the Holkham Psalter Artist and associates operated appear to have functioned as ‘publishers’, supplying books not only to their own communities but to secular patrons and the clergy, in concert with lay illuminators and scribes (although some may have been drawn from their own communities), organized within what might be perceived as a monastic network.22 The array of original destinations introduced thus far still leaves open the question of the place of production for the Pauperie and the closely related New College Burley, both central to this investigation. What does transpire from this overview is that the production of Adam Easton’s book falls within a monastic milieu. A monastic origin is further implied from some later incisions on folio 178r in the Burley. Both the initial and what once occupied the space around it suggest that it originally depicted a kneeling monk or clerical donor, as in the Cambridge, University Library Polychronicon (MS Ii.2.24).23 As briefly noted above, this Polychronicon was originally destined for St Augustine’s, Canterbury, established from the shields depicted in the lower border. As in other related examples, it can be seen that the monastic donor is positioned just outside the initial in the upper left-hand border. Furthermore, judging from this type of decoration it would appear that the excised areas in the centre of the lower and right-hand border in the New College Burley were once filled with a shield or shields, as in the St Augustine’s Polychronicon, the Abingdon Abbey Breviarium and Norwich Polychronicon, all of which have original monastic provenances. This would seem to suggest that the New College Burley, the early provenance of which cannot now be determined, was also commissioned for a monastic 21 Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 251–61, and passim; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 93–5; for an overview of the Holkham Artist’s career, see Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 31–4. 22 Evidence for this is gathered in the following: Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 240–3, 251–61; Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 93; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 49, 50–1; linked to this is the issue of the loan of books and the circulation of exemplars between monastic centres as touched on in Dennison, ‘James Memorial Psalter’, 95. 23 For an illustration of this folio, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 19, or ‘Ornamental Penwork’, figure 2, with a detail at figure 12a.

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house; the monastic ownership of its close relative, the Pauperie, is, of course, not in question. That this category of manuscript was prone to mutilation of this kind by later owners is evidenced in a further Polychronicon, now MS Ee. 2. 22 in Cambridge University Library,24 with the result that it is no longer possible to ascertain its original monastic destination. However, it is clear that the left-hand patch once depicted a monastic donor and the cut-out in the upper right-hand margin was possibly a trumpeter, probably holding a shield. In the Burley, in the left-hand border on folio 178r, just below the excision, the legs of a male figure in hose with arms apparently upstretched are still visible. These related manuscripts thus display identical iconographic idiosyncrasies. Before postulating a centre of production, the other area of inquiry concerns the dating of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180 (De pauperie Salvatoris) and its close relative, the New College Burley. As established, what binds the New College Burley to the Holkham Psalter Artist’s oeuvre is the presence of an identical type of penwork, patterns which were clearly available to this group of associated artists and flourishers. A book showing direct influence from the Holkham Psalter Artist in respect of the border decoration – although not of his hand – is a copy of Nicholas de Lyra’s Postillae in Pentateuchum, now Durham Cathedral MS A. 1. 3,25 dated to 1386, which has an affinity with the Norwich Cathedral Priory Polychronicons and was probably initially intended for Durham Cathedral Priory or for use at Durham College, Oxford. The lower border has the familiar columbine or aquilegia – indicative it would appear of monastic patronage judging from its frequent occurrence in fourteenth-century books destined for monastic establishments.26 The penwork in the New College Burley, however, would 24 Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, plate 28; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 37; Binski and Zutshi, Cambridge University Library, 165–6, no. 174. 25 This is illustrated in Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 18, with discussion and bibliography at 257; see also Dennison and Rogers, ‘Medieval Best-seller’, 90; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 37. 26 Ibid., plate 18. This phenomenon is discussed in Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 33 n. 14, 37 n. 40, and K.L. Scott, Later Gothic Manuscripts 1390–1490, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles 6, 2 vols (London, 1996), ii, 34–5. For the perpetuation of this form c.1400, in a possible Cistercian context, see L. Dennison, ‘The Artistic Origins of the Vernon Manuscript’, in The Making of the Vernon Manuscript: the production and contexts of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Eng. poet. a. 1, ed. W. Scase (Turnhout, 2013), 171–205, at 189, plate 35, datable to 1395–1400, depicting a detail of folio 265r; it also occurs in the lower border on folio 123r of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Misc. 110, a manuscript which originally belonged to a monk of Norwich Cathedral Priory and datable to c.1394–1400, for which see ibid., 201–2, plate 34; for discussion of other manuscripts by this artist with monastic associations, see L. Dennison and N. Morgan, ‘The Decoration of Wycliffite Bibles’, in The Wycliffite Bible: origin, history and interpretation,

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seem to indicate that the Holkham Psalter Artist or his forerunner had made an impact earlier than the 1380s; he, or a close associate, could well have been active from c.1360. Dating evidence is sparse but where it does exist, combined with analysis of the career of the Holkham Psalter Artist whose artistic activity broadly falls within a period from c.1360 to c.1400,27 one might speculate that the Pauperie was executed around 1360, but before drawing a final conclusion other related material must be examined. Although comparisons so far have been made with manuscripts datable to the third to fourth quarters of the fourteenth century, the source of the figure style and border decoration in both Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris and the New College Burley appear to lie in a style which was current in the second quarter of the fourteenth century. This is borne out by comparison between the Pauperie and the body of works datable to the 1340s, assigned to the artist of the Fitzwarin Psalter, now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 765, whose activity was probably curtailed by the Black Death of 1348–9.28 Affinity to that of the Pauperie can be demonstrated by comparing the style of the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist, as represented by a psalter initial from Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 198, of c.1343–5, with details from the opening page in the Pauperie (Figs. 2.4b, 2.5a, b). Although it cannot be denied that the draughtsmanship of the faces and hands is close and that the serrated leaf form occurs in both examples, subtle discrepancies in technique, such as a more refined application of the pigment and treatment of the facial features in Liturg. 198, as well as a wider repertoire of motifs as witnessed in ed. E. Solopova (Leiden, 2017), 266–345, at 292–4. As noted by Elizabeth Danbury and Kathleen Scott (E.A. Danbury and K.L. Scott, ‘The Plea Rolls of the Court of Common Pleas: an unused source for the art and history of Later Medieval England, 1422–1509’, The Antiquaries Journal, 95 [2015], 157–210, at 199, figure 29), the columbine was thought to resemble a dove, the seven columbine petals on one stalk frequently employed to symbolize the Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit, as described in Isaiah 11: 2 (Vulgate and King James Bible). 27 This is the conclusion drawn in Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 240–51, 256–7, where from dating and other documentary evidence, alongside stylistic analysis, it can be estimated that the artist began his career in Oxford, where he was active c.1355–75, and ended it peripatetically in centres in East Anglia, with specific focus on Ramsey Abbey and Norwich Cathedral Priory, but also possibly travelling as far as Durham in the north and Canterbury in the south and, maintaining earlier links with Oxford where the manuscripts for Durham and Canterbury may have been produced at the monastic colleges of those names, for discussion of which see Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork, 42–9, passim. 28 The projected career of the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist in the 1340s up to his demise c.1348/9 is the subject of L. Dennison, ‘“The Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies”: a reappraisal’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. W.M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986), 42–66, figures 1–34, with further bibliography cited at 42–4 nn. 5–8, with, at 64–6 (Appendix 1 and 2), a list of works and suggested dating and chronology.

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the border decoration of the earlier artist,29 tell against the work of a single hand. Rather, it would appear to be the case of a generic agreement resulting from the Pauperie Artist working from earlier exemplars available at the same centre of production, albeit at a later date.30 An explanation might also be found here for the transmission of the unique forms of the pen flourishes/ penwork artists. There are strands of circumstantial evidence that suggest the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist may have begun his career in Oxford and ended it in Cambridge.31 That a stylistic connection exists between this earlier style and the Pauperie Artist is further attested by Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, a copy of pseudo-Grosseteste Compendium philosophiae.32 As well as being analogous to the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist it would appear to be another work by the closely related artist of the Pauperie and New College Burley, and not the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist himself, as comparison of each opening folio testifies (Figs. 2.1, 2.2). The historiated initial in the Compendium philosophiae depicts Robert Grosseteste: if the initial depicting the frontal-facing Grosseteste is compared with that of the pope from the New College Burley there can be little doubt that they were painted by the same artist (Figs. 2.6a, b). Furthermore, it can be seen that the cusped borders with extensions of trefoil sprays in the Compendium philosophiae are in exact agreement with the opening in the Pauperie (Figs. 2.1, 2.2). The facial types in both, although closely related to those by the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist as demonstrated by Liturg. 198, cannot be assigned to that hand, however. Further securing the 29 For further illustrations of this artist’s border decoration, see Dennison, ‘Reappraisal’, figure 33 and ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 29. 30 There are further precedents for this in the fourteenth century, such as after the demise of the influential ‘central’ Queen Mary workshop in the early to mid-1320s their exemplars were being used by artists in the late 1320s/early 1330s, for discussion of which see L. Dennison, ‘The Apocalypse, British Library, Royal MS 19 B. XV: a reassessment of its artistic context in early fourteenth-century English manuscript illumination’, The British Library Journal, 20 (1994), 35–54, where further bibliography concerning the ‘central’ and ‘subsidiary’ Queen Mary groups can be found, and thus challenging the doubts raised by D. Jackson in S. McKendrick, J. Lowden and K. Doyle, Royal Manuscripts: the genius of illumination (London, 2011), 277. The Holkham Psalter Artist, some sixty years later, similarly but with greater inventiveness, used the Psalter of Richard of Canterbury, monk of St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, Glazier MS 53), produced around 1320 by the ‘central’ Queen Mary group, or its prototype, as an exemplar, for discussion of which see Dennison ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 227, 251–4, passim, plates 13, 14, 22, 37. 31 Dennison, ‘Reappraisal’, 62–3, with evidence outlined at 49, 53–4. 32 For a description of this manuscript, hereafter quoted as ‘the Grosseteste’, see R.M. Thomson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of Merton College, Oxford (Cambridge, 2009), 239–40; see also Alexander and Temple, Oxford College Libraries, 36, no. 351, plate xxiv; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 38, 44, figure 13b.

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Fig. 2.1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.2. Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 1r. By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford

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Fig. 2.3. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r. By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

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Fig. 2.4a. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

Fig. 2.4b. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180

Fig. 2.5a. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 198, fol. 91v (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Fig. 2.5b. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.6a. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 2r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

Fig. 2.6b. Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford

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The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180

Fig. 2.7a. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5, fol. 7r (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Fig. 2.7b. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 1r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.8a. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 112r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

Fig. 2.8b. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316, fol. 88v (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Fig. 2.8c. Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 49v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford

Fig. 2.8d. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12, fol. 210v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180

Fig. 2.9a. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 178r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

Fig. 2.9b. Oxford, Merton College, MS 310, fol. 26r (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Fellows of Merton College, Oxford

Fig. 2.9c. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A. 12, Fig. 2.9d. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley fol. 29r (detail). By kind permission of the Master 316, fol. 109v (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.10a. Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12, fol. 53v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of St John’s College, Cambridge

Fig. 2.10b. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 210v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

Fig. 2.10c. Oxford, New College, MS 242, fol. 83v (detail). By kind permission of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford

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The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180

Fig. 2.11a. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 245v (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of Pembroke College, Oxford

Fig. 2.11b. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 47r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of Pembroke College, Oxford

Fig. 2.11c. Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2, fol. 11r (detail). By kind permission of the Master and Scholars of Pembroke College, Oxford

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Fig. 2.12. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 88r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.13. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180, fol. 90r. By kind permission of the Master and Fellows of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge

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Fig. 2.14a. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5, fol. 7r (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

Fig. 2.14b. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316, fol. 8r (detail). The Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford

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intimate connection between the illuminator of the Grosseteste and this coterie of artists associated with the Pauperie are examples of the penwork in Merton 310, with exactly the same foliage-filled forms as in the Norwich Cathedral Priory Polychronicon and the Abingdon Abbey Breviarium by the Holkham Psalter Artist and the New College Burley by the Pauperie Artist, as in comparisons of the sycamore clusters and serrated leaf form (Figs. 2.9a, b, d, 2.10b, 2.11a). Unfortunately, the Merton Grosseteste does not have any indicators for original provenance but it is a text which, like the Walter Burley Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, would have been common in monastic circles and a staple of a monastic library. What conclusions might be drawn from the analysis thus far for the projected date span of the career of the artist of the Adam Easton manuscript? In short, the stylistic evidence poses a dilemma: whereas the figure style of the Pauperie Artist, by association with the 1340s works by the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist, suggests a date no later than 1360, the Burley, also by this artist, has penwork which is especially close to the type employed by the Holkham Psalter Artist, whose artistic career is datable from approximately 1360 to 1400. As already hinted, archaisms of figure and border style are a feature of this related group of artists in that they can be seen to have appropriated forms and structures from earlier Gothic and Romanesque manuscripts with monastic destinations.33 This factor serves to reinforce the monastic milieu in which they were probably operating but at the same time exacerbates the dating of this material on stylistic grounds. Currently, all that can be stated with a fair degree of certainty is that the artist of Corpus 180, New College 242 and Merton 310 holds features in common with Pre-Black Death illumination, a phenomenon which is also characteristic of the Holkham Psalter Artist, some of whose forms originate from the central Queen Mary group of the first quarter of the fourteenth century.34 It might be concluded therefore on stylistic grounds that Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris was produced in the period midway between these two datable points, sometime in the 1350s or 1360s. Does this proposed dating have the support of other evidence and does this evidence bring us any closer to a suggested place of manufacture for Adam Easton’s book and its related works within this projected monastic network? Adam Easton’s opposition to the friars was well known. The De pauperie Salvatoris comprises eight books.35 It was clearly copied and decorated for 33 See Dennison ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 225–7, 231, 239, 252, 253, 260–1; eadem, ‘James Memorial Psalter’, 90–1. 34 Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, specifically 225–6. 35 See above, n. 2.

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Easton, as the contemporary colophon, Liber domini Adam Easton monachi Norwicensis at the end of the seventh book testifies. The decorated script of the colophon is identical to that of the headings in Books I to VII (Fig. 2.12). The opening to Book VIII however was added after Easton’s note of ownership at the end of Book VII36 (Fig. 2.13). The next line of inquiry in establishing a firmer date and location of production for the Easton Pauperie might be to ascertain the whereabouts of Adam Easton and the author, Richard FitzRalph in this period. By 1352–3 Easton was at Gloucester College, where he remained for some years. Between 1357 and 1363 there is evidence that he was called to his mother house, Norwich, to denounce the errors of the Franciscan friars. Apart from this brief sojourn, his career to 1366 suggests that he spent most of his time in Oxford. By the early 1360s his fellow Benedictines regarded Easton as their most promising colleague academically; by 1363–4 he was doctor of Theology and remained at Oxford long enough to be made academic superior of Gloucester College in 1366. He was in Avignon by May 1368 where, from then on, he resided intermittently.37 Turning to Richard FitzRalph, he was adumbrating his debate on the question of the friars through the early 1350s, the first major attack being in 1350. There is evidence that when FitzRalph returned to London in the summer of 1356 his draft of the first seven books of De pauperie Salvatoris, which he had in his baggage, was nearly completed and that the work was soon in circulation in London and Oxford. FitzRalph was probably back in Avignon in 1357, where he died in 1360.38 It is important to establish at this point that FitzRalph’s original draft of Books I to VII of De pauperie Salvatoris, written in Avignon, is not the copy now in the library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.39 Thus, there is no reason to suppose that Easton’s manuscript, now in Corpus, 36 Book VIII constitutes fols 90r–128v. 37 The facts concerning Easton’s career are derived from Dobson, ‘Easton’. 38 The facts concerning FitzRalph’s career are derived from K. Walsh, ‘Fitzralph [FitzRalph], Richard [called Armachanus] (b. before 1300, d. 1360)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/9627. See also K. Walsh, A FourteenthCentury Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), 38, 58–9, 136–7, 164, 170, 183, 235, 287, 325–6, 347–50, 365–6, 373, 375–406, 411–15, 433–4, 440, 458, 469, for further details of the text of De pauperie Salvatoris with, at 472–5, an appendix comprising a complete list of extant copies with descriptions. 39 According to Walsh, FitzRalph’s original draft of Books I to VII of De pauperie Salvatoris is probably Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, CVP 1430, for which see ibid., 136 n. 136, 388–9, 458 n. 25, 475. She reckons it to be the earliest datable text. The earliest version of Book VIII, a dialogue in fifty-four articles which may have been compiled in Avignon, survives in Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 3222, fols 1 ra–77 vb.

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was copied in Avignon unless the script and decoration support it. 40 The question arises as to whether the text of the eighth book had already been completed before FitzRalph’s return to Avignon. In all likelihood this was not the case and it might be conjectured that Easton struck whilst the iron was hot and set about having the text of the f irst seven books copied from FitzRalph’s draft in London or Oxford and the opening folio illuminated (as well as the decorative initials in this portion) between 1356 and 1357 before his departure for Norwich that year. Of Easton’s manuscript, a single scribe copied the f irst seven books (Figs. 2.1 and 2.12). The script of the eighth book is closely compatible and could well represent the work of the same scribe at a slightly later date (Fig. 2.13). A passage in time between the two portions (i.e. Books I to VII on the one hand and Book VIII on the other) is supported by the dedicatory inscription to Easton which, as noted, appears not at the end of the eighth book, as one would expect if they were a single campaign, but at the end of the seventh. Apart from a simple burnished gold, penwork initial with small extensions at the opening to the eighth book, comparable to those in the first seven books, it is not decorated (Fig. 2.13). There are no obvious aesthetic reasons to suggest that either scribe was not English. Even if it were fully, or in part, copied in Avignon Walsh suggests that it was possibly the work of Easton’s secretary, which would imply an English scribe who travelled with him. 41 Deciding finally whether or not to place the production of Easton’s copy comprising the seven books to 1356/7 – with a small lapse in time between the production of the eighth book – or post FitzRalph’s death to sometime in the 1360s, or later – may have to rest largely on artistic considerations although there are other compelling factors which suggest that Books I to VII are the product of the late 1350s and not the late 1360s. We know that Easton remained in Oxford throughout most of the 1350s and 1360s, where he was involved with administrative duties and it is thus conceivable that he came into contact with FitzRalph there, or in London, during the latter’s brief sojourn in England. FitzRalph is a person with whom Easton would have shared some common ground in opposition to the mendicants; FitzRalph and Easton trod the same paths although not necessarily at the 40 Walsh (Richard FitzRalph, 390) apparently discounts the possibility of two separate campaigns for Books I to VII and Book VIII, respectively, although (ibid., 433) she refers to Book VIII as a supplement to it and postulates (ibid., 473) that it is possible that Easton acquired […] the first seven books in Oxford at some stage before his departure for Avignon. 41 Walsh is of the opinion that the respective parts are probably by the same scribe whom she considers to be English, for which see Walsh, Richard FitzRalph, 473.

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same time, except for that brief period when FitzRalph’s writings were circulating in London and Oxford in the late 1350s. 42 All of this suggests that the Corpus Christi College Pauperie is an early copy of the original text, a date which has the support of the decoration. Therefore, taking into account both the travels of Easton and the likely date of the first seven books of the Pauperie, it might reasonably be conjectured that Easton’s copy was produced sometime between 1356, the earliest date possible for the composition of Books I to VII, and 1368 before his departure for Avignon, as supported by the illumination which is unquestionably English. It is unlikely to have been executed in Avignon, where Easton spent much of his time from 1368 onwards. If the scribe were Easton’s secretary and Book VIII was not copied until after Easton’s arrival in Avignon in 1368, with a date in the late 1350s for Books I to VII, a passage of some ten years would account for the subtle changes in the closely related script in both parts (i.e. Books I to VII and Book VIII). And Easton’s secretary, as the scribe, gives credence to the notion that Books I to VII – the portion unquestionably illuminated by an English artist – were prepared in Oxford, and that Book VIII without figural illumination, a few years later in Avignon.43 Conversely, Book VIII could have followed more closely on the heels of Books I to VII. Walsh postulates that the original copy of Book VIII (now Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 3222) may have been written during or soon after the proceedings in London of January, February and March 1358, when the friars’ Libellus was introduced and the tribunal heard the Exceptiones of each party in reply to the Libellus of the other. 44 Therefore, Easton’s copy of Book VIII could have been produced soon after this date, long before his departure for Avignon in 1368. Oxford rather than Norwich or London for both the copying and illumination of the Corpus manuscript is supported by further strands of evidence which cumulatively support Oxford as the location of production for the Pauperie and its relatives. Tentative evidence is offered by the fact that the New College Burley was in the hands of Thomas Chaundler, chancellor of Oxford University from 1457 to 1461 and again from 1472 to

42 Ibid., 472. 43 Walsh considers (Richard FitzRalph, 433 n. 87, 440) that Book VIII, written to combat the friars’ countercharges after 1357, may have been added at Avignon (ibid., 413), the seven books of the dialogue having been put into circulation in Oxford before 18 December 1356 (see ibid., 414), thus supporting the earlier date postulated on stylistic grounds. 44 Walsh, Richard FitzRalph, 432–3 n. 87.

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1479. 45 This could imply that the manuscript was in circulation in Oxford at an earlier date. Furthermore, the text of the Burley was popular in Oxford circles: for many years Burley, a fellow of Merton College, had been regent in the arts at the University of Oxford. Some time after Bury was enthroned as bishop of Durham, Burley and Richard FitzRalph became members of Bury’s household of churchmen in Durham, so the two men were well known to each other. 46 Two further fourteenth-century copies of Walter Burley’s Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics (Oxford, Balliol College, MS 95, 47 and Oxford, All Souls College, MS 86) have penwork decoration characteristic of this group; both were probably copied in Oxford. 48 Returning to De pauperie Salvatoris, Walsh considers that Easton must have been present at Oxford during 1356–7 when FitzRalph launched the seven books which became the basis of debate on the entire mendicant question in the schools for a brief period. 49 Thus, it is likely that Easton’s Books I to VII were copied and decorated soon after the text became current in Oxford, probably in the late 1350s, this being compatible with the date suggested on stylistic and palaeographical grounds. From evidence accumulated thus far it might be speculated that Merton 310 pre-dates Corpus 180 and that New College 242 post-dates it. Is there any further evidence which might secure Oxford as the genesis of the style associated with Adam Easton’s copy of De pauperie Salvatoris? A missal, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5,50 has one figural initial which alone secures a precise relationship with the Easton manuscript, the New College Burley and the Merton Grosseteste, as comparison of the facial types and figure forms in each work testifies (Figs. 2.6a, b, 2.7a, b). The missal is otherwise copiously illuminated with decorated initials, 45 Chaundler (d. 1490), whose arms have been added on folios 1v and 2r, bequeathed the manuscript to New College; see Alexander and Temple, Oxford College Libraries, 33, no. 323, plate xxiii, with further bibliography. 46 For Burley’s career, see M.C. Sommers, ‘Burley, Walter (b. 1274/5, d. in or after 1344)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/4037. 47 For a description of Balliol MS 95, see R.A.B. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), 79; see also Alexander and Temple, Oxford College Libraries, 33, no. 321; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 43, 45, figure 10d. 48 A.G. Watson, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts of All Souls College, Oxford (Oxford, 1997), 181–3; see also Alexander and Temple, Oxford College Libraries, 33, no. 321 and 37, no. 363; Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 43. 49 Walsh, Richard FitzRalph, 347, 411, 413, 414–15, 472. 50 Pächt and Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library, 3, 61, no. 668; see also Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 233–4; eadem, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 37 n. 40, 39–40, 46.

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borders and penwork, which further bear out its intimate relationship to the stylistic group defined. Although there can be no doubt that the figural illuminator of the missal is indeed the hand of the Pauperie, the border decoration which forms an intrinsic part of the figural initial further supports an intimate relationship with this coterie of manuscripts. Although witnessing to an expansion of the decorative repertoire, the borders of the missal bear all the hallmarks of this artist’s decorative vocabulary, such as the lion masks, serrated half-cabbage leaves and rectilinear border structures,51 all of which also recall the pre-1350 works of the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist on the one hand and the Holkham Psalter Artist’s works, of approximately the final third of the fourteenth century, on the other.52 The same observation can be made when the opening page of the missal is compared with a folio from an early work by the Holkham Psalter Artist, now Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson G. 185, the so-called Derby Psalter, where there is agreement in overall design.53 The missal, by the Pauperie Artist, might thus be seen as transitional between the pre-Black Death works by the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist and the post-Black Death works of the Holkham Psalter Artist, and it would appear that in this way border designs and motifs were perpetuated between three separate generations of this associated group of artists. Of further interest, the Derby Psalter was an Augustinian commission; an Augustinian monk can be seen kneeling outside the initial in the manner of the Polychronicons.54 Returning again to the missal, comparison with the Norwich Polychronicon – a work by the Holkham Psalter Artist – highlights the relatively uncommon yet highly suggestive occurrence of columbines in the lower border of each manuscript, observed in other manuscripts of this group, a form which as noted would appear to have had resonance in monastic circles (Figs. 2.14a, b).55 The 51 Cambridge, Christ’s College, MS 2, a copy of William de Pagula, Summa summarum, hitherto not placed in an artistic context, has identical border decoration to that in the missal, with the same repertoire of forms and bright pigments with emphasis on orange, and is clearly by the same artist. However, it is devoid of figural illumination and has no documentary evidence of provenance. For a description of this manuscript, see M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western Manuscripts in the Library of Christ’s College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1905), 2–3. 52 For an illustration of a full-page from the missal, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 25, which, for example, can in turn be compared with ibid., plate 29 (Liturg. 198, fol. 46r) and plate 16 (Bodley 316, fol. 8r). 53 Such as that on folio 20r, illustrating Psalm 26, for an illustration of which, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, plate 26. The Derby Psalter is datable to the mid-1360s, see ibid., 243. For bibliography on this manuscript, see Dennison, ‘James Memorial Psalter’, 83-4, n. 32. 54 See ibid., plate 26. 55 See also n. 26 above for further context.

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missal was executed for the Bonhommes of Edington Priory, who followed the rule of St Augustine, for use at Buckland church, Berkshire, twelve miles south-west of Oxford. The property and advowson of the church were acquired in 1353/4 by the Bonhommes,56 and a date of 1353/4, or after, fits stylistically with the chronology proposed in this paper.57 Further support for Oxford is provided by yet another Polychronicon, this time destined for Hyde Abbey, Winchester, now Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12,58 and containing the same pen forms as the New College Burley and related works (Figs. 2.8a-d, 2.9a-d, 2.10a, b, c, 2.11a, b). It was copied by John Lutton, a professional scribe documented as working in Oxford in the late fourteenth century,59 a scribe who can be identified in the same book as the Holkham Psalter Artist.60 Thus, bearing in mind the various strands of circumstantial evidence, Oxford might reasonably be forwarded as a locus of activity for this group of related artists and pen flourishers, but what form might this production have taken? What evidence, if any, exists for the book trade in Oxford in the second half of the fourteenth century? Ian Doyle has noted that Oxford in general 56 For which see J.H. Stevenson, ed., The Edington Cartulary, Wiltshire Record Society, 42 (Devizes, 1987), xxiii, 136–7. 57 Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, 234. On account of the missal’s intimate stylistic relationship to the hand of the Fitzwarin Psalter and related works, at the time of the earlier research I erroneously assigned it to the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist’s hand (ibid., 233). As a result of the appearance of the Pauperie artist as a distinctly different personality it serves to reaffirm my original conclusion which argued for the death of the Fitzwarin Artist 1348/50. I thus no longer assign the missal to the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist and this allows for a more realistic, post-1350, date for the missal. My dilemma over this question and reluctance to dismiss a 1340s date for the Fitzwarin Psalter Artist’s corpus is evident from my observations and reservations as expressed in ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 39–40, where I state that ‘it is too early to consider a re-dating (i.e. to after 1350) of the Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies’. Merton 310, as argued here by the same hand as the missal and not that of the Fitzwarin Psalter and related manuscripts, posed the same dilemma (ibid., 38) and can now be more firmly dated to after the Black Death, to sometime in the 1350s. 58 M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John’s College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913), 16, no. 12; see also Dennison, ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 42. 59 A.I. Doyle, ‘The English Provincial Book Trade before Printing’, in Six Centuries of the Provincial Book Trade in Britain, ed. P. Isaac (Winchester, 1990), 13–29, at 18. John Lutton, recorded as a scribe in Oxford (Doyle, ‘The English Provincial Book Trade before Printing’, 18), signed two other surviving books, another Polychronicon, London, British Library, MS Arundel 86, with an original provenance of Bath Abbey, and a biblical commentary for Reading Abbey, London, British Library, Royal 4 C. VI, noted above on p. 69 (Warner and Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, i, 88); see also Dennison ‘Ornamental Penwork’, 42–3, 51. 60 The manuscript in question is the Reading Abbey biblical commentary (Royal 4 C. VI).

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appears to have been a centre for the supply of books to other places, especially monasteries, which had students there,61 and that copying at Durham College, Oxford, ‘would be very suitable tasks for student monks as well as tools for the community’.62 It has been noted in this paper that a number of works related to those with an Oxford orientation were destined for monastic centres widely spread. The findings of Malcolm Parkes support those of Doyle, who refers to the findings of Pollard: it is well known that Pollard unearthed the names of nineteen illuminators, twelve bookbinders, eleven parchment makers, and nine exemplari (probably scribes) in Oxford records before 1300.63 However, for the fourteenth century and the late Gothic period as a whole, Parkes concluded that ‘there is scarcely any evidence which allows us to identify scribes who accepted commissions in Oxford from members of the university or from the colleges’, most scribes remaining anonymous, including the one who produced the early-fourteenth-century specimen sheet of styles of handwriting available to those wishing to commission liturgical books.64 Even where sparse references do occur, there is ‘no evidence to identify securely any of these scribes as resident local craftsmen operating from their own premises in Oxford’.65 The apparent silence on this question of scribal activity for the fourteenth century in Oxford, in a fully commercial sense, may in itself be indicative. Of particular interest is Parkes’s discussion of the Franciscan and Dominican friars who, in his view, constitute the first signs of organization or corporate enterprise in the provision of books for the purposes of study at Oxford.66 Reinforcing Parkes’s independent conclusions for the Oxford friars’ association with peciae, he refers to the research of R.H. and M.A. Rouse and the Paris Dominicans, concluding from their evidence that the Dominicans may have played a major role in the development and exploitation of the pecia system in that

61 Doyle, ‘The English Provincial Book Trade before Printing’, 18. 62 A.I. Doyle, ‘Book Production by the Monastic Orders in England (c. 1375–1530): Assessing the Evidence’, in Medieval Book Production: assessing the evidence, proceedings of the second conference of the Seminar in the History of the Book to 1500, Oxford, July 1988, ed. L.L. Brownrigg (Los Altos Hills, 1990), 1–19, at 9. 63 M.B. Parkes, ‘The Provision of Books’, in The History of the University of Oxford, Vol. 2: late medieval Oxford, ed. J.I. Catto and R. Evans (Oxford, 1992), 407–83, at 413, quoting G. Pollard, ‘The University and the Book Trade in Mediaeval Oxford’, in Beiträge zum Berufsbewusstsein des mittelalterlichen Menschen, ed. P. Wilpert, Miscellanea Medievalia, 3 (Berlin, 1964), 336–44. 64 Parkes, ‘Provision of Books’, 414 65 Ibid., 415. 66 Ibid., 431–45, 467–8.

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city.67 Although Parkes concedes that exemplars divided into peciae must have been available in Oxford, he challenges some earlier conclusions made by Destrez and Pollard concerning the existence of a pecia system operating in Oxford in the fourteenth century, such as that in Paris, concluding that the ‘existence of a pecia system for disseminating copies of texts for the higher faculties in Oxford under the control of the university is inconclusive’.68 Parkes notes that the monastic orders soon followed the example of the friars in promoting higher studies among their members.69 He cites much evidence for the fluid exchange of books, Gloucester College permitting monks to borrow from one house to another, borrowing being a frequent practice even outside the order, of copying in Oxford from earlier exemplars produced elsewhere, brought to the monastic colleges for the purpose, and the acquisition of books by monks whilst studying in Oxford.70 Of further relevance is his conclusion that the university seems to have had little impact on the provision of books.71 Conceivably, this is suggesting that the monastic and mendicant orders remained powerful in the fourteenth century, in controlling the available professional scribes and, indeed, artists. Clearly, there is scope for a rethinking of the provision of books for students and others resident in and around Oxford in the second half of the fourteenth century, the period of direct relevance to this discussion. Given the existence of the monastic colleges in Oxford, as well as the stylistic and other evidence gathered in this and earlier research, it would seem appropriate to consider the involvement of the monastic orders in book production. Indeed, the Benedictine and Augustinian orders may have controlled the provision of the decorated texts discussed here. Although professional scribes, illuminators and pen flourishers are likely to have been the main providers of these decorated texts, it is possible that at this time and in this context they could only function effectively with the support of religious establishments and the patronage which they alone could provide, 67 Ibid., 468–9; R.H. Rouse and M.R. Rouse, ‘The Book Trade at the University of Paris c. 1250–1350’, in La Production du livre universitaire au moyen age. Actes du symposium tenu au Collegio San Bonaventura de Grottaferrata en mai 1983, ed. L.J. Bataillon, B.G. Guyot, R.H. Rouse (Paris, 1988), 41–123, at 59–63. 68 Parkes, ‘Provision of Books’, 463–8. 69 Ibid., 446; D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Cambridge, 1948–61), i, 23, 25; M.W. Sheehan, ‘The Religious Orders 1220–1370’, in The History of the University of Oxford, Vol. 1: The early Oxford schools, ed. J. Catto (Oxford, 1984), 193–223, at 213–20. 70 Parkes, ‘Provision of Books’, 446–54. For an interpretation of this evidence in an artistic context, see Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’, passim; eadem, ‘James Memorial Psalter’, 89–90, 95–6, plates 12–22; ‘Ornamental Penwork’. 71 Ibid., 462–70.

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whether for their own consumption or as entrepreneurs for other patrons, ecclesiastical or lay.72 To conclude, I propose that Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris should be placed within the context of monastic-influenced production and that Books I to VII were copied and illuminated for Easton in Oxford, around 1356–7, and certainly before his departure for Avignon, coinciding with the time when the text of De pauperie Salvatoris was current in theological debate in the Oxford schools and when Easton occupied a prominent position at Gloucester College. As a result of this investigation it has been possible to attribute the illumination in five manuscripts to the artist of Adam Easton’s De pauperie Salvatoris. Moreover, the penwork and border decoration of these related works has served to extend and reinforce the debate of monastic involvement in manuscript production in England in the fourteenth century.73

Appendix Shelfmark / Short title / Original destination / Artist Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180 / Pauperie / for Adam Easton / Pauperie Artist Oxford, New College, MS 242 / Burley / probably monastic / Pauperie Artist Oxford, Merton College, MS 310 / pseudo-Grosseteste / probably monastic / Pauperie Artist Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don. b. 5 / missal / for Bonhommes of Edington Priory, Buckland church, Oxfordshire / Pauperie Artist Cambridge, Christ’s College, MS 2 / Pagula / not known / Pauperie Artist Holkham Hall, Norfolk, MS 26 / Polychronicon / Ramsey Abbey / Holkham Psalter Artist London, British Library, Royal MS 14 C. IX / Polychronicon / Ramsey Abbey / Holkham Psalter Artist Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii. 2. 24 / Polychronicon / St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury / Holkham Psalter Artist Oxford, Bodleian Library, Bodley 316 / Polychronicon / Norwich Cathedral Priory / Holkham Psalter Artist 72 This conclusion was arrived at in Dennison, ‘Monastic or Secular?’ and ‘Ornamental Penwork’, passim. 73 For a list of manuscripts discussed in this paper each with shelfmark, short title, original destination and suggested artist, see the Appendix to this article.

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Oxford, Bodleian Library, Rawlinson B. 191 / Polychronicon / Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury / Holkham Psalter Artist Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 89 / Polychronicon / St Peter’s Abbey, Gloucester / Holkham Psalter Artist Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2 / Breviarium / Abingdon Abbey / Holkham Psalter Artist London, British Library, Royal MS 4 C. VI / biblical commentary / Reading Abbey / Holkham Psalter Artist / copied by John Lutton of Oxford Cambridge, St John’s College, MS A 12 / Polychronicon / Hyde Abbey, Winchester / copied by John Lutton of Oxford / Holkham Psalter Artist – related London, British Library, MS Arundel 86 / Polychronicon / Bath Abbey / copied by John Lutton of Oxford / Holkham Psalter Artist – related Oxford, All Souls College, MS 86 / Burley / not known / probably copied in Oxford; Holkham Psalter Artist – related Oxford, Balliol College, MS 95 / Burley / not known / probably copied in Oxford / Holkham Psalter Artist – related Cambridge, University Library, MS E. 2. 22 / Polychronicon / probably monastic / influenced by Holkham Psalter Artist Durham, Cathedral Library, MS A. I. 3 / Postillae / Durham Cathedral Priory / influenced by Holkham Psalter Artist Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Lat. 765 / psalter / for Fitzwarin family / Fitzwarin Psalter Artist, patterns influential upon the Pauperie Artist Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 198 / psalter / for northern lay patron / Fitzwarin Psalter Artist, patterns influential upon the Pauperie Artist

About the author Lynda Dennison tutors in Art History in Oxford and is a former researcher for the Cambridge Manuscripts Project. She has published extensively, especially on English manuscripts of the fourteenth century, and is currently preparing a commentary for a facsimile of Queen Mary’s Psalter (British Library, Royal MS 2 B. VII).

3.

Adam Easton and the Lutterworth Wall Paintings Revisited1 Miriam Gill

Abstract In his monograph on Easton, Andrew Lee proposed that a previously unidentif ied contemporary portrait of the cardinal may be preserved in the form of an image added to an existing morality wall painting in the parish church of Lutterworth in Leicestershire. This proposal not only suggests the existence of a second representation of this important historical f igure, but makes this wall painting a public visual expression of the ongoing animosity between Easton and the reformer John Wyclif, the incumbent at Lutterworth. This chapter reviews the conservation history and uncovering of the painting, its probable dating, its visual conventions and its iconographic content. This examination of the evidence makes Lee’s suggestion untenable; however, careful examination of the image of the cardinal shows that it was most probably once part of a scene of the Mass of St Gregory, a late medieval devotional theme exemplifying the doctrine of Transubstantiation. The Lutterworth mural thus represents the trenchant restatement in Wyclif’s former parish of the orthodox position which Adam Easton so vigorously defended. Keywords: Mass of St Gregory, Lutterworth, Wyclif

1 In grateful acknowledgement of the persistent encouragement and kindness of the Prof. Joan Greatrex without which this article would not have been completed, the committed support of Prof. Clive Marsh who got me writing again, Revd Canon Dr Stephen Foster for his liturgical advice and my family and colleagues who gave me the time to complete this chapter.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch03

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Introduction In his monograph, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, Andrew Lee suggests that a small figure of a cardinal in an area of wall painting on the north wall of the north aisle of St Mary’s parish church, Lutterworth in Leicestershire could constitute a likeness of Adam Easton (c.1330–1397).2 Easton was made a cardinal in 1382 and the figure at Lutterworth is clearly presented in this guise with a red broad-brimmed galero hat, red shoulder cape or mozetta, and either a raised collar or hood, covering his hair.3 Only the upper parts of the figure of the cardinal and an accompanying ecclesiastic survive. They are small in scale and represented in the linear style typical of English medieval wall paintings. However, Lee considers that the face and features of the cardinal are not implausible as a reference to Easton’s likeness as ‘known’ from his tomb. 4 At the time of Easton’s elevation to the cardinalate, John Wyclif (d. 1384), rector of Lutterworth, would have been ‘one of the few Englishmen who knew what Adam looked like’.5 If the features of the Lutterworth cardinal appear relatively youthful, Lee contends that they record Wyclif’s memories from a meeting with Easton some thirty years earlier.6 Lee also identifies the accompanying ecclesiastic as a probable representation of Bishop Thomas Brinton of Rochester (d. 1389), an associate of Easton, describing Easton and Brinton as ‘the two men Wyclif feared most, the men who had done the most to confound his career and oppose the dissemination of his views’.7 Seen in this light, the Lutterworth painting becomes a visual expression of the ‘struggle for supremacy’ between Adam Easton and John Wyclif.8 These figures of cardinal and cleric are painted over the middle of regal figures in an earlier mural of the Three Living and Three Dead. This subject, recorded in over fifty parish murals in England, depicts three elite figures confronted by three skeletons who remind them of their mortality.9 At Lutterworth 2 A. Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman: the life and times of Adam Easton (Lydney, 2006), 284–7, 319–21; for a recent assessment of the paintings at Lutterworth, see J. Morris, ‘An Overview of Pre-Reformation Wall Paintings in Leicestershire and Rutland Churches’, The Harborough Historian, 28 (2011), 34–9. See also Claudia Bolgia’s article on Easton’s tomb in the present volume. 3 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 320. 4 Ibid., 321. 5 Ibid., 321. 6 Ibid., 321. 7 Ibid., 320. 8 Ibid., 321. 9 M. Gill, ‘Late Medieval Wall Painting in England: content and context’, PhD thesis, Courtauld Institute of Art (2002), 390, 531–5; for a recent survey of this theme, see A. Kinch, ‘Image, Ideology

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the diminutive cardinal and ecclesiastic look up at the fragmentary remains of the skeletons’ ‘towering figures’.10 Lee suggests that possibly ‘Wyclif had them added to the original to make his point, defying them to contemplate their own mortality’.11 He regards the apparent addition of these figures as a deliberate intervention either by John Wyclif himself in his final years or shortly after his death by his supporters.12 This interpretation accords the Lutterworth mural a far greater significance than it would command as an additional schematic record of the cardinal’s appearance. As early as 1376 Adam Easton had offered himself to the task of refuting Wyclif’s ideas (particularly his attacks on the Benedictine Order) and to carry out this task requested records of Wyclif’s teaching, which probably included notes taken down by Oxford students.13 Easton’s investigations were the source of the nineteen propositions for which Wyclif was condemned for heresy by Pope Gregory XI in May 1377.14 In his Defensorium (completed between 1378 and 1381) Easton referred to Wyclif with phrases which combined an acknowledgement of his prominence with significant doubts about his orthodoxy. For example, Wyclif is characterized as ‘a certain new master John, very much honoured for his learning, though reproved by the Church in some things’.15 On his part, Wyclif, in a sermon denouncing those who had reported him to the Curia, ascribed his troubles to ‘a certain black dog’ (a derogatory reference to the Benedictine Order) and a ‘Tolstanus’.16 Commentators from McFarlane onwards have identified this figure with Easton; ‘Tolstanus’ being a miscopied or derisive version of ‘Estonus’.17 In his De eccelsia (dated early 1378 to early 1379) Wyclif also stated that is was Bishop Brinton who had personally informed him of the papal condemnation of his views.18 and Form: the Middle English “Three Dead Kings” in its iconographic context’, The Chaucer Review, 43.1 (2008), 48–81. 10 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 320. 11 Ibid., 320. 12 Ibid., 320. 13 W.A. Pantin, ‘The Defensorium of Adam Easton’, EHR, 51 (1936), 675–80, at 677; M. Harvey, ‘Adam Easton and the Condemnation of John Wyclif’, EHR, 113 (1998), 321; eadem, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 321–34 at 228–9. 14 Harvey, ‘Adam Easton’, 321; eadem, The English in Rome, 195–6 and 213–37. 15 Harvey, ‘Adam Easton’, 323. 16 Harvey, The English in Rome, 195. 17 McFarlane acknowledged in Harvey, The English in Rome, 195. 18 For dating of De ecclesia, see T. Shogimen, ‘Wyclif’s Ecclesiology and Political Thought’, in Companion to John Wyclif: late medieval theologian, ed. I.C. Levy (Leiden, 2006), 199–240, at 200; for Wyclif on Brinton, see A.E. Larsen, ‘John Wyclif, c. 1331–1384’, in Companion to John

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By suggesting that the painting expresses the highly personalized confrontation between John Wyclif and his prominent opponents, Easton and Brinton, Lee sets the Lutterworth mural in the context of the intellectual and theological ferment of the late fourteenth century. However, its validity must be tested in relation to the physical context of the Lutterworth painting. The theory that the cardinal figure at Lutterworth is a representation of Easton deliberately added to an existing mural in the 1380s is fundamentally reliant on the material evidence still preserved in the sequence of painted plaster. This can be understood as ‘vertical archaeology’. Each layer and its polychromy represents a different historical moment. The area of painting above the north door at Lutterworth is a palimpsest. Remains of three periods of painting, two medieval and one Victorian, are visible. The earliest layer depicts the Three Living and Three Dead and comprises the upper bodies of three regal figures and the more fragmentary figures of three skeletons. The second later medieval layer includes the upper parts of the f igures of a cardinal and an ecclesiastic. When this area of painting was f irst uncovered in the nineteenth century, its appearance was significantly modified by the restorers. This was to have lasting consequences for its interpretation. The distorting impact of this initial intervention and the discoveries made during the second significant conservation of the painting in the 1980s account for its current, visually confusing appearance and this confusion is further compounded by errors and misunderstandings in the secondary literature.

Historical context The parish church at Lutterworth was presented to John Wyclif in April 1374.19 However, it only became his principal residence after his controversial views on the Eucharist prompted the University of Oxford to proceed against him; Penn assigns Wyclif’s move to Lutterworth to shortly after May 1381.20 Wyclif spent his final years at Lutterworth revising his theological writings and composing new works.21 The freedom with which Wyclif, 1–65, at 34, 36. See also H. Summerson, ‘Brinton, Thomas (d. 1389)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 2004), https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/3442. 19 Larsen, ‘John Wyclif’, 20; for the most recent clarification of the benefices held by Wyclif (somewhat at odds with his stated views on non-residence), see N. Orme, ‘Note and Document: John Wycliffe and the Prebend of Aust’, JEH, 61 (2010), 144–52. 20 S. Penn, ‘Wyclif and the Sacraments’, in Companion to John Wyclif, 241–91, at 251. 21 Larsen, ‘John Wyclif’, 58.

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he publicly promoted his ideas in these final years suggests that he enjoyed a level of royal protection.22 From Lutterworth, Wyclif’s ideas, even if he did not himself initiate them, certainly inspired early Lollardy in local centres such as Leicester.23 Lee’s interpretation of the Lutterworth painting follows a long-established and enduring historiographical interest (at times almost hagiographical) in connecting the fixtures and fittings of Lutterworth parish church with Wyclif.24 This search for ‘relics’ began shortly after his death when a follower carried back to Prague a fragment of stone chipped from his grave marker.25 It may perversely have been promoted by the fact that Wyclif’s body was exhumed, burned and his ashes scattered in 1428.26 More particularly this interest relates to a continuing tradition of ‘reading’ the parochial art of Lutterworth as potentially expressing Wyclif’s heterodox views. This approach is adopted by Hornbeck in his recent account of the other significant area of medieval figurative painting preserved in the church, a fifteenth-century Last Judgment or Doom painting. The appearance of this painting has been heavily compromised by nineteenth-century ‘restoration’ and repainting and Hornbeck interprets its idiosyncrasies as a ‘form of indirect homage to the teachings’ of Wyclif and evidence of the ‘quiet persistence’ of his pastoral theology at Lutterworth.27 However, enthusiastic claims that the parish church was full of objects associated with Wyclif met a more critical response from nineteenth-century antiquarians onwards.28 This tradition arguably established an anachronistic emphasis on Wyclif’s interaction with the fabric of the parish church. The Victorian Protestant imagination eulogized evocative ministerial tools, such as Wyclif’s supposed chair and pulpit from which ‘he thundered against Antichrist in the person of the pope, 22 A. Hudson, The Premature Reformation: Wycliffite texts and Lollard history (Oxford, 1986), 111. 23 Ibid., 63 n. 20; G. Martin, ‘Knighton’s Lollards’, in Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages, ed. M. Aston and C. Richmond (Stroud, 1997), 28–140. 24 For the more extensive interest from the Reformation onwards in identifying Wyclif as a proto-Protestant, see A. Walsham, ‘Inventing the Lollard Past: the afterlife of a Medieval Sermon in early modern England’, JEH, 58.4 (2007), 628–55 (particularly, 640), and B.V. Hill II, ‘Baptizing Wyclif: a medieval ancestor in the Baptist history of Thomas Crosby’, Baptist History and Heritage, 49 (2014), 13–26. 25 I.C. Levy, ‘Wyclif and the Christian Life’, in Companion to John Wyclif, 293–363, at 347. 26 M. Bose, ‘The opponents of John Wyclif’, in ibid., 407–55, at 407–8. 27 J.P. Hornbeck, ‘Wall Paintings in Wyclif’s Church: evidence of a reformer’s legacy?’, Leicestershire Archaeological and Historical Society, 88 (2014), 47–54. 28 M.H. Bloxam, ‘Lutterworth Church and the Wycliffe Relics’, TLAAS, 2 (1870), 72–80, at 77–8; B. Workman, John Wyclif: a study of the English medieval church, 2 vols (Oxford, 1926), ii, 301–2.

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and thence he proclaimed the Gospel of good tidings to the poor, to whom he was an exemplary and unwearied pastor, as well as an edifying preacher’.29

Conservation history This preoccupation with ‘the life and times of Wyclif’ contributes a significant local dimension to the way the Lutterworth paintings were preserved and interpreted in the nineteenth century. However, the basic conservation history of the paintings is more representative. In common with the overwhelming majority of medieval murals, the paintings at Lutterworth were apparently covered over at the Reformation (probably in response to the Edwardian Injunction of 1547).30 They were then only brought to light during an extensive programme of nineteenth-century architectural restoration. This campaign of 1868 overseen by Sir George Gilbert Scott was praised for its ‘skill and conservative spirit’ and was apparently informed by a desire to restore the church to its appearance in the time of Wyclif.31 It is worth noting that for a medieval wall painting uncovered in the nineteenth century, preservation was by no means assured. Many paintings found during Victorian campaigns of church restoration were covered over or destroyed because they were aesthetically or theologically offensive.32 At Lutterworth areas of decorative painting were removed, in contrast to the fate of the figurative paintings, which were extensively restored.33 The area of medieval painting in the north aisle was discovered during the removal of a post-Reformation gallery.34 This context probably explains the loss of the lower parts of the figures of the Three Living and Three Dead and the subsequent uneven plaster. The restoration and ‘completion’ 29 See, for example, E. C[larke], ‘Homes and Haunts of English Martyrs’, The Quiver, 15 (1880), 24. Larsen considers that the sermons Wyclif composed during his final years at Lutterworth were for the university rather than parochial consumption, idem, ‘John Wyclif’, 58. 30 Hornbeck, ‘Wall Paintings’, 53. 31 M.H. Bloxam, ‘On Some Discoveries Made in the Progress of the Restoration of Lutterworth Church’, TLAAS, 3 (1874), 359–64, at 363. For popular understanding of the intention of the restoration, see ‘Homes and Haunts’, 24. 32 J. Edwards, ‘English Medieval Wall-paintings: some nineteenth-century hazards’, Archaeological Journal, 146 (1989), 465–75. 33 C.E. Keyser, A List of Buildings in Great Britain and Ireland Having Mural and Other Painted Decorations (London, 1883), 167; for the decorative painting, see F. Sutton, ‘On the Use of Colour in the Ornamentation of Churches’, Associated Architectural Societies Reports and Papers, 9 (1868), 249–54, at 252–53. 34 Bloxam, ‘Lutterworth Church and the Wycliffe Relics’, 75.

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of the painting in 1869 was undertaken by Messrs. Burlison and Grylls of Newman Street, London, a firm specializing in stained glass which had been founded in 1868 by two former apprentices of Clayton and Bell.35 The clarity, completeness and vibrant colour range of the three regal figures suggest they were repainted, but the costume and style details suggest this work was largely faithful to what could be seen of the original. The lower parts of the three figures were recreated; thus the lower draperies (gowns and mantles) and shoes and the horizontal line schematically suggesting the ground are all nineteenth century. Carefully following the design in the upper painting as a guide, the foliate border was extended completely to enclose the group of regal figures. This decorative frame is still evident in the lower right-hand corner. In 1914 there was a further restoration of the paintings, but it is not clear that this substantially altered their appearance.36 This may have been in response to dissatisfaction with the legibility of the wall painting recorded in the later nineteenth century.37 The presentation of the three regal figures as a self-contained subject certainly affected the way they were subsequently interpreted. Aesthetically, the reinstatement of the lower portion of the image and framing within a decorative border suggest a preference for completeness, presenting the mural as an individual work of art. Early-twentieth-century photographs of the Lutterworth Doom show that it was also initially ‘framed’ by a Victorian scheme including texts and angels.38 It is not known if the fragmentary images of skeletons or the figures of cardinal and cleric were noticed in 1869, although it was remarked upon that, ‘these paintings have been formerly covered over with other frescoes’.39 The nineteenth-century framing border to the right of the leading regal was painted ‘over’ the skeletons, either in ignorance of their presence or relevance or deliberately to remove them. Anachronistic details in the Last Judgment, such as a skeleton rising from a tomb and the complete absence of either demonic figures or Hell Mouth suggest that the nineteenth-century restoration similarly ‘modified’ its content as well as its appearance. 40 35 A.H. Dyson and S.H. Skillington, Lutterworth Church and Its Associations with a Chapter on John Wycliffe (Leicester, 1916), 15. 36 Dyson and Skillington, Lutterworth, 15. 37 The wall painting was ‘too much damaged to be clearly deciphered’. See ‘10 and 11 September 1872. The Annual Summer Meeting’, TLAAS, 4 (1878), 149–51, at 151. 38 A.H. Dyson and Hugh Goodacre, Lutterworth: John Wycliffe’s town (London, 1913), facing 54. 39 S. Thursby, ‘A Wall Painting in Lutterworth Church’, TLAAS, 5 (1882), 293–5, at 293. 40 These absences are interpreted as signs of the enduring influence of Wyclif’s pastoral theology (Hornbeck, ‘Wall Paintings’, 47–54).

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Three regal figures interpreted The careful preservation, ‘completion’ and retouching of the mural during the 1869 restoration may be a consequence of the desire to preserve and enhance fittings from Wyclif’s church. Bloxam dated the paintings to the early fourteenth century, and urged their careful preservation as ‘real relics of the age of Wycliffe’ on which his eyes ‘must often have rested’. 41 In 1874 Bloxam suggested that the painting (which he confusingly assigns to the south wall of the south aisle) was mid-fourteenth century in style and included historical images of Edward II and Edward III. 42 In 1880 Thursby assigned the mural to the later fourteenth century, describing it as painted to replace, ‘a still lower stratum of ornament, perhaps pictures representing some religious or superstitious subject, towards which the great Reformer was known to have a rooted objection’.43 Developing Bloxam’s idea of historical portraits, Thursby suggested that the three regal figures were ‘portraits of Richard II and his Queen, and of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, placed there by Wickliffe himself’.44 In 1913 Dyson and Goodacre conjectured that the painting, which was also construed as a grateful tribute to Wyclif’s protectors, might also be a historical record of a visit to Wyclif during a hunting expedition.45 The painted area in the north aisle assumed its current appearance after conservation in the 1980s. 46 The removal of plaster and part of the nineteenth-century frame revealed the fragmentary but unmistakable figures of skeletons, shown frontally with the crescent grins and prominent teeth which Luxford identifies as characteristic of their portrayal in English fourteenth-century art. 47 This discovery confirmed the suppositions of earlier art historical commentators that the three regal figures were part of the scene of the Three Living and Three Dead. 48 41 Bloxam, ‘On Some Discoveries’, 363, 360. 42 Ibid., 360. The confusion about the location of the painting may lie behind Patrick’s comment in 1900: G. Patrick, ‘Lutterworth’, British Archaeological Association Journal, New Ser. 7 (1901), 205–14, at 211: ‘I am informed there was another over the south door, but it was so mutilated and indecipherable that at the restoration some years ago it was destroyed.’ 43 Thursby, ‘A Wall Painting’, 294. A similar interpretation of the cardinal fragment is proposed by Hornbeck, who describes it as earlier than the Three Living and Three Dead (‘Wall Paintings’, 47). 44 Thursby, ‘A Wall Painting’, 293 45 Dyson and Goodacre, Lutterworth, 44–5. 46 Hornbeck, ‘Wall Paintings’, 47. 47 J. Luxford, ‘The Sparham Corpse Panels; unique revelations of death from late fifteenthcentury England’, The Antiquaries Journal, 90 (2010), 299–340, at 311. 48 For example, Keyser, List, 167; Poole cited in Dyson and Skillington, Lutterworth, 15; E. Carleton Williams, ‘Mural Paintings of the Three Living and the Three Dead in England’, JBAA,

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Lee correctly affirms the current understanding that the three figures come from a painting of the Three Living and Three Dead, seeing the apparent addition of figures of Easton and Brinton as a visual device to connect them with the worldly monarchs condemned in the legend. 49 However, he suggests this recognition should not be seen as incompatible with their earlier identification of the figures as Richard II, Anne of Bohemia and John of Gaunt.50 Rather, he proposes that this is a precocious example of the practice of crypto-portraiture more common in Renaissance art, but identified, for example, by Oosterwijk, in the lost painting of the Dance of Death in Paris (1424).51 Lee cites the middle figure, which he identifies as Anne of Bohemia, as strong additional evidence that the Lutterworth painting is an example of crypto-portraiture, as the inclusion of what he sees as a female figure represents a departure from the usual iconography of the Three Living and Three Dead.52 Lee’s interpretation clearly stands in a long-established tradition of reading the art at Lutterworth in relation to Wyclif’s preferences and allegiances. In order to test its validity, the painting needs to be assigned a more precise date within the time frame of the fourteenth century and the identity of the central regal figure needs to be established. As with most medieval mural schemes, there is no primary written evidence for the Lutterworth paintings, so their dating relies on architectural context, subject matter, artistic style and costume detail. From the time of its uncovering this area of painting was assigned a fourteenth-century date, compatible with its architectural context in the north aisle. The popularity of the subject of the Three Living and Three Dead throughout the fourteenth century strengthens this periodization.53 The elegance of the figures at Lutterworth and the disposition of the leading figure in particularly are reminiscent of the painting at Tarrant Crawford in Dorset, which dates from the early decades of the fourteenth century. However, it is the style and costume details preserved in the painting which allow a greater degree of precision. The graphic style of the figures, the treatment of their eyes, the broad-fold handling of the drapery, the contrapposto deportment of their 3rd Ser., 7 (1942), 31–40, 35; E.W. Tristram with M. Bardswell, English Medieval Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century (London, 1955), 221. 49 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 128, 320. 50 Ibid., 319. 51 S. Oosterwijk, ‘Of Dead Kings, Dukes and Constables: the historical context of the Danse Macabre in Late Medieval Paris’, JBAA, 16 (2008), 131–62. 52 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 320. 53 Gill, ‘Late Medieval Wall Painting’, 397.

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bodies and the decorative border are broadly characteristic of the Decorated style. A more precise date is suggested by subtle elements of ‘fashion’, present in the treatment of the sleeves and necklines. The figures display the tight sleeves made possible by the adoption of buttons from the 1320s.54 Their necklines are not simply rounded but slightly scooped with the gowns drawn tight across the upper body, as can be seen in effigies from c.1320 to c.1325, although there are few other indications of the more elaborate fashions of the mid-fourteenth century.55 With their simple flowing garments, necklines which are broad and slightly scooped (but not yet like a wide horizontal slit) and elegant treatment of crowns and hair, the figures strongly resemble those on the Butler-Bowdon Cope (c.1335–45) and Chichester-Constable Chasuble (c.1335–45).56 While a precise date is not possible, one in the 1330s or perhaps the early 1340s seems plausible. The analysis of hairstyles leads to consideration of the suggestion, present in the original identification of the regal figures as historical personages, that the middle figure is a woman. The elegant figure with a ‘pageboy bob’ of fair hair appears feminine, but medieval women are not found represented with cut and uncovered hair. At the start of the fourteenth century the fashion for elite men to be clean-shaven is apparent in the some of the earliest, most elegant manuscript images of the Three Living and Three Dead (De Lisle Psalter c.1310 and De Lisle Hours c.1320–5).57 When beards became more fashionable, this coiffure became a signal not of gender but of youth, and such ‘feminine’ treatment of the central figure is clear in other paintings of the Three Living and Three Dead such as that at Swalcliffe in Oxfordshire. This suggests that the Three Living were sometimes understood as representing the Three Ages of Man; a similar use of hairstyles to define the Three Ages and lend a universalizing resonance to these regal figures can be found in contemporary images of the Three Magi, see, for example, the Chichester-Constable Chasuble (c.1335–45).58 In spite of the enthusiasm for connecting the painting of the Three Living and Three Dead with Wyclif, the initial judgement that it is early fourteenth century is broadly correct. Even given the time taken the dissemination 54 M. Scott, A Visual History of Costume: The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (London 1986), 16. 55 Idem, A Visual History, 22. 56 C. Browne and M. Zöschg, ‘The Catalogue’, in English Medieval Embroidery: opus anglicanum, ed. C. Browne, G. Davies, M.A. Michael, with M. Zöschg (New Haven and London, 2016), 213–16, 218–21. 57 K.A. Smith, Art, Identity and Devotion in Fourteenth-Century England, British Library Studies in Medieval Culture (London and Toronto, 2003), 152–55. 58 Browne and Zöschg, ‘The Catalogue’, 218–20.

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of style and fashion from cultural centres to parish churches, it is very unlikely that the Lutterworth version was painted after the 1350s. It therefore pre-dates the lives or at least the adulthood and prominence of John of Gaunt (1340–1399), Richard II (1367–1400) and Anne of Bohemia (1366–1394). Moreover, the features which initially commend its identification as a very precocious instance of crypto-portraiture are conventions found in other contemporary art works which carry different meanings. The creation of this painting cannot be linked to Wyclif, although it is possible that it was visible when he was in Lutterworth.

The painting of the cardinal This leads us to Lee’s substantive proposition that the images of the cardinal and cleric represent a deliberate addition to the pre-existing painting of the Three Living and Three Dead. These figures came to light in the conservation of the painting in the 1980s. They are now visible in an area over the lower part of the leading regal figure.59 As Lee rightly points out, this small pair of f igures are clearly painted on top of the three royal personages and thus represent a later phase of painting.60 This transitional area of painted plaster had apparently been preserved beneath nineteenth-century repainting, probably as a consequence of the disturbance associated with the insertion and removal of the gallery. The question remains how much later this area of painting is in date and whether it is plausible to see the cardinal and his ecclesiastical companion as a deliberate addition to a pre-existing painting. There are few demonstrable instances of the retrospective ‘alteration’ of existing visible painted schemes in medieval England; at Horsham St Faith Priory in Norfolk an elaborate scheme of c.1250 was retouched in c.1440 to ‘update’ the details of costume.61 The relative scale of the figures at Lutterworth and their positioning, effectively ‘below the knee’ of the leading figure, feels awkward. However, as Lee points out, their raised eyes and hands can be interpreted as being directed to the monumental figures of the skeletons.62 On the other hand, although the figures dominate the 59 They are confusingly described as a lower layer in Hornbeck, ‘Wall Paintings’, 47. 60 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 320. 61 D. Park, ‘Refectory Murals’, in Age of Chivalry: art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, ed. J. Alexander and P. Binski (London 1987), 313. 62 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 320.

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surviving fragment, its horizontal form preserves traces of a background or setting (red on the left and white with a complex pattern on the right) which does not blend with the royal figures or observe the division between the Three Living and Three Dead; contrasting backgrounds are a feature of many fourteenth-century representations of the Three Living and Three Dead. The restricted fragment preserves few obvious dating clues, but it seems significantly later in date. The schematic faces are very different from the elegant ‘Decorated style’ features of the Three Living and Three Dead. They have less elongated and slightly angular heads and proportionate mouths and noses. Their faces are drawn with crease lines above their eyes which are almost almond form with evenly curved upper and lower lids. Rather than displaying the late-fourteenth-century International Style with its emphatic, even bulbous facial features, this facial characterization has a strong affinity with the style which slowly replaced it, coming to dominate English painting in the mid-fifteenth century. Comparative treatment of faces can be found in elegant stained glass in the Beauchamp Chapel at Warwick (c.1447–49) and in the work of the illuminator William Abell (d. 1474), such as the Charter for King’s College, Cambridge (1446).63 However, there is little evidence of the angularity in the treatment of drapery associated with Netherlandish influence in the later fifteenth century, confirming a mid-fifteenth-century date. Thus, this layer of painting was executed at least a decade or two after the disinterment and posthumous burning of Wyclif’s body in 1428. Moreover, the positioning of the figures and surviving background detail suggest they constitute a small ‘stranded’ fragment of a later figurative subject, rather than a targeted amendment to the Three Living and Three Dead. The removal of the gallery and the mid-nineteenth-century uncovering and ‘presentation’ of the image of the three regal figures destroyed the rest of the painted layer to which they belonged; the survival of this fragment is an unintended consequence of the unusual conservation history of the Lutterworth paintings. However, this fragment does contain sufficient visual clues to discern its probable subject. The figure of a cardinal is rarely represented in English parochial art and wall paintings in particular and is associated with a fairly limited range of subjects. In paintings of the Last Judgment or Doom, where the naked figures representing resurrected people are often conventionally 63 R. Marks, ‘St Thomas Becket and Two Seraphim Holding Musical Scrolls’, and A. Bovey, ‘Charter upon Act of Parliament for the Foundation of King’s College’, both in Gothic: art for England, 1400–1547, ed. R. Marks and P. Williamson, with E. Townsend (London, 2003), 226, 162.

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distinguished by varied headgear, a man in a cardinal’s hat may be included as in the celebrated Doom painting at Holy Trinity, Coventry (c.1435).64 St Jerome is portrayed as a cardinal in schemes of the Four Doctors of the Church, such as in a rare painted pulpit at St James’s, Castle Acre.65 However, the Lutterworth figure has none of the range of attributes associated with the scholar and penitent, St Jerome. Moreover, the small scale of the Lutterworth figure, with upward gaze and gesture of raised hands, noted by Lee, suggests that neither he nor the ecclesiastic were the focus of the original painting. The most telling clue to the identity of the subject comes not from the figures, but a small detail in the decorative area on the right of the fragment. This has a complex and bulbous foliate design, with some evidence of Renaissance motifs, such as a wreath of foliage. It is typical of the sort of pattern associated with expensive brocade fabric. In this context, it seems to be intended to indicate a lavish fabric hanging or drape. Above this large pattern is a very distinctive horizontal band with repeated curved vertical lines close together, indicating a fringe. In combination, these suggest a frontal image of an altar, dressed with a brocade frontal and superfrontal weighted with a fringe.66 The fact that the chin of the upturned face of the ecclesiastic is level with the fringe shows that he is kneeling before an altar. Although some details are unclear, he wears a white alb, a brocade chasuble with a vertical indication of an orphrey and an amice is visible round his neck, while it is not possible to say whether he is intended to represent a bishop, he is clearly vested for a Eucharistic celebration. A central image of the celebration of Mass before an altar accompanied by adoring clerical figures is part of the conventional late medieval representation of the subject known as the Mass of St Gregory, showing the wounded Christ manifesting himself to the saintly pope. This subject emerged in c.1400, although it draws on early traditions of Eucharistic miracles and devotional images focused on the wounded body of Christ.67 There is no identifiable 64 M. Gill, ‘The Doom in Holy Trinity Church and Wall-painting in Medieval Coventry’, in Coventry: medieval art, architecture and archaeology in the city and its vicinity, ed. L. Monckton and R.K. Morris, British Archaeological Association Conference Transactions 33 (Leeds, 2011), 206–22, at 213. 65 J. Alexander, ‘The Pulpit with the Four Doctors at St James’s, Castle Acre, Norfolk’, in England in the Fifteenth Century: proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. N. Rogers, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, IV (Stamford, 1994), 198–206. 66 For late medieval altar frontals in England, see N. Morgan, ‘Embroidered Textiles in the Service of the Church’, in English Medieval Embroidery: opus anglicanum, ed. C. Browne, G. Davies, M.A. Michael, with M. Zöschg (New Haven and London, 2016), 25–39, at 35–7. 67 U. Westfehling, ed., Die Messe Gregors des Grossen. Vision, Kunst, Realität. Katalog und Führer zu einer Ausstellung im Schnütgen-Museum der Stadt Köln (Cologne, 1982), 16–18.

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single textual origin for the story.68 However, early references to the miracle are found in devotional books, such as the Parisian Hours, BL, Add MS 29433 (c.1406–7).69 The Mass of St Gregory gave visual expression to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated elements, through a ‘vision’ of the wounded Christ derived from the art of affective piety. While the focus of the image was the kneeling pope, in the second half of the fifteenth century German depictions elaborated the scene with a large group of ecclesiastical figures, which often included a cardinal.70 The psalter and hours of Henry Beauchamp (c.1430–45) preserve an early English representation of this subject with a demi figure of the wounded Christ bleeding into a chalice.71 While not common in late medieval wall painting, it can be found in stained glass, sculpture and panel painting from English parish churches, although its focus on papal authority and Eucharistic piety made it a target for iconoclasts, as can be seen in the carving on the early-sixteenth-century roodscreen at Wyverstone in Suffolk. The image soon became associated with a highly inflated indulgence, which accompanied it, for example, in a stained glass window at All Saints, North Street, York, from the first half of the fifteenth century and a lost painting from the porch of Wrexham parish church (post 1457–63).72 It is possible that representations were used to ‘gain’ this indulgence, even when the text was not present.73 The small corpus of English images of St Gregory’s Mass preserve a variety of compositions, suggesting a variety of visual sources and traditions. The Lutterworth fragment suggests a complex composition with an altar shown parallel to the picture plane so that the viewer was frontally ‘addressed’ and so ‘shared’ the Eucharistic vision of the wounded Christ. This form of composition can be seen in the engraving by Israhel van Meckenem the Younger (1490–95) preserved in the National Gallery of Art in Washington, 68 E. Fitzpatrick Sifford, ‘Hybrizing Iconography: the miraculous Mass of St Gregory: featherwork from the Colegio de San José de los Naturales in Mexico City’, in ReVisioning: critical methods of seeing Christianity in the history of art, ed. J. Romaine and L. Stratford (Lutterworth, 2014), 133–44, at 134. 69 London, British Library, Additional MS 29433, fols 107v–111. 70 Westfehling, Die Messe, 42–3. 71 A. Bovey, ‘Psalter and Hours of Henry Beauchamp, Duke of Warwick’, in Gothic: art for England, 1400–1547, ed. R. Marks and P. Williamson, with E. Townsend (London, 2003), 227. 72 A. Daw, ‘The Communion of St Denis and the Feast of Corpus Christi in the 15th-Century Stained Glass of All Saints North Street in York’, JBAA, 168 (2015), 142–64, at 154; Gill, ‘Late Medieval Wall Painting’, 338. 73 R. Swanson, ‘Fragments of an Indulgence Inscription in a Window at All Saints, North Street, York’, Archaeological Journal, 88 (2008), 310.

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DC, and the London-made Caesar Master Hours of c.1460 (London, British Library, Additional MS 62523, fol. 88r). As in these examples, the figure of Christ may have been depicted as a half figure in a tomb, or as an animated standing figure as at Wyverstone. The kneeling ecclesiastic may be St Gregory himself – a bare-headed figure of Gregory is shown kneeling in the best-preserved English wall painting of the subject at Slapton in Northamptonshire. There may even be an indication of his papal tiara placed on the altar to the right of his head in the Lutterworth painting. The presence of the figure of the cardinal suggests a complex composition, evoking the role of the ecclesiastical hierarchy as witnesses to this miracle set in Rome. The figure of the cardinal is clearly included in this scene, in, for example, the late medieval Kirkham monument in Paignton.74 The identification of the Lutterworth mural as the Mass of St Gregory suggests a very different relationship between Wyclif’s ideas and the subsequent public art of his parish church from that proposed by Lee. Although the subject seems only to have emerged after Wyclif’s death, it represented an ahistorical miracle, promoted by spurious indulgences, affirming and, at Lutterworth, explicitly displaying, ecclesiastical hierarchy and the spiritual authority of the papacy. Above all it was one of the pulchrum mendacium used to ‘prove’ the doctrine of Transubstantiation and to inculcate Eucharistic piety.75 It had been John Wyclif’s views on the Eucharist which had prompted the University of Oxford to proceed against him in 1381.76 In his late writings he emphatically rejected the account of the nature of the presence of Christ in the sacrament presented in the official doctrine of Transubstantiation as philosophically impossible and scripturally unsupported. Eucharistic piety of the sort promoted and expressed in the image of the Mass of St Gregory was regarded by Wyclif as implicitly idolatrous and those who he considered promoted it for their own prestige or profit attracted his particular opprobrium.77 In his De eucharistica of 1380, Wyclif asserted that no human eye, however saintly, could see anything more than the bread and wine of the elements.78 In itself this position was not unorthodox, but 74 G.M. Rushforth, ‘The Kirkham Monument in Paignton Church, Devon: a study in medieval iconography and in particular the Mass of St Gregory’, Transactions of the Exeter Diocesan Architectural and Archaeological Society, 3rd Ser., 4 (1927), 1–37. 75 I.C. Levy, John Wyclif’s Theology of the Eucharist in its Medieval Context, Marquette Studies in Theology 83 (Milwaukee, 2014), 260–1. 76 Larsen, ‘John Wyclif’, 50. 77 Levy, John Wyclif’s Theology, 261–3. 78 Ibid., 261.

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it may imply Wyclif’s negative assessment of stories of miraculous visions of the Mass, the precursors of the fifteenth-century Mass of St Gregory.79 Resistance to the doctrine of Transubstantiation and consequent acts of Eucharistic piety was to be an enduring feature of popular Lollardy in the late Middle Ages.80 The Mass of St Gregory is rare in parish wall painting. At Lutterworth this conventional devotional image of the revelation of Christ’s Presence in the consecrated host may have had a more pointed and poignant local dimension. In 1441 Thomas Gascoigne (1404–1458) derived an account of Wyclif’s last days from John Horn, who had served as Wyclif’s curate at Lutterworth after the reformer suffered a stroke in 1382.81 Horn described how, on 28 December, three days before his death, John Wyclif was attending Mass and ‘at the time of the elevation of the host, he fell down, smitten by a severe paralysis, especially of the tongue, so that neither then nor afterwards he could speak’. 82 This picture of the opponent of Transubstantiation confounded by the moment of elevation has all the feel of an admonitory exemplum used to teach Eucharistic piety.83 However, Horn affirmed his account with an oath.84 Even though the chronicler Thomas Walsingham (d. c.1422) uses the story of sudden paralysis and loss of speech to demonstrate divine judgement on Wyclif and his teaching, he links it to a supposed antipathy to St Thomas rather than the moment of elevation.85 If the parishioners at Lutterworth knew Horn’s story that Wyclif had been stricken with his final illness at the moment of elevation, this image of the miraculous assertion of official doctrine and the associated culture of piety he had so vehemently opposed may have had a more specific resonance. The wall painting on the north wall of Lutterworth parish church does not preserve an authentic likeness of Adam Easton. The figure of a cardinal represents a fragment of a mural of the Eucharistic miracle, the Mass of St Gregory, which has survived by chance. Neither of the layers of medieval painting, which date to the 1330s or early 1340s and to the mid-fifteenth 79 For these sorts of stories, see discussion in J. Garrison, ‘Mediated Piety: Eucharistic theology and lay devotion in Robert Mannyng’s “Handlyng Synne”’, Speculum, 85.4 (2010), 894–922, particularly, 907. 80 R. Lutton, Lollardy and Orthodox Religion in Pre-Reformation England: reconstructing piety, Royal Historical Society Studies in History, New Ser. (Woodbridge, 2006), 152, 158–9, 169. 81 Larsen, ‘John Wyclif’, 62. 82 Workman, John Wyclif, ii, 316. 83 Larsen, ‘John Wyclif’, 62. 84 Workman, John Wyclif, ii, 316. 85 J. Taylor, W.R. Childs and L. Watkiss, eds and trans., The St Albans Chronicle: the Chronica maiora of Thomas Walsingham, Oxford Medieval Texts, 2 vols (Oxford, 2003–10), i, lxxxiii, 736–7.

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century, respectively, relate to the period when John Wyclif was vicar at Lutterworth (1374–82), and so cannot be regarded as a direct expression of his personal views. Lee’s characterization of the painting as ‘Wyclif’s signature on the accusation against Adam Easton and his fellow Benedictine Thomas Brinton’ cannot be upheld.86 Easton’s investigations did not initially focus on Wyclif’s Eucharistic views, although they were to prove decisive in his eventual condemnation. However, if the lingering presence of Adam Easton and the debates of the later fourteenth century can be traced in the physical context at Lutterworth, it is in the once prominent mural of the Mass of St Gregory and its emphatic, perhaps pointed, restatement of the theological orthodoxy which Easton defended.

About the author Miriam Gill studied Modern History at Corpus Christi, Oxford, and gained her doctorate in the Department of Conservation of Wall Painting at the Courtauld Institute. She teaches Art History for the Vaughan Centre for Lifelong Learning in Leicester and the Institute of Continuing Education at Cambridge, and is a founder member of Leicester Vaughan College.

86 Lee, The Most Ungrateful Englishman, 128.

4. Easton and Dante: beyond Chaucer Nick Havely Abstract Easton’s detailed engagement with the Monarchia (especially Book III) is a very early – and possibly the earliest – response to Dante by an English writer. It forms an important part of the debate about papal authority in the later stages in his Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis, and it would influence thinking on the subject in the middle of the following century (for example, in John Whethamstede’s writing on the papacy). The essay considers Easton’s reading of and disagreement with Dante in the context of the Defensorium’s composition at the Avignon Curia in the 1370s, along with the possibility that during the English cardinal’s later years in Italy he and Chaucer might well have known about each other’s work. Keywords: Dante, Monarchia, Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis

Adam of Easton’s reading of Monarchia formed part of the first chapter in my recent monograph on the British reception of Dante.1 Chaucer has of course long been recognized as the earliest British close reader and critic of Dante’s Commedia.2 My chapter in Dante’s British Public considers the Anglo-Italian context ‘around Chaucer’ and is concerned with how four clerics – two Italian Franciscans and two English Benedictines – engaged with Dante in different ways that would have wider implications for the Italian poet’s potential British public during the later fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries. 1 N. Havely, Dante’s British Public: readers & texts from the fourteenth century to the present (Oxford, 2014), 24–32. I am very grateful to Anne Hudson for providing a microfilm of the Vatican MS of the Defensorium (Vat. lat. 4116). 2 For a recent review of the extensive scholarship on the subject, see K.P. Clarke, ‘Chaucer and Italy: context and/of sources’, Literature Compass 8 (2011), 526–33.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch04

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One of the Benedictines was Adam of Easton, and the following essay seeks to develop and substantiate earlier discussions (including mine) about the nature and context of his engagement with Dante’s arguments about papal power in Monarchia. The references to Monarchia and magister Dans in Easton’s major polemical work, the Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis, have been identified and discussed by a number of historians, most recently by Margaret Harvey.3 This essay will first investigate the function of those Dantean references within the Defensorium’s argument about papal power. It will consider their resonances within the culture of the papal city in which Easton’s work was composed: late-fourteenth-century Avignon. It will then compare Easton’s appropriation of Dante with that of his contemporary, Chaucer; and it will conclude by demonstrating how several English writers of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries showed awareness of the Defensorium’s dialogue with Dante.

Defensorium and Monarchia Easton’s Defensorium (to abbreviate its sonorous title) is a substantial work which draws upon a wide range of ecclesiological sources and polemic. 4 In the most well-known of the three surviving manuscripts (Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 4116), it occupies 366 folios.5 Its weighty contribution to pro-papalist polemic around the outbreak of the Great Schism eventually secured its author the main prize of his career: elevation to the cardinalate in 1381.6 Had its full programme, as laid out in the prologue, been realized it would have been even more substantial: Easton planned six books, one of which would have been devoted entirely to refuting Marsilius of Padua’s Defensor pacis. In the existing text of the Defensorium, Marsilius is not much 3 M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), to which this chapter is much indebted. For earlier identifications of Easton’s use of Mon., see below, n. 7. 4 On the sources of the Defensorium, see especially L.J. Macfarlane, ‘The Life and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B.’, 2 vols, PhD dissertation, University of London, 1955, i, 143, 169–71, 243–5 and 252–4; also Harvey, The English in Rome, 224–35. 5 The others listed by Margaret Harvey are: Seville, Biblioteca Columbina, MS 57-1-7; and Madrid, National Library 738 (see Harvey, The English in Rome, 235–6). Leslie Macfarlane’s thesis on Easton refers to the Seville MS and its selections from the Defensorium are based on it and the Vatican text. See Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 135, and ii, 37. I have consulted and quoted from only Vat. lat. 4116, but it would obviously be worthwhile to compare the allusions to Dante et al. in both of the other manuscripts. 6 See Macfarlane ‘Life and Writings’, i, 20, with n. 2.

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of a presence, but especially in the second half of the work Easton identifies and engages closely with several other opponents of papal claims to temporal power. One of these is John Wyclif (whose work on papal and royal power may have been drawn to Easton’s attention by his patron, Simon Langham), and it has been shown how Easton makes use of De civili dominio from the middle of the Defensorium onwards.7 Another is Dante, whose Monarchia is cited a number of times during the last third of the existing work.8 Book III of Monarchia forms the keystone of Dante’s thinking on the papal power – declaring the papacy’s unsuitedness to be more than a guardian of temporalia; and seeking to refute the pro-papalists’ claim that the authority of the empire was dependent on that of the Church. Soon after Dante’s death Monarchia, as we shall see, attracted the attention and condemnation of the papacy and its supporters; later (in the mid-sixteenth century) it would for that reason be the subject of keen interest on the part of Protestant polemicists; and it would remain on the Catholic Index until 1881. Easton accurately quotes and closely interrogates Dante’s text (sometimes at considerable length) on no less than eight occasions, doing so by means of the Defensorium’s framework of debate between a papalist episcopus and a sceptical rex. On the first of these the king enquires how the monarchy (‘officium regis’) was instituted in Israel: whether it was instituted ‘immediate a deo’ (directly by God), or ‘ab alio ministro dei libere ordinatum’ (by another agent freely ordained by God).9 The bishop’s initial response cites ‘Dans in suo libello de monarchia mundi’ among a number of authorities who deal in various ways with the question: Episcopus: Dans in suo libello de monarchia mundi in tercio libro eius disputat questionum. Jacobus etiam de Viterbo […] in libro suo de regimine christiano […] Quaedam etiam glosa Decretalium […] tenet quod temporalis jurisdictio & spiritualis sunt penitus disperate & inmediate utraque etiam a Deo, sicut etiam tenet iste Dans – clamans quod contrarie 7 Ibid., i, 14 and 146, and Harvey, The English in Rome, 228. 8 From fol. 293r onwards. For the edition of Monarchia (Mon.) quoted here, see Dante Alighieri, De vulgari eloquentia, Monarchia, in Dante Alighieri: Opere minori 3.1, ed. P.V. Mengaldo and E.B. Nardi (Milan and Naples, 1996). The first account of Easton’s references to Dante’s Monarchia (as far as I am aware) is in M. Grabmann, ‘Das Defensorium ecclesiae des Magister Adam, eine Streitschrift gegen Marsilius von Padua und Wilhelm von Ockham’, in Festschrift Albert Brackmann, ed. L. Santifaller (Weimar, 1931), 569–81, at 575; Easton’s reading of Dante and other writers on the limits of papal power is outlined and passages from Part 4 of the Defensorium are transcribed in Macfarlane ‘Life and Writings’, i, 143–4, and ii, 104–5, 138, 142, 228–9. 9 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 293r.

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opinionatis solum excita ambicione ducti talem sententiam determinant & figurant. [Bishop: Dante in his little book Of World Monarchy debates this question [on the institution of kingship]; so does James of Viterbo […] in his book Of Christian Government. […] A certain gloss on the Decretals […] holds that temporal and spiritual jurisdiction are entirely distinct and that both of them derive immediately from God. This Dante also maintains the same, claiming that those of the contrary opinion are led solely by the promptings of ambition to arrive at and express such a conclusion.]10

Drawing upon Easton’s avowed ‘twenty years of studying the Book of Kings’ (including, it seems, the Hebrew text),11 the bishop then explains the role of the Jewish priesthood, especially Samuel as the ‘vicar’ of God anointing Saul [1 Sam. 10]. The Dantean libellus that the bishop cites here then also provides material for the king, who in his response dignifies the work with the (perhaps weightier) title of liber: Rex: Ista fundamenta opinionis tue Dans in suo libro de monarchia mundi soluit leuiter& refellit, nam dicit quod Samuel non fuit vicarius dei […] sed Samuel fuit solum dei nuncius uel legatus & solum fecit non ut vicarius sed ut nuncius mandatum domini sibi dictum, & sic quemadmodum malleus operatur in sola uirtute fabri, sic nuncius in eius arbitrio qui hunc misit. [King: Dante in his book Of World Monarchy easily deals with and rebuts this basic point in your argument, for he says that Samuel was not God’s deputy whose jurisdiction was conferred with legal right and authority (for such a person may act against someone whom his lord does not know), but he was only God’s messenger or legate and acted not as a deputy but only as a messenger does when given a message from his lord. And exactly as a hammer strikes only through the strength of the smith, so [does] the messenger [act], following the authority of the one who sent him.]12 10 Ibid. Compare Dante, Monarchia, 2. 10. 3, 3. 3. 8 (on his opponents) and 3. 16. 1 (on the different jurisdictions). 11 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 2r; see also Grabmann, ‘Das Defensorium ecclesiae’, 579. As Harvey notes, ‘Avignon with its famous learned ghetto, offered unrivalled opportunity’ for learning Hebrew; he cites Jewish scholars, such as Rashi and David Kimhi; and ‘there is also evidence that Easton actually debated with Jews, probably in Avignon’; see Harvey, The English in Rome, 192, 230–2 and 234 with n. 219. 12 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 294r.

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Rex, in an imperialist vein, is quoting directly the terms Dante used to describe Samuel’s role as legatus […] sive nuntius, rather than vicarius, along with the simile Dante had used to describe that role (Mon. 3. 6. 3–5). In defining the sources of regal power at this point, the king continues to draw upon arguments, examples and images from Dans in suo libro de monarchia: the independence of the moon from the sun (Mon. 3. 6. 14–19); the limitation of Peter’s keys (Matt. 16: 19) to ‘ligacione […] spirituali’ (Mon. 3. 8); and the argument that Christ did not intend the ‘two swords’ of Luke 22: 38 to refer to the papacy’s temporal and spiritual power (Mon. 3. 9).13 The royal and episcopal debate about Samuel’s authority and that of priesthood over kingship continues to rage during the rest of the Defensorium, with the bishop drawing upon Easton’s lengthy study of the Books of Kings to demonstrate Dante’s ignorantia scripture sacre and to argue that Samuel was indeed God’s vicarius deputatus and not ‘merely a messenger’.14 Episcopus concedes that Dante’s arguments have ‘the appearance of right’ (‘colorem habent justicie’) at some points’ but notes that since they are mostly drawn from the New Testament, they will be answered when evidence from that part of Scripture is reached.15 Meanwhile Monarchia continues to fuel the king’s and bishop’s debate about regal and papal power. Dante’s refutation of the argument that the pope as man must be referred to by all others ‘as to their measure and rule’ (Mon. 3. 12) is cited by the king in the context of the debate about the natura officiorum and whether the papacy is ‘the supreme office in the universal order’.16 The king’s knowledge of Dante’s treatise and Easton’s appears to extend somewhat beyond the controversial material in Mon. 3: thus when in Chapter 53 the issue of the king’s or emperor’s rights over temporal possessions is raised, the king draws support from both Hugh of St Victor (De sacramentis) and then a passage earlier in Mon.: Rex: Hoc etiam ipse Dans in suo libro de monarchia mundi in principio attestatur, dicens quod monarchia temporalis quam homines imperium asseuerant est unicus principatus & super omnes in tempore uel in hiis et super hiis que in tempore mensurantur. [King: Dante at the beginning of his book on world monarchy affirms this, saying that ‘temporal monarchy which people call empire is a sovereign 13 Ibid. 14 Ibid., fol. 294r-v. 15 Ibid., fol. 294v. 16 Ibid., fol. 295r–v.

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power placed above all the rest in time, those, that is, who deal in such things and have command over such things as are measured by time’.]17

He is quoting here almost verbatim from Dante’s initial def inition of temporalis Monarchia (Mon. 1. 2. 2). However, the bishop replies that in the time of the ‘written law’ kings did not have power over the persons or temporalities of the priesthood (the latter being owned ‘by right of divine and spiritual law’), ‘and hence it is clear that Dante’s conclusion is not valid [Dantis determinatio non est uera], nor is Hugh of St Victor’s assertion’.18 Conversely, the question of whether the high priesthood or papacy may exercise ‘coercive power’ (‘potencia coactiva’) leads a few chapters later (ch. 63) to the re-emergence yet more prominently of the ‘two swords’ of Luke 22: 38 as well as the ‘keys’ of Matthew 16: 19 – and to a protracted debate about Christ’s intention with regard to them.19 Here again the king has recourse to the interpretations of the Gospel texts in Mon. 3. Thus, in arguing that the true weapons of clerics are ‘prayers and tears’ (oraciones & lacrime), he asserts that [Rex]: Dans in libro suo de monarchia mundi libro 3o ostendit quod duo gladii de quibus Lucas loquitur euangelista non significant duplicem potestatem spiritualem videlicet et materialem quare tunc Petri responsio non fuisset ad intencionem Christi. [King: Dante in Book III of his book on world monarchy shows that the two swords spoken of by the evangelist Luke do not signify a double power (spiritual and temporal), hence Peter’s reply was not in accordance with Christ’s meaning.]20

Similarly, the king follows Dante’s reading of Peter’s allotted powers to ‘bind and loosen’ (Matt. 16: 19) very closely indeed: [Rex]: Magister Dans in libro suo de monarchia mundi libro iii dicit quod istud signum universalis quodcumque non potest universaliter ibi summi, quia posset tunc uirum soluere ab uxore & ipsa uiuente alteri alligare et posset soluere nullatenus penitentem. 17 Ibid., fol. 299r. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid., fols 323r–325r. 20 Ibid., fol. 323r; compare Mon. 3. 9. 2: ‘tum quia illa responsio non fuisset ad intentionem Cristi’.

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[King: Dante in Book III of his book on world monarchy says that this universal term ‘whatsoever’ cannot be taken absolutely, since then a man could be loosed from his wife and bound to another while the first was still alive, and he could be absolved without having in any way repented.]21

The king’s subsequent argument that the powers endowed to Peter’s keys ‘must be understood only with regard to spiritual and not to temporal matters’ is backed by several quotations from Monarchia 3, Chapter 8.22 In reply, the bishop argues that those powers are precisely those of ‘governance of the whole world’ (‘regimen totius mundi’) and supersede ‘all imperial and earthly rights’ (‘omnia iura Imperialia & terrena’) – and that in seeking to confine them ‘Master Dante misunderstands the Gospel’ (‘euangelium male capit’).23 The ‘imperial and royal authority’ (‘imperiali et regis dignitate’) of Christ (and by extension his vicar, the pope) is the subject of the dozen or so chapters (67–78) that comprise the fourth and final ‘treatise’ of the Defensorium. Here Wyclif’s arguments about civil dominion are explicitly addressed (especially in Chapters 71 and 75), and Dante’s views on papal temporalities are confronted by Easton for the last time. In Chapter 76 Constantine’s alleged ceding of the Western Empire to the papacy becomes a major bone of contention, and the last references to Monarchia explore Dante’s views on the invalidity of the ‘Donation’. The king thus begins by summarizing some canonists’ view that the Donation was not valid ‘by right’ (‘iure’), illustrating the point with key assertion of Mon. 3. 10: that ‘Constantine was not in a position to give away the privileges of empire, nor was the Church in a position to accept them’24: Rex: Et idem tenet Dans in libro suo De Monarchia Mundi quia imperator non potuit alienare Imperii dignitatem & quia Christus Imperatorum suum superiorem, videlicet Cesarum recognouit & Paulus ad eum tamquam ad superiorem in suis accusacionibus appellauit. [King: Dante in his book Of World Monarchy is of the same view, since the emperor cannot transfer the imperial title elsewhere and since Christ acknowledged the authority of the emperor, namely Caesar, and [St] Paul appealed to him as judge of the accusations made against him.]25 21 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 325r. 22 Especially Mon. 3. 8. 6, 7, 9 and 11. 23 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 325r. 24 See Mon. 3. 10. 4 and 14–15. 25 Vat. lat. 4116, fol. 360r. See also Mon. 3. 10. 4 and 3. 13. 5–6.

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Perhaps with the end of the debate in sight, the bishop’s answer to the question of ‘right’ here is brisk and concise: Episcopus: Breviter ad hoc dico quod Constantini donacio nulla fuit quia a Christi incarnacione totum Imperium ad Christum pertinuit & postea ad plenum suum vicarium hic in terris. [Bishop: In this case, I can reply briefly that the Donation of Constantine was irrelevant because, as from the Incarnation, the whole empire belonged to Christ and subsequently to his full representative here on earth.]26

Magister Dans and his liber de monarchia mundi thus receive close and careful attention from this late-fourteenth-century English pro-papal polemicist. The wider English and Chaucerian implications of the Defensorium’s dealings with Dante will be considered later in this chapter, but first we need to take into account the context of Easton’s reading and writing in Papal Avignon, where he spent around a decade of his life (c.1368–78) and where he probably researched and wrote most if not all of his major treatise.

Dante and Avignon culture Avignon’s political and intellectual culture was by that time well aware of Dante. The Florentine poet was by the second half of the trecento well established through manuscript circulation and through commentary in both Italian and Latin as a (and even the) ‘new vernacular author’.27 His position in relation to the papacy was a very live issue both for both pro-papal apologists and for several significant Italian authors who had dealings with the papal city in the 1350s. In May to June 1354, Boccaccio made the first of his two visits to Avignon – heading a diplomatic delegation from the Florentine Signoria to reassure Innocent VI of the city’s loyalty to the papacy, at a time when renewal of the Holy Roman Empire’s involvement in Italian affairs looked imminent.28 By the mid-fourteenth century there is evidence of a convergence of interests in and around Avignon, between Boccaccio, Petrarch and others, on the 26 Vat. lat. 4116, fols 325r and 360r. 27 See M. Caesar, Dante: the critical heritage 1314(?)–1870 (London and New York, 1989), 114–88. 28 G. Boccaccio, Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio: I, ed. V. Branca (Milan, 1967), 96–7 (in the profilo biografico, separately paginated).

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subject of Dante. For instance, Boccaccio’s biographical work on Dante was leading him to take a close look at the Avignon papacy’s treatment of the poet, and his Trattatello in laude di Dante is the main source for the account of the papacy’s posthumous campaign against Dante and the burning of Monarchia by the pope’s legate in Bologna. The Monarchia, with its ideas about ecclesiastical poverty and its critique of the papacy’s claim to temporal lordship, had been an early object of official condemnation. From the start of his pontificate, John XXII kept a watchful eye on his Italian possessions, and in 1319/20 he dispatched his nephew, Cardinal Bertrand du Poujet (who according to Petrarch inherited his uncle’s ferocitas), to reassert papal authority over central and northern Italy.29 Based in Bologna from 1324, du Poujet appears to have included Dante and his political treatise among the pope’s Ghibelline enemies, and, according to Boccaccio (writing in the early 1350s): Questo libro [Monarchia] più anni dopo la morte dell’autore fu dannato da messer Beltrando cardinale del Poggetto e legato di papa nelle parti di Lombardia, sedente Giovanni papa XXII […] il detto cardinale, non essendo chi a ciò s’opponesse, avuto il soprascritto libro, quello in pubblico, sì come cose eretiche contenente, dannò al fuoco. E il simigliante si sforzava di fare dell’ossa dell’auttore a etterna infamia e confusion della sua memoria, se a ciò non si fu opposto uno valoroso e nobile cavaliere fiorentino. [Several years after the death of its author, this book [Monarchia] was condemned by Cardinal Bertrand du Poujet, legate of the pope in northern Italy during the pontificate of John XXII. […] The said cardinal, there being no one to oppose him on the matter, got hold of that book and, treating it as a heretical document, publicly consigned it to the flames. And he would have sought to do the same to the bones of its author, to the everlasting shame and destruction of his memory, had he not been prevented from doing so by a courageous and noble Florentine knight.]30 29 F. Petrarch, Sine nomine lettere polemiche e politiche, ed. U. Dotti (Bari, 1974), 180–2. 30 G. Boccaccio, Trattatello in laude di Dante, ed. P.G. Ricci, Tutte le opere di Giovanni Boccaccio III, ed. V. Branca (Milan, 1974), redazione I, pars 196–7; my tr. Another [less specif ic] source about papal hostility to the Monarchia is Boccaccio’s contemporary the jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato, who noted in his Commentary on the Digestum Novum that Dante ‘perhaps on account of this [his view of empire and Church in Monarchia] was after his death condemned for heresy’; see O. Guerrini and C. Ricci, Studi e polemiche dantesche (Bologna, 1880), 71–91; C.N.S. Woolf, Bartolus of Sassoferrato: his position in the history of medieval political thought (Cambridge, 1913), 90–2.

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The context Boccaccio provides for this event indicates that it must have taken place around 1329, during an acrimonious phase of John XXII’s dealings with Emperor Ludwig of Bavaria. Shortly after the pope’s legate had burnt the book itself (perhaps around 1330), an Italian Dominican, Guido Vernani, reinforced the pro-papal attack on Dante by challenging the ‘specious arguments’ ( frivolas rationes) of Monarchia and representing its author in diabolical terms: Habet mendax et perniciosi pater mendacii sua vasa que, in exterioribus honestatis et veritatis figuris fallacibus et fucatis coloribus adornata, venenum continent […] Inter alia vero talia sua vasa quidam fuit multa fantastice poetizans et sophista verbosus, verbis exterioribus in eloquentia multis gratus. [The false father of pernicious falsehood has his vessels which, under appearance of honesty and truth, adorned with deceptive tropes and deep-dyed colours of rhetoric, are full of poison. […] Indeed, amongst other such vessels of his, a certain one [i.e. Dante] was a fantastical poeticizer on many subjects, a windy sophist, and through his superficial eloquence pleasing to many.]31

The precise prompting for De reprobatione Monarchiae is uncertain, but its arguments about papal authority would be likely, as Vernani probably intended, to have found favour with du Poujet and at John XXII’s Avignon. Subsequently, around the middle of the century, Petrarch, in the earliest group of his Sine nomine letters, was engaging in a more directly polemical critique of the ‘western Babylon’ and of its abandonment of Rome and Italy. Several of these show Petrarch moving towards his own decision to leave Avignon, whilst positioning himself in a near-Dantean way as critic of the Curia and advocate of ‘lowly Italy’ (Inferno 1. 106), or ‘groaning Italy’ as Petrarch describes his homeland in 1351 (suspirat Italia).32 Much earlier in his career Petrarch, like Dante and other critics of Avignon, had in his writing to and about the papacy lamented the ‘widowhood’ of Rome.33 By 1347 the second and third of the Sine nomine letters were expressing his support for the short-lived revolution staged that year by the ‘tribune’ of Rome, Cola di Rienzo. Both letters also express the hope 31 N. Matteini, Il più antico oppositore politico di Dante, Guido Vernani da Rimini: Testo critico del ‘De reprobatione Monarchiae’ (Padua, 1958), 40 and 93; my translation. 32 Petrarch, Sine nomine 9, 102. 33 E.H. Wilkins, Life of Petrarch (Chicago, 1961), 11–12, 32, 35.

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that Cola might show what could be done for and by ‘the Roman people and the whole of Italy’. Petrarch’s fourth Sine nomine letter (again about Cola di Rienzo) brings him yet closer to Dante. It was written some five years later, in October or early November 1352, when Cola was a prisoner at Avignon and Petrarch was on the verge of his escape from that ‘prison’. It is addressed to ‘the most unconquerable and world-leading people [of Rome]’ and is comparable in some ways to Book II of Monarchia as an investigation of Rome’s right to rule. It recognizes Augustine’s critique of Virgil’s claim about the imperium sine fine and eloquently portrays the signs of Rome’s decline. On the other hand, it also comes close to the Dante of both Monarchia and the Convivio in its assertion of the empire’s providential role as single caput orbis and as enforcer of peace and justice.34 Perhaps Petrarch’s recent rereading of Dante’s Commedia in the magnificent copy that Boccaccio had presented to him in 1351 (now Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 3199) was now helping to intensify his sense of Rome and Italy’s claim upon his and the papacy’s attention.35 Having met Boccaccio at Padua early that year, he may also have been reminded of that earlier Papal assault on Dante and his idea of Rome, which Boccaccio was about to describe at length in the first redaction of the Trattatello. Indeed, writing from Milan a few years later (in the autumn of 1357), Petrarch would describe the book-burning Bertrand du Poujet himself as a ‘bandit’ (predo) rather than an apostolic emissary, and as one who resembled not St Peter but Hannibal – thus identifying the papal legate and censor of Dante’s Monarchia with the greatest enemy ever faced by Rome.36 The subject of those three Sine nomine letters (2–4), Cola di Rienzo, was likewise a commentator on Dante’s politics at this time. It may have been during his imprisonment by the emperor in Bohemia before being transferred (in June 1352) to the custody of Clement VI in Avignon that Cola composed his Commentarium in Monarchiam Dantis.37 In its prologue, Cola’s commentary on Monarchia introduces Dante to a wider audience as writer of the Commedia 34 See, for example, Conv. 4. 4. 8, by comparison with Petrarch, Sine nomine 4, 42 (lines 17–21). 35 On this manuscript (which signals at least a momentary presence of the Commedia at Avignon during the final years of Petrarch’s residence there), see G. Billanovich, Petrarca letterao: I. Lo scrittoio di Petrarca (Rome, 1947), 147–8 and 421–5; and G. Mombello, ‘I manoscritti delle opere di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio nelle principali librerie francesi del secolo XV’, in Il Boccaccio nelle cultura francese, ed. C. Pellegrini (Florence, 1971), 81–209, at 89. 36 Petrarch, Sine nomine 17, 182. 37 On Cola’s imprisonment at Avignon, see T. di C. Falconieri, Cola di Rienzo (Rome, 2002), 171–2).

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and of ‘vernacular poetry’ (‘carmina vulgaria’) which ‘laymen as much as preaching friars/Dominicans may learn from’ (‘tam seculares homines quam et predicatores fratres addiscunt’).38 The portrayal of Dominicans (‘fratres predicatores’) as potential beneficiaries of Dante could be an ironic allusion to Guido Vernani O.P. who, as we have seen, had denounced both the Monarchia and the poisoned chalice of Dante’s poetry. Not surprisingly, Cola’s commentary later (with reference to Mon. 2. 10. 3 and 3. 9. 17) addresses contentious issues about the papacy’s temporal wealth and power – referring the reader to what Dante ‘writes in the text of his Commedia against the corruption of Church leaders’ (‘in libro Comedie sue contra Pastorum pravitates expressit’) – and deploying apocalyptic language about the decay of the Church, claiming that ‘without doubt, we are approaching the last days’ (‘pro certo ad illa ultima temporum dierum venimus’).39 In this cultural and political context, it is not surprising that Monarchia continued to be a text for an Avignon writer such as Adam of Easton to reckon with later in the century. The accuracy of Easton’s quotations indicates that he must have had access to a copy of Dante’s text during his years at the Papal city in the 1370s.40 The English Benedictine’s knowledge of Monarchia has long been known to historians, but it does not seem to have attracted much attention from Dante scholars. It does not seem to be included in standard accounts of the Monarchia’s medieval reception; a recent and very thorough survey of early ‘assaults’ upon Dante’s text does not refer to it; whilst the introduction to a new parallel text edition simply states that ‘before the editio princeps of 1559, the Monarchia attracted hardly any interest outside of Italy’. 41 We may perhaps have to make at least one exception for the culture of Avignon, where both defenders of Papal power like Easton and critics like Petrarch seem to have been quite well aware of Dante’s political treatise and the implications of its arguments. Although there is no mention of the Monarchia in the existing Avignon library catalogues nor in the surviving details of Easton’s collection, there is 38 For a text of Cola’s commentary on Mon., see P.G. Ricci, ‘Il commento di Cola di Rienzo alla Monarchia di Dante’, Studi medievali, 3a Ser., 6.2 (1965), 655–708, at 679. 39 Ibid., 699–700. 40 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 143, indicates that it was during Easton’s early years at Avignon that ‘he became acquainted with Dante’s Monarchia, Marsilius of Padua’s formidable Defensor Pacis, and with the works of Alexander of S. Elpidio, John of Paris, James of Viterbo and others, on the limits of papal power’. On the likelihood that the Monarchia ‘was well known in Avignon’, see also Harvey, The English in Rome, 226 and n. 163. 41 A.K. Cassell, The Monarchia Controversy (Washington, DC, 2004), and R. Kay, Dante’s Monarchia: translated, with a commentary (Toronto, 1998), xxxiii.

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some textual evidence to associate both it and Dante’s Commedia with the papal city. As we have seen, at least one earlier Avignon cardinal (Bertrand du Poujet) knew enough about Dante’s book to want to burn it during the later 1320s, and one of the few surviving manuscripts of the Monarchia itself suggests a possible connection with the Avignon Papal court somewhat later in the century. London, British Library, Additional MS 6891, is dated to the third quarter of the fourteenth century, and following the text of the treatise a later hand has added Avignon-related material: thus, on folios 18 to 20, there is a copy of a bull of Clement VI about the Jubilee of 1350. 42 It may also be significant from several points of view that during 1377, the year in which Adam Easton was completing his dialogue with Dante and other anti-papal writers, a southern Italian text of the Inferno was being acquired at Avignon. This was not a regular purchase for the papal library and does not appear in the catalogues; instead, it was obtained under the terms of the ius spolii – a provision instituted in 1316, entitling the pope to the moveable goods of certain deceased clerics. The cleric in question here was a Franciscan, Matteo Porta, who had been archbishop of Palermo since 1367, and among the hundred books in his library appear texts by Ovid, Virgil and Lucan – together with a paper copy of the Inferno with what appear to be southern Italian linguistic features: Item liber de Dantis in papiro, qui incipit ‘Nel mezo camin di nostra vita’, et finit ‘Et quindi simu a vidir li stilli.’ [Also, a book by Dante, written on paper, and beginning: ‘In the middle of the way through life’ and ending ‘And so we emerged to look upon the stars.’]43

Easton and Chaucer At the time when that southern Italian manuscript of the Inferno reached Avignon, in 1377, Adam of Easton was relocating from there to Rome. Easton’s Defensorium, as this paper suggests, provided a channel by which 42 BL Add MS 6891. On fols 18–20, a later hand has added a copy of a bull of Clement VI about the Jubilee of 1350. On this manuscript of Mon. and the Avignon addendum, see D. Quaglioni, ‘Un nuovo testimone per l’edizione della “Monarchia” di Dante: il Ms. Add. 6891 della British Library’, Laboratoire italien, 11 (2011), 231–79, and P. Shaw, ‘Un secondo manoscritto londinese della Monarchia’, Studi danteschi, 76 (2011), 223–64, at 225–6. 43 D. Williman, Bibliothèques ecclésiastiques au temps de la Papauté d’Avignon I (Paris, 1980), 264 (no. 98).

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some specific knowledge of another Dantean text (the Monarchia) reached English readers. Easton also possibly takes precedence over Chaucer as the first English writer to refer to Dante by name. His polemical Latin treatise constitutes a context for that name which is very different from that of Chaucer’s dream-poem, the House of Fame (late 1370s/early 1380s) where Dant is a daunting presence from the end of Book I onwards. 44 The English Benedictine was taking issue with Dante, not as an authority on the afterlife or literary model, but as an opposing voice on the contemporary and contentious political issues that are at play in the Defensorium. Yet although Easton does not explicitly acknowledge the fact, he is very likely – given his Avignon background – to have known that magister Dans was also the poet of the Commedia. Easton’s Defensorium is not likely to have reached England until a few years after Chaucer’s death, but during the 1370s and 1380s, the English poet could well have known about the career and interests of this prominent English cleric in Avignon and Rome.45 Both were in Italy during the dramatic events leading to the Great Schism in the late summer of 1378. Easton was then in Rome for Urban VI’s election and probably presented the Defensorium to him shortly afterwards; whilst Chaucer was on a mission to confer ‘on matters concerning the conduct of our war’ with Sir John Hawkwood and Bernabò Visconti at Milan.46 The upheaval in papal politics – which Easton witnessed and of which he was to become a victim – occurred during that Chaucerian visit, and it has been argued that this may underlie the reference to Linian along with Petrarch in the prologue to the Clerk’s Tale, since the jurist Giovanni da Legnano was then writing on behalf of the Roman pope Urban VI to whom England would also declare allegiance. 47 Easton also knew Linianus: he refers to his Somnium viridarii respectfully several times in the Defensorium on the subject of civil and ecclesiastical power and on the idea of a ‘single authority in the world’ (‘de mundi unico principatu’). 48 44 For a recent assessment of Dante’s presence, especially in Book 3 of the House of Fame, see N. Havely, ‘“I wolde … han hadde a fame”: Dante, fame and infamy in Chaucer’s House of Fame’, in Chaucer and Fame: reputation and reception, ed. I. Davis and C. Nall (Cambridge, 2015), 43–56. 45 Easton’s books arrived at Norwich in 1407; on their subsequent dispersal, see below, p. 136 and n. 63. 46 On Easton at Rome in 1378, see Harvey, The English in Rome, 197–8. Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 15 and 147, dates Easton’s presentation of the Defensorium a little later (c.1379–80). On Chaucer’s mission to Milan (‘pur ascunes busoignes touchantes lexploit de nostre guerre’), see M.M. Crow and C.C. Olson, Chaucer Life-Records (Oxford, 1966), 54. 47 J. McCall, ‘Chaucer and John of Legnano’, Speculum 40 (1965), 484–9. 48 Vat. lat. 4116, fols 332r and 346r; also in Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, ii, 157 and 164. On Easton and Linianus, see Macfarlane, i, 171 and n. 2.

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Both writers (Easton and Linianus) are said to have served as advisers to the pope about the canonization of Bridget of Sweden around 1378–80. 49 An even closer possible connection between Easton and Chaucer has also been envisaged, and it is one that might have had consequences for the poet’s work in the early 1380s. It has been argued that Chaucer’s life of St Cecilia in his Second Nun’s Tale could have been written for the monks of Easton’s former house, the Cathedral Priory at Norwich, and as a way of exercising some influence with the English cardinal on behalf of the English Crown.50 The Second Nun’s Tale concludes with the burial of the martyred protagonist in the church from which Easton took his name as cardinal and in which he himself would eventually be buried: Santa Cecilia in Trastevere.51 In the context of contemporary ecclesiastical politics, it has also been suggested that Chaucer’s choice and treatment of material in the Tale could echo concerns about the Great Schism itself.52 Indeed, the authoritative and subsequently mutilated figure of Chaucer’s Cecilia could be seen as in part an image of the suffering and enduring Church. The name of the early pope (Urban) who presides over the burial of the saint is reiterated by Chaucer with some frequency in the Second Nun’s Tale and is the same as that of the Roman pope supported by Easton and his countrymen. And, to stretch speculation a little further: if the Tale, or word of it had reached the cardinal of Norwich and of Santa Cecilia at Rome, he might also have been struck by both the Dantean and the Marian features of its prologue. Chaucer’s Roman saint’s life could thus incorporate a convergence of all three authors mentioned in the title of this essay. To an English Benedictine writer who had earlier entered into detailed argument with magister Dans and was in the 1380s himself engaged in texts relating to the cult of the Virgin, Chaucer’s rewriting of the invocation to Mary from the last canto of the Paradiso would probably have been of some interest.

Easton’s Dante in Britain Finally, what effect might Easton’s reading of Dante have had on the Florentine poet’s subsequent British reception? I was initially led to Easton by 49 Harvey, The English in Rome, 199–200 and 229–30. 50 M. Giffin, Studies on Chaucer and His Audience (Hull, 1956), 29–48. 51 Ibid., 38–40. 52 J.C. Hirsh, ‘The Politics of Spirituality: the Second nun and the Manciple’, Chaucer Review, 12 (1977), 129–46, at 129–33.

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way of Dantean allusions in the work of another and later Benedictine: John Whethamstede, abbot of St Albans (1392/3–1465). Whethamstede himself seems to have known Dante’s Commedia at least in its Latin translation by Giovanni Bertoldi da Serravalle – since he cites it several times in this form during the course of one of his encyclopaedias, the Palearium poetarum (London, British Library, Additional MS 26764).53 He also provides a brief outline of the Florentine poet’s work in his compendium of poets’ lives (London, British Library, Cotton MS Titus D XX): Dantes de aldigeriis poeta florentinus tres de Paradiso videlicet P[ur]gatorio & inferno [f. 160v] in suo vulgari eloquio scripsit notabiles comedias. [Dante Alighieri, the Florentine poet, wrote in his vernacular speech three remarkable comedies, namely on Paradise, Purgatorio and Inferno.]54

Ecclesiastical politics provide a context for further direct reference to Dante in another of Whethamstede’s works. A small, plain manuscript at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is his commonplace book, written mostly in his own hand55; and its second half contains – along with a considerable amount of verse, epitaphs and recipes – two major articles on ‘Pope’ and ‘Nation’.56 These articles are thought to be the only surviving fragments of one of the abbot’s other encyclopaedic works, the Manipularium doctorum. The entry on ‘Papacy’ covers twenty pages and addresses issues such as the title and authority of the pope and the vexed question of the papacy’s temporal power and possessions.57 It is in the context of ‘temporalities’ and the nature of the pope’s entitlement to them that Whethamstede cites a group of sources, beginning with Dante: Iuxta quartos cum quibus concorda[n]t dans de monarchia mundi Thomas de potestati papali et Alvarus de planctu ecclesie Marsilius de ecclesiastica potestate ac alii multi. [Concurring with those holding the fourth viewpoint [on Papal possessions] are Dante [in] Of World Monarchy, Thomas [prob. John of Paris], On [Royal and] Papal Power, Alvaro [Pelayo], On the Lamentation of the 53 On Serravalle’s translation, see below, n. 62. 54 London, British Library, Cotton MS Titus D XX, fol. 160r–v. 55 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 230/116. 56 See D. Howlett, ‘Studies in the Works of John Whethamstede’, D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1975, 152–3. 57 Cambridge, Gonville and Caius College, MS 230/116, fols 142r–151v.

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Church, Marsilius [of Padua], On Ecclesiastical Power [i.e. Defensor pacis] and many others.]58

Whethamstede here addresses his opponents’ claim that possession of temporal wealth negates the pope’s apostolic authority. His account of some of their arguments does indeed parallel Dante’s case, and one of the scriptural passages that he shows them drawing upon (Do not possess gold, Matthew 10: 9) is actually cited for the same purpose in Monarchia 3. 10. But Whethamstede attributes this radical view to the Waldensians and their followers, not to Dante. Conversely, he lists the Dante of the Monarchia amongst those who considered the pope entitled to hold temporal possessions, thus imputing to him ‘a moderate view of papal power, giving pope and king separate spheres and not deriving the one from the other’.59 The idea of the separation of temporal and spiritual powers is indeed consistent with Dante’s views in Book III of the Monarchia, but, as Margaret Harvey pointed out in her 1985 essay on Whethamstede’s church politics, the ‘moderate’ view on Papal property that the abbot attributes to Dante is certainly not. As Harvey points out: ‘at most [Dante] would allow the pope to receive property as a guardian and does not approve wholeheartedly of property owning by the church’.60 Where and how might Whethamstede have obtained his rather confused information about the Monarchia? Its controversial status meant that dissemination of Dante’s political treatise was very limited in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and only about twenty manuscripts survive today.61 And, although it has been established, for example, that Duke Humfrey owned and donated copies of Serravalle’s Latin version of the Commedia and that Whethamstede read Dante’s text in this form, there is no evidence of a manuscript of the Monarchia having been either in Humfrey’s library or in the abbot’s collection at St Albans. As Margaret Harvey suggested, the source for Whethamstede’s references both to Dante 58 Ibid., fol. 145v. 59 M. Harvey, ‘John Whethamstede, the Pope and the General Council’, in The Church in Pre-Reformation Society: essays in honour of F.R.H. Du Boulay, ed. C.M. Barron and C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge and Dover, 1985), 108–22, at 117–18. 60 Ibid., 118. As Harvey points out here: ‘at most [Dante] would allow the pope to receive property as a guardian and does not approve wholeheartedly of property owning by the church’. On the argument about property and the authority of the papacy in Monarchia 3, see N. Havely, Dante and the Franciscans: poverty and the papacy in the ‘Commedia’ (Cambridge, 2004) 155–7. 61 See Kay, Dante’s Monarchia, xxxiii–v. The eight fourteenth-century manuscripts of the Monarchia all date from the second half of the century and ‘show signs of having been regarded as dangerous (hidden amongst other kinds of writing; made anonymous)’ (Caesar, Dante, 3).

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and to Marsilius of Padua (whose views on papal property he similarly misrepresents) is the much more well-informed attack on both writers in a work by another English Benedictine whose work he knew: Adam of Easton. Both these Benedictines were senior and influential figures on the British and international ecclesiastical scene in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, and the nexus of references in their works, from Easton’s Defensorium to Whethamstede’s Manipularium doctorum implies a continuing clerical conversation about Dante. Whethamstede’s conversation about Dante also drew, as we have seen upon the work of Giovanni Bertoldi da Serravalle. The Italian Franciscan’s Latin translation of and commentary on the Commedia were completed at the Council of Konstanz between January 1416 and January 1417 and probably brought to Britain by one of the English bishops who had encouraged the project – Nicholas Bubwith of Bath and Wells – soon after the end of the council.62 Ten years earlier, the late Cardinal Adam Easton’s library had been delivered to his former monastery at Norwich in six barrels.63 Only a few of its nearly three hundred volumes can now be identified and there is no evidence that works by Dante were among them. However, Easton’s Defensorium – with its arguments about and quotations from Dans de monarchia mundi – does seem to have reached Norwich in 1407 and later to have been copied and provided with an index (tabula) at the library of another Benedictine house, St Albans, by a clerical reader – none other than John Whethamstede.64 And that abbot of St Albans, as we have seen, would continue (albeit rather imprecisely) to cite Dans as the author of De monarchia mundi, as well as the vernacular poet of notabiles comedias. As Whethamstede knew, Easton’s Defensorium had some continuing relevance to debates about papal supremacy during the councils of the Church around the middle of the fifteenth century.65 In addressing so closely Monarchia’s arguments about papal and imperial authority, Easton also anticipates the interest in the subject that that would be shown by later English writers, from John Bale (1495–1563) onwards, although of course the sixteenth-century Protestant polemicists would 62 See D. Wallace, ‘Dante in Somerset: ghosts, historiography, periodization’, New Medieval Literatures, 3 (1999), 9–38, and Havely, Dante’s British Public, 15–18. 63 In 1407; see A.E. Stamp, Calendar of Close Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office: Henry IV, 5 vols (London, 1927–38), iii, 299. 64 See R. Sharpe et al. Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4: English Benedictine Libraries: the shorter catalogues (London, 1996), 567 (no. 18) and 579 (no. 53). 65 Its three surviving manuscripts appear to date from this period. On Whethamstede and the Councils, see Harvey, ‘John Whethamstede’.

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treat the ‘Italian writer against the pope’ (as John Foxe would call Dante) in a very different way.66 Bale’s manuscript Index Britanniae scriptorum was compiled between 1548 and 1552 and under its entry on Adamus Eston, Benedicti monachus it records titles of a number of Easton’s works, with copies of the Defensorium in three collections, including the bibliotheca Ioannis Whethamstede.67 Bale at the end of his second period of exile in the 1550s, would himself address Dante’s role in relation to the papacy, when in his massive survey of British and other writers, the Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie […] catalogus, he mentions that Dantes Aligerus, […] poeta Florentinus, opusculum scripsit de Monarchia. In quo fuit eius opinio, quod Imperiu[m] ab ecclesia minime dependeret. [Dante Alighieri, […] a Florentine poet, wrote a short work on Monarchy in which it was his opinion that the empire should not be at all dependent upon the Church.]68

Bale also has a claim to be the first Protestant writer to have conscripted Dante as a witness against Rome. In his English polemic, The Image of Bothe Churches (probably composed in the mid 1540s and published in 1548), he had listed the Florentine poet among ‘notabile doctours’ who had ‘in their famouse wryttynges called upon the churches reformacioun’.69 The 1557–9 edition of Bale’s Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie […] catalogus was published at Basel by Johannes Oporinus [Johann Herbst], who in 1559 would also publish the editio princeps of the Monarchia itself.70 Bale would very likely have been aware of his publisher’s project to promote this political treatise as witness against Rome; whist his references to the Defensorium in the Catalogus and the earlier Index could imply awareness that Dante’s views on the papacy had been treated by a much earlier English writer: Adam of Easton.71 66 See Havely, Dante’s British Public, 43–67. 67 J. Bale, Index Britanniae scriptorum, ed. R.L. Pool and M. Bateson, repr. (Cambridge, 1990), 4–6. Some of the items may be duplications; see W.A. Pantin, ‘The Defensorium of Adam Easton’, EHR, 51 (1936), 675–80, at 677. 68 J. Bale, Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytannie quam nunc Angliam & Scotiam uocant: catalogus, 2nd edn (Baselm 1557–9), 1. 377. 69 J. Bale, The Image of Bothe Churches after the Most Wonderfull and heauenly Reuelacion of Sainct John the Euangelist, enlarged ed. (Antwerp, 1548), sig. Aa 8v. 70 On Oporinus’s edition of Mon., see W.P. Friederich, Dante’s Fame Abroad, 1350–1850: the influence of Dante Alighieri on the poets and scholars of Spain, France, England, Germany, Switzerland and the United States (Chapel Hill, 1950), 198–9 and 348; Caesar, Dante, 273 and 278. 71 Bale, Scriptorum illustrium, 1. 516–17; on the Index, see above, n. 64.

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About the author Nick Havely has taught at the Universities of York and Oxford. His publications include Dante’s British Public: Readers and Texts from the Fourteenth Century to the Present (2014) and Dante and the Franciscans: Poverty and the Papacy in the ‘Commedia’ (2004).

5.

Adam Easton and St Birgitta of Sweden: a remarkable affinity Ann M. Hutchison

Abstract As a Benedictine monk in Norwich, an important religious centre with strong ties to the Continent, Easton would have known St Birgitta of Sweden (c.1303–1373) by reputation even before he was appointed to the papal Curia. On 21 September 1381, Urban VI elevated him to the cardinalate, demoting and imprisoning him five years later in 1385. Boniface XI, Urban’s successor, restored Easton’s cardinalate on 18 December 1389. In this position, he was able to advocate for the canonization of St Birgitta, who had come to Rome in 1349 and who was much revered as a prophet pursuing reform in the Church. His Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae, a carefully structured argument against an attack by an unknown Perugian, became important in defending women’s visionary writings, and thanks to his intervention and those of other clerics, St Birgitta was canonized in 1391. This chapter examines the nature of Easton’s arguments in defence of women visionaries and of St Birgitta, in particular. Keywords: Birgitta of Sweden, Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae

The questions of how Adam Easton came to hear of the Swedish mystic, prophet and instigator of religious reform, St Birgitta (c.1303–1373), or of whether or not he actually met her, may never be definitively answered, but it is clear that he had an unwavering devotion to her and that he was deeply familiar with her Revelaciones and other writings. Furthermore, we also know that he attributed strong and effective intercessory powers to her.1 1 See, J.A. Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense of St Birgitta from Bodleian MS Hamilton 7 Oxford University’, PhD thesis, Duke University, 1971, who notes that Easton had developed ‘a strong feeling for and belief in the Northern mystic,’ 33–4.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch05

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It is possible that as a monk of the Cathedral Priory of Norwich, Easton may have, at an early date, heard of Birgitta. As the prior noted in his letter to the head of Gloucester College in Oxford, at that time, Norwich was a thriving centre, or ‘a populous city and county’.2 In addition, the ports of East Anglia were close to the Continent and in the fourteenth century the Hanseatic League was flourishing in the Baltic Sea, the North Sea and the English Channel. The league had depots in Lynn and Norwich controlled by a trading post (kontor), so that through such means as visiting merchants and other travellers, news of Birgitta, whose Revelaciones were beginning to circulate, might well have become known.3 Further, in the late 1340s, there had been contact between Sweden and England through correspondence with Edward III following Birgitta’s revelation favouring England in the Hundred Years’ War with France. 4 In 1367, after leaving Oxford, Easton went to the papal Curia which Urban V had moved to Rome that year and where it remained until the autumn of 1370.5 While there he may well have encountered Birgitta, who, having received a call to go in time for the Jubilee of 1350, had set out in 1349 for Rome, where she had curial connections, and remained thereafter.6 She was, in addition, a strong advocate for the return of the papacy to the City.7 The fact that in the spring or summer of 1370, Birgitta was granted at least one audience with Urban, who had by then retired to Montefiascone to avoid the deteriorating political and military situation in Rome,8 perhaps 2 See Greatrex (‘The Early Years of Adam Easton’, in this volume), who refers to this letter p. 19, and Schmidtke (‘Adam Easton’s Defense’), who gives a translation of the entire letter, 10–11. 3 See Arthur Boyd Hibbert, ‘Hanseatic League,’ Encyclopedia Britannica online www.britannica. com/topic/Hanseatic-League (accessed 13 January 2019). 4 Birgitta had also suggested the matter be resolved by means of marriage and, somewhat later, King Magnus asked for one of Edward’s daughters in marriage on behalf of his sons, thus opening up possible ties with Sweden. See B. Morris, St. Birgitta of Sweden (Woodbridge, 1999), 81–2, and notes 58 to 61. 5 According to Schmidtke, the reasons Easton went to Rome and what position he held in the Curia are not recorded; he also notes that a number of accounts stating that he went to Avignon are incorrect since they do not realize that on 30 April 1367, Urban V left Avignon, arriving in Rome on 15 October 1367. In May 1368, Easton was sent by the pope as an envoy to Edward III; he returned from his mission in February 1369 accompanying Simon Langham, who had recently been made a cardinal; see Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 15–16 and 16 n. 1. 6 C.L. Sahlin, ‘Holy Women of Scandinavia: a survey’, in Medieval Holy Women in the Christian Tradition c. 1100–1500, ed. A. Minnis and R. Voaden (Turnhout, 2010), 690–723, at 701. 7 See Morris, St. Birgitta, 93, 113–17, especially 116. 8 Urban left Rome on 17 April 1370, first taking refuge at Viterbo, and then on 26 April, arriving at Montefiascone; see A. Jönsson, Alfonso of Jaén: his life and works with critical editions of the Epistola solitarii, the Informaciones and the Epistola Serui Christi (Lund, 1989), 43–7, at 43.

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strengthens the possibility of such an encounter.9 Whatever else, they appear to have moved in the same circles. From a young age, Adam Easton was recognized for his intelligence and intellectual ability, 10 factors that would continue to be important throughout the stages of his rise to prominence.11 He was also a serious scholar, who, for example, took up the study of Hebrew so that he could read the Old Testament in the ‘Ebrayca veritas’ for himself, rather than relying on Jerome’s Latin. 12 Out of this came a translation of the Old Testament in preparation for a work he had been planning for over twenty years and that many see as his major work, the Defensorium ecclesiasticae potestatis, which argued for the precedence of papal sovereignty over that of kings.13 The pressing reason for undertaking this task at this stage was, as Easton himself notes in the prologue, on account of the ‘new opinions’. By this, he implies a position taken against the authority of the Church in spiritual and temporal affairs, by a ‘notable doctor’, likely, John Wyclif.14 The Defensorium was dedicated to Urban VI (1378–89), and it was probably completed before 21 December of 1381, when Urban VI raised Easton to the cardinalate, since in the dedication he referred to himself merely as a ‘master of theology’, rather than cardinalis, although this may well have been a modesty topos.15 Only the prologue and the first of the work’s six books now survive, although some modern historians have suggested that there may never have been more, despite Easton’s claims in the prologue. The Defensorium shows Easton’s conservatism in championing the superior claims of the papacy and the Church against the temporal monarchs,16 a position that Birgitta would certainly have endorsed, and which points toward grounds for his aff inity with the Swedish prophet. 9 See Morris, St. Birgitta, 116 and n. 74; see also Macfarlane, who speculates on the likelihood that Easton may have met Birgitta and the even greater probability that he met her daughter (‘Life and Writings’, i, 222 n. 1). 10 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 3–4. 11 See, for example, Macfarlane, who attributes his brilliance in part to his Oxford training: ‘Life and Writings’, i, 10; Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 3, 4, 12. 12 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 18. 13 Ibid., 17–18. According to Macfarlane, Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis is the title given by the scribe of the Vatican copy, while in the prologue to the work, Easton refers to it as Defensorium ecclesiastice; see ‘Life and Writings’, i, 92 n. 2. 14 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 18. See also Nick Havely’s article in the present volume, p. 121. 15 Ibid., 19–20. 16 Ibid., 20.

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When the validity of the election of Urban VI was challenged in 1379, Easton was among those who defended him, and this was held to be one of the reasons why the pope created him cardinal.17 It was no doubt on account of his eminence at the Curia that he was one of the clerics chosen to prepare the case for the canonization of Birgitta, a matter that her daughter and confessors had been promoting almost from the moment of her death on 23 July 1373.18 Opinions vary as to the date on which the investigation was initiated. Following the acceptance of a petition from the Holy Roman Emperor and the king and barons of Sweden in May of 1376, Gregory XI set up a commission to examine the evidence for Birgitta’s canonization.19 This was followed up by Urban VI, who, on 15 December 1378, appointed four cardinals to sift through the evidence of those who had known Birgitta and especially to examine the orthodoxy of her authentic writings.20 When in the early 1380s, Urban commissioned three cardinals to sum up the findings of the commission and prepare for the process, Adam Easton was one of the three, undoubtedly because his erudition and orthodoxy were widely recognized, especially after the recent publication of his Defensorium, which had established his reputation as an outstanding theologian.21 Whatever the date, Easton had not completed this work by the time he and five other cardinals were summoned before Pope Urban VI on 11 January 1385,22 accused of attempting to limit papal power, then arrested and imprisoned on orders from the pope himself, the very person whom Easton had earlier done so much to support.23 Easton, the only one to have been spared (the other five were put to death a year or so later), was, however, deprived of his cardinalate and it appears that his commission was also removed. Urban subsequently ordered that he should remain a simple monk in the custody of one of his clerks at the Curia. Therefore, it was not until the pope’s death in 1389 and the election of Boniface XI in the same year, that Easton was reinstated as 17 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 22. 18 At her death, Birgitta’s confessors and associates included Prior Peter of Alvastra, Master Peter of Skänninge and Alfonso of Jaén; for an account of the canonization process, see Morris, St. Birgitta, 144–9. 19 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 220–1. 20 The four cardinals were Thomas Frignano, called ‘Gradensis,’ John of Amalia, called ‘Corf iensis,’ Agapitus de Columpna, and Gentilis de Sangro; see Macfarlane, ibid., 221 n. 2. According to Morris, three was the customary number; see Morris, St. Birgitta, 147. 21 Macfarlane suggests a date of 1382 or 1383; the other two cardinals were John of Amelia and Lucas Radulfulco de Gentilis, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 221–2 and nn. 2 and 4. 22 Urban, by that time, had moved from Rome to ‘the unpleasant village of Nocera’; see Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 22. 23 Ibid., 22–3.

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cardinal and, it seems, reassigned to the task of examining the writings of Birgitta to determine their orthodoxy.24 Following this ordeal, Easton, transformed by what he felt had been the intercession of Birgitta not only for his survival and deliverance but also for his endurance of torture at the hands of the ‘tyrants’, as he termed Urban and his nephew, took up this task with strengthened insight and renewed vigour.25 In a letter to the abbess and community of Vadstena after the completion of the Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae,26 he affirmed that he had made a vow to Birgitta that he would continue this work with ‘diligenciam meum totam’.27 Easton also told the women that through his continuous prayers to Birgitta to intercede on his behalf to the blessed Virgin, he had been aided in composing his treatise. He considered that he had received a truthful solution to his doubts and also that he was clearly informed concerning all the material as he read through the tract written by the Perugian adversarius to which his Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae was to become a detailed response.28 The exact dates of the composition of the Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae are difficult to determine, but as Roger Ellis has noted, it was ‘the first, as well as the earliest written’ of Birgitta’s defences.29 In his letter to Vadstena, Easton states that he prayed to Birgitta not only in the hope that she would 24 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 26; Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 24, 23, 34. 25 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, ii, 273. 26 Schmidtke attributes this title to Macfarlane; see Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 32. The title cannot have been Easton’s since Birgitta had not been canonized when the work was completed and submitted to Boniface IX, but this is the title found in the manuscripts; see Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 218–20. 27 See Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 34 and n. 1; he quotes from Bodleian MS Hamilton 7, a fifteenth-century German hand, fol. 248rb: ‘vovi ad devotam Brigittam […] ut ipsa intercederet pro me ad beatam Mariam et filium eius Christum, quod me a suis [Urban’s] periculis tirannicis liberaret, et ad eius canonizacionem poneram diligenciam meum totam’. Concerning the effects of Birgitta’s intercession, Easton stated, ‘in tantum quod in tormentis positus tyrannorum nulla tenus penam sensi’. Note: Schmidtke follows the use of modern capitalization and the modern use of ‘u’ and ‘v’. In addition, the Hamilton MS regularly spells the saint’s name ‘Brigitta’, while British Library, Harley MS 612, follows the Swedish spelling ‘Birgitta’. I have not seen the other four manuscripts (see infra p. 144–145). 28 Though the year is not given, Macfarlane dates the letter to 9 February 1390 on the grounds that Adam signs it ‘Cardinalis Anglie’ (he was restored as cardinal in December 1389), and since he asks them to pray for the canonization, the process for which was completed early in 1391; ‘Life and Writings’, i, 237; Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, gives a translation of the relevant parts of the letter and in a note provides a transcription of the Latin, 34–5 and 35 n. 1. 29 R. Ellis, ‘Text and Controversy: in defence of St Birgitta of Sweden’, in Text and Controversy from Wyclif to Bale: essays in honour of Anne Hudson, ed. H. Barr and A.M. Hutchison (Turnhout, 2005), 303–21, at 319.

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‘lucidly inform [him] according to the truth of holy scripture’, but also that she would ‘free [him] from the imminent danger’,30 which suggests that he might have seen the tract of the Perugian master just before or during his incarceration, and thus it is possible that the date of its composition could fall between 1385 and 1389, or, at least, that he was able to work on it during that period. Whatever the actual dates of composition, it was certainly completed well before 7 October 1391, the date of the bull of canonization, Ab origine mundi, and so the dates 1385 to 1390 are generally accepted.31 While the Defensorium ecclesiasticae potestatis was a dialogue between a king and a bishop,32 the Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae is a response to a now lost tract by an anonymous theologian from Perugia, who had launched an attack on the orthodoxy of the Regula sancti salvatoris, the Sermo angelicus, and the Quattuor oraciones, in particular, but above all, he attacked Birgitta’s claims to speak and write on behalf of God, for he did not believe that Christ would have revealed himself to a woman.33 It is perhaps notable that at this time Perugia was a leading centre for the study of Canon Law.34 The ‘Perugian Libellus’, as James Hogg has referred to the attack,35 does not survive, but much of its argument can be surmised from Adam Easton’s statements at the beginning of each section of his response, for he is meticulous in presenting in each of the forty-two articles the wording, or a close approximation, of the point he is disputing.36 The Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae is known to survive in six manuscripts: London, British Library, Harley MS 612, part of ‘the great corpus of writings from Syon Abbey’; Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hamilton MS 7, formerly from the Carthusian Library of Erfurt; Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter Library, MS 30 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 34, 35 n. 1: ‘lucide /me/ informaret et ab inminentibus periculis liberarat’; quoted from Bodleian MS Hamilton 7, fol. 248rb (where me has been added above). 31 See Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 34–5; and J. Hogg, ‘Cardinal Easton’s Letter to the Abbess and Community of Vadstena’, in Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order, ed. J. Hogg, 2 vols, Spiritualität Heute und Gestern, Analecta Cartusiana, 35.19 (Salzburg, 1993), ii, 20–6, at 21–2. 32 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 18–19. 33 See, for example, C.L. Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy, Studies in Medieval Mysticism, 1 (Woodbridge, 2001), 154. 34 See F.R. Johnston, ‘English Defenders of St Bridget’, in Studies in St. Birgitta and the Brigittine Order, i, 263–75, at 265 and n. 12. 35 J. Hogg, ‘Adam Easton’s Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae’, in The Medieval Mystical Tradition: England, Ireland and Wales: Exeter Symposium VI, ed. M. Glasscoe (Cambridge, 1999), 213–40, at 224, 232 and 235. 36 As Schmidtke points out there are two articles numbered ‘septimus’; ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 35.

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114, also of German origin; Uppsala University Library, MSS C 193 and C 518, both of Swedish provenance; and Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 9523, of unknown provenance.37 There is one modern edition and translation based on Hamilton MS 7 contained in a PhD dissertation by James A. Schmidtke.38 Although some documents suggest that the Perugian adversarius only dealt with the Regula sancti salvatoris, the adversary’s tract, as noted above, also covered the Sermo angelicus and the Quattuor oraciones. Roughly speaking, the first twelve articles (actually numbered one to eleven on account of the repetition of number seven) are directed toward the Rule; articles numbered twelve to thirty-six address the Sermo angelicus; and the final four, thirty-seven to forty-one, are concerned with the four prayers. The Perugian’s main arguments pertain to the improbability of Christ’s entrusting revelations to a woman, since women were prohibited, according to biblical directives and Church law, from disseminating religious teachings publicly in speech or in writing.39 Birgitta is also reproached (exprobratur), among other matters, for the content of the prologue of the Rule and for its style, for doctrinal matters, such as holding that the Father in heaven is incarnate of the body of the Virgin, which, as Easton claims, the adversary has misunderstood. After this the censure continues with its condemnation of the ‘lessons and prayers’ (‘lectiones et orationes’), that is the Sermo angelicus comprising the twenty-one lessons concerning the life of the Virgin to be read at matins and the four divinely revealed prayers. 40 Beginning with Article I, Easton deals directly with each objection of his opponent, marshalling his arguments in an orderly and controlled manner. One can see the Oxford scholar trained in disputatio relishing the challenge posed by every item of the Perugian’s Libellus. 41 His mastery of appropriate authorities – examples from the Bible, sayings of the Church Fathers, of 37 For further details concerning the manuscripts, see Hogg, ‘Adam Easton’s Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae’, 229–31. 38 For Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, see above, n. 1. 39 See Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden, 159. 40 See Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 43 and 169–70 (here and elsewhere where quoting, the lower number refers to the English translation, the higher to the Latin of the text in Bodleian Hamilton MS 7). 41 In later years under Benedict XIV (1734–8), in the legal proceedings of the canonization process, there was a prosecuting counsel named promotor justitiae (popularly called the ‘Devil’s Advocate’); see D.H. Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Oxford, 1978), xviii. Perhaps the Perugian was a prototype of this role, but whatever else, as Macfarlane points out, the Perugian’s Libellus was not necessarily heretical, or unorthodox, but represented the conservative position of the Church of the time, which viewed mystical phenomena with suspicion; see ‘Life and Writings’, i, 223.

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Aristotle, of Aquinas, of Nicholas de Lyra, and so on – is brought to bear as he quashes each objection of the adversarius. 42 It becomes clear why Urban VI feared Easton most ‘propter profunditatem sensus et scientiae’!43 As one reads through the Defensorium, one can sense its emotional, as well as intellectual, power, made all the more intense, I think, by the fact that it is so controlled. Easton, addressing his work to the ‘Most holy father’ (Beatissime pater), presumably Boniface IX (1389–1404), begins fittingly with a quotation from Psalm 118 (119), ‘Respondebo exprobantibus michi verbum’ (‘I shall reply with a word to those reproving me’), 44 words that he repeats several times in the course of his introduction and continues with a short disquisition on the authority of the word of the Lord in which Birgitta laid her trust. He concludes the peroration with the supplication that ‘the Lord Jesus Christ grant to [him] by the merit of the glorious Virgin and of the devout Birgitta, […] for whose honour I began the present work, that I should answer them that reproach me in anything’, thus repeating the words of the Psalmist with slight variation (respondeam for respondebo) and, as was customary, submitting his work to correction. 45 The first article deals with an interrogation of the probability ‘that Christ by his own mouth dictated to the aforesaid lady the rule which the nuns were to observe in the monastery which Christ himself had ordered constructed in Sweden’, 46 to which the adversarius countered ‘that does not appear probable, and because it is not proven, it is with ease [ facilitate] condemned rather than proven’.47 With similar ease, but at some length, Easton argues that it ‘does appear probable […] because it does not refute the truth. Instead it agrees with reason’ (‘Istud apparet verisimile cuicumque quod non repugnant veritati. Sed convenit ratione’). 48 He then cites the example of the resurrected Christ speaking to the women who had 42 Schmidtke discusses Easton’s use of sources, noting that his commentaries on and expositions of biblical verses were not entirely his own, but relied on the Postillae of Nicholas of Lyra, which he quoted or paraphrased about 45 times; he also drew on the Summa theologica of Thomas Aquinas; and often he did not cite authorities first hand, but rather took them from Nicholas of Lyra or Aquinas. Schmidtke notes that in the Middle Ages such appropriation ‘was no sin’. See Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 38, 39. 43 Ibid., 23. 44 Ibid., 169; Ps. 118(119): 42. The translation is by R. Ellis, who well captures the sense Easton is trying to impart: ‘Text and Controversy: In Defence of St Birgitta of Sweden’, 319; the Douai-Reims (1609) version is: ‘So shall I answer them that reproach me in any thing.’ Subsequent English translations are taken from the Douai-Reims translation. 45 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 44 and 170. 46 Ibid., 44 and 170–1. 47 Ibid., 44 and 171. 48 Ibid., 44 and 171.

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come to seek His tomb, as recorded by Matthew, 49 and from there he moves on to Aristotle’s De anima concerning the probable as truth when it appears probable to everyone.50 Next Easton turns to Augustine’s De civitate Dei where he cites a passage also dealing with probability and truth, but going further to include love and reason: ‘only knowledge is loved, and so what is not probable is neither known nor loved. But whatever appears probably true or appears true, and especially where it agrees with the appearance of reason, is both known and loved, and consequently the same is probable to anyone.’51 This leads Easton in the second major phase of his argument to consider Birgitta herself noting that after the death of her husband, she dedicated herself ‘principally to Jesus Christ and the glorious Virgin’ and that she ‘lived a supremely good life and was a special worshipper of God’. Therefore, ‘because of the love and esteem in her heart, Christ appears in order to instruct her in the pleasing life as is desirable for his bride. Such is clear in the Canticle and concerning Cornelius in Acts 10’.52 (In what has become known as her ‘calling vision’, Christ speaks from a bright cloud and informs Birgitta that she would be His bride (‘sponsa mea’) and His channel (‘canale meum’) for passing on His messages to the Christian world.)53 As the final example from this second phase of the response, Easton cites Hebrews 1: ‘God, who, at sundry times and in diverse manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets. […] In these days, hath spoken to us by his Son.’54 In the third section he argues that ‘This is most probable if it is found that to someone [else] similar or the same things were done,’ and here his example is Paul to whom ‘Christ dictated by his own mouth the gospel of Jesus Christ’.55 Fourthly, he adduces the example of Pachomius, who received a rule for monks from Christ ‘by His own mouth [ore proprio]’, and fifthly, that of ‘the blessed doctor Basil; wherein we read that he wrote a life and rule for monks which was dictated by an angel’.56 In his sixth argument, Easton turns to the physical state of man that allows visions or 49 Ibid., 45 and 171; mistakenly cited as ‘Mattheus xxvii’, but actually Matt. 28: 9–10; see also Mark 16, Luke 24, and John 20. 50 Ibid., 46 and 172 and n. 1; Aristotle, De anima, III. 51 Schmidtke, following the manuscript, uses the title De civitate; he also notes that it is often difficult to find the exact references, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 46 and 172. The difficulty may possibly arise from the fact that Easton is quoting from memory. 52 Ibid., 46 and 173 and n. 2, verses 1–3. 53 See Morris, St. Birgitta, 65 and n. 1. 54 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 47 and 173; Heb. 1: 1–2; here the Douai edition of 1609 has a typo: ‘prophest’ for ‘prophets’. 55 Ibid., 47, 173–4 and n. 1; see also Gal. 1, esp. 11 and 12. 56 Ibid., 48 and 174.

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revelations to occur: ‘especially by mourning, fasting and prayer’, the mind is subtracted ‘from the sensible to the heavenly’, as is borne out in Daniel 10.57 Birgitta, he notes, ‘fervently employed these conditions, especially in meditations on Jesus Christ and in seeking His knowledge’. Easton discusses Birgitta’s devout manner of living and finally concludes: ‘From this it is clear that the attack of the lord and master in the first article does not contain the truth; indeed, with reverence to all, the attack is poor.’58 Thus politely, but firmly, he dismisses the first proposition of his opponent. I have dealt with this first article at some length in an attempt to give a flavour of the tone and texture of the Defensorium. As can be seen, Easton’s arguments are thorough, supported by accepted authorities, and confident. That he has immense respect for Birgitta also becomes clear. For instance, he first refers to her as ‘the illustrious lady Birgitta’ (‘Illustris domine Birgitte’), and then most often as ‘the devout Birgitta’ (‘devota Birgitta’), or ‘the devout lady’ (‘istius devote domine Birgitte’). He also expresses great admiration for the strength of her faith, for her love for God, as well as her virtuous manner of living.59 This very positive view of Birgitta, while, it may be held to be the norm, is not in evidence everywhere. In dealing with the matter of women per se and of Birgitta as a woman, Easton is very much a cleric of his time. Though one might find a range of modern critical opinion on this topic – some even suggesting that Easton was a proto-feminist – most are much more guarded in their assessment, and, as one considers some of the next few articles, the reason is clear. In Article III, Easton deals with the Perugian master’s attack on the style of the Rule, which he has called ‘gross and rude in style’ (‘stilo grosso et rudi’) while noting that it is also ‘defective’ (‘defecuoso’) and should not receive approval from the ‘apostolic see’.60 The first part of Easton’s response concerns the ‘gross’, or unrefined, and ‘rude’, or uncultivated: ‘nuns or women are weak in intellect and unskilled in grasping the subtleties of the law of God. Therefore, the rule for living should be easily accessible [gross] in style, easily transmitted and rude [unadorned] according to the proper capacity of them’.61 Secondly, Easton points out that Christ in giving the 57 Ibid., 48 and 175 and n. 2; Dan. 10: 1–7. 58 Ibid., 48–50 and 175–6; ‘Ex quibus patet quod inpugnacio prefati domini et magistri in primo articulo obiectivo non continent veritatam, ymmo cum reverencia cuiuscumque dicta inpugnacio male sapit,’ ibid., 50 and 176. 59 Ibid., for example, 42, 46, 51 and 169, 175, 177. 60 Ibid., 55 and 181. 61 The Latin reads: ‘inbecilles intellectu et rudes ad capiendum subtilia legis Dei’, ibid., 55–6 and 181.

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rule of salvation to the evangelists did not speak to them all in one way, but ‘according to their diverse conditions’. Since ‘nuns are more weak in intellect, more unlearned in the capacity for doctrine and more simple than men, therefore, the rule which is to be given to them should be more general [gross] and rude [plain] in style’.62 He concludes his argument by mentioning that Pachomius distinguished the various grades of monks of his rule, and even St Paul preached in a general and plain manner to the inept Corinthians.63 Later, in Article VII[a], Easton counters the Perugian’s argument that Christ would not have chosen a woman to transmit a monastic rule since Paul ordained that women should not speak in Church. While he corrects his adversary’s misreading of Paul,64 pointing out that he says that a woman is not permitted to ‘teach’ in Church, not that she is not permitted to speak, and bolsters his position with reference to Aquinas, who says that women can give ‘familiar instruction to some privately’,65 with reference to Ambrose, who speaks of women being ‘sent to them who are of her household’,66 and finally, and most interestingly, he states that Christ ‘appeared to the woman first, for this reason, that as a woman was the first to bring the source of death to man, so she might be the first to announce the dawn of Christ’s glorious resurrection’.67 On the other hand, Easton does not disagree with the biblical prohibitions against women’s public ecclesiastical teaching, and as he lays out his reasons for the necessity of these prohibitions, one sees a review of the generally held misogynistic views of the time: first, ‘since to teach is the work of wisdom […] wisdom does not flourish in women because of the curse’ placed on women at the Fall; ‘the man rules the woman and not the opposite’68; ‘in begetting, the man has the active and the woman the passive [part]’; ‘woman is the fall [sic, an incomplete, occasionatus] man’ according to Aristotle,69 and therefore, here quoting Paul, ‘man is the 62 The Latin reads: ‘Sed moniales sunt debiles in intellectu et in capacitate doctrine rudiores et simplices plus quam viri, ergo regula que prolege et doctrine earum debent eis tradi, debet tradi stilo grossiori et rudiori quam traduntur regule aliorum,’ ibid., 56 and 181–2. 63 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 56 and 181–2; 2 Cor. 10. 64 1 Tim. 2: 12, ‘But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to use authority over the man: but to be in silence.’ 65 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 60 and 185; III Summa theologiae, q. 54 [sic, 55], art. 1; see Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden, 187; this was clearly a widely known passage, as even Margery Kempe some forty years later is well aware of it! 66 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 60 and 185, citing his commentary on Luke (Super Lucem). 67 Ibid., 60 and 185. 68 Ibid., 61 and 186; Gen. 3: 16. 69 Ibid., 61 and 186; De generacione animalium, see 186 n. 2. Text emended by author.

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head of the woman’70; and finally, in this article at least, ‘by general law, woman is weak [ fragilis], imprudent, inferior [subietca], and […] incapable [inabilis] of teaching publicly as a teacher [tamquam doctor] in Church’.71 While to contemporary readers in the Western world, such pronouncements are extremely distasteful, for the world of Adam Easton these views were taken for granted as the ‘received wisdom’, and in terms of the Church at the time, this was the orthodox position.72 For Easton, a ‘subtle’ scholar with a powerful intellect, whose task was to further the cause of Birgitta’s canonization by proving that her visions and revelations were genuine and orthodox, it would have been more than foolhardy to have tried to modify such views, even if the need to do so had occurred to him, which I suspect it had not.73 He does not leave the seventh article on this deprecating note, however, but continues with details of sound reasons for the propriety of women’s private teaching, citing many exemplary biblical figures, such as Mary Magdalen, the ‘four daughters [of Philip] who did prophesy’, the prophet Deborah, and Agnes, Agatha, Cecilia and other early saints to whom Christ spoke, all to bring him to the conclusion that ‘From this it is clear that the objection against the devout lady Birgitta contains no reason.’74 Elsewhere, Easton points out the value of the prophecies of women and also the fact that Christ did not favour men over women. As he explains in Article 10, for example, in answer to the adversary’s question of why Christ dictated a rule to Birgitta when he did not do so for ‘many saints of great devotion and authority in the Church’ followed by a list of men who founded orders, he cites the earlier-mentioned example of Pachomius, to whom 70 Ibid., 61 and 186; 1 Cor. 11: 3. 71 Ibid., 61 and 186. 72 A nuanced discussion of this matter is presented by J.A. Schmidtke in his article ‘“Saving” by Faint Praise: St. Birgitta of Sweden, Adam Easton and medieval antifeminism’, American Benedictine Review, 33 (1982), 149–61; see also Sahlin, who notes that ‘Easton’s assumptions about women’s natural subordination were widely accepted by medieval scholars’ and provides some well-known names’ (Birgitta of Sweden, 187 n. 87). 73 The fact that there were lingering doubts concerning the authority of Birgitta’s Revelaciones, even after her canonization (1391), its confirmation at the Council of Constance (1414–17) and re-conf irmation by Pope Martin V (1 July 1419), shows that Easton’s conservative position vis-à-vis women was wise; see, for example, Morris, St Birgitta, 155–8. Doubts were also raised at the Council of Basel (1431–49), though a strong defence by the Spanish Dominican Juan de Torquemada held sway. It was not until the eighteenth century, however, when Benedict XIV (1740–58) issued his bull De servorum Dei beatificatione et beatorum canonizatione was issued that the critics of three great medieval women (Hildegard of Bingen, Caterina of Siena and Birgitta of Sweden) were f inally silenced; see Morris, St. Birgitta, 158, and Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden, 221–3. 74 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 61–4 and 186–9; Acts 21: 9, Judges 4.

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Christ dictated a rule, to show that this claim is false. He then reiterates his view that ‘just as evil teaching came by a woman, so the rule for good living would come to others by a woman’, thus, as Sahlin has pointed out, representing Birgitta as an anti-type of Eve.75 He continues his response with the opinion that ‘God wished to dictate to the devout Birgitta the rule by his own mouth, so that to both sexes of mankind he would give the privileges of his grace’.76 Finally, he concludes with a warning that one should not judge ‘why he draws one and draws not another’, citing Augustine and ending his response with a familiar quotation from Matthew: ‘Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to the little ones.’77 Thus Easton felt he had aptly demonstrated that it was ‘theologically appropriate’ for Christ to dictate a rule to Birgitta.78 Throughout the Defensorium, Easton, unlike many of his contemporaries, is unquestioning in his acceptance and promotion of Birgitta, a woman and a mystic possessing a special grace in being the recipient of spiritual visions. As Pantin and others have maintained, Easton ‘was by no means a hidebound conservative. […] [H]e had sympathy with the mystical movements of his day’.79 His sensitivity to mystical experiences is seen particularly in the final article of the Defensorium, in which he refutes the adversary, who objects to the wording ‘a little past midway’ in the last (fourth) prayer: ‘just as the lilies of the field are moved and inclined by the wind, so all the limbs of the Virgin Mary are always moved by the infusion of the Holy Spirit’.80 For the explanation, Easton turns to Luke describing the events of the Visitation: when ‘Mary greeted Elizabeth, the infant leaped in her womb and Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she cried out with a loud voice and said: “Blessed art thou among women, […] As soon as the voice of thy salutation reached my ears the infant in my womb leaped for joy”’.81 He then explains that ‘the leaping of the boy’ would not have been perceived by Elizabeth ‘except by revelation from the Holy Spirit’, and that 75 Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden, 189. 76 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 71–2 and 196. 77 Matthew 11:25: ‘Quem trahat et quem non trahat, quare illum trahat et illum non trahat, noli velle iudicari, si non vis errare’; see Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 72 and n. 1, and 196 n. 1. 78 See Sahlin, Birgitta of Sweden, 189. 79 W.A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century (Cambridge, 1955), 181; Pantin continues, ‘It was a true instinct that made him support St Brigit and her order, for as the history of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was to show, the Brigittines, along with the Carthusians and Friars Observant, represented the most fervent and heroic element in English monasticism.’ 80 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 163 and 270. 81 Ibid., 163 and 270; Luke 1: 41–42, 44.

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in Mary, ‘the infusion of the Holy Spirit’ caused all her limbs to be ‘specially moved by God due to the great abundance of grace given to [her]’.82 He also refutes the claim of the adversary that this infusion impeded the ‘inactivity of holy contemplation’ by stating: ‘rather, it augments it because the Virgin Mary perceived herself to be elevated to the spirit’.83 Easton’s recognition of this special grace and of the overall significance of the Visitation, may have been sharpened as a result of the fact that he composed the special Office of the Visitation at the request of Urban VI.84 In addition, it reveals his own devotion to Mary, which may have been part of what drew him to Birgitta in the first place, for her order was created to honour the mother of Christ.85 Whatever the immediate cause, it allowed him wholeheartedly to support Birgitta and to demonstrate the depth of his understanding of the nature of spiritual grace. The last words of the Defensorium leave no doubt, but state his position clearly: ‘the explained truth of the article is distinctly clear to the praise and honour of the glorious Virgin, and for the defence of her devout servant, the devout lady Birgitta, to whom be honour and glory forever’.86 Although, as Schmidtke has pointed out, no details survive to indicate the actual role that Adam Easton’s Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae played in the canonization process, the work was successful in its main goal of establishing the orthodoxy of Birgitta’s compositions – that is, the Regula sancti salvatoris, the Sermo angelicus, and the Quattuor oraciones – against the attacks of the Perugian adversarius in the Libellus.87 Macfarlane, on the other hand, maintained that Easton’s Defensorium, ‘perhaps alone of his works, was the most successful in that it had its desired effect’.88 Certainly, on 7 October 1391 Boniface IX promulgated the bull Ab origine mundi, thus marking the canonization of Birgitta of Sweden. Indeed, as Hogg points out, Easton himself seems to have believed that he ‘destroyed the Perugian’s objections’ as his ‘Petitio admissionis articulorum’ indicates: ‘all of the 82 Ibid., 163 and 270–1. 83 Ibid., 164 and 271. 84 Macfarlane suggests that it was written between 1381 and 1384 ‘when Easton enjoyed the full measure of Urban VI’s favour’; see Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 201–16, at 216. 85 J. Hogg, ed. The Rewyll of Seynt Sauioure and A Ladder of Foure Ronges by the Which Men Mowe Clyme to Heven: edited from the MSS. Cambridge University Library Ff. 6.33 and London Guildhall 25524, Analecta Cartusiana 183 (Salzburg, 2003), 8; the Latin reads: ‘Hanc igitur religionem ad honorem amantissime marie matris,’ 143. 86 ‘Ex quibus clare patet veritas articuli declarata ad laudem Virginis et honorem gloriose, et defensionem sue devote famule devote domine Brigitte, cui sit honor et Gloria in eternum’; Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 164 and 271–2. 87 Ibid., 40. 88 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 256.

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foresaid articles […] I hold to be admissible, publishable and readable in the holy Church of God. […] They are true, and orthodox and propositions of faith, either following out of faith or the truth of holy scripture.’89 Having served its immediate purpose, the Defensorium seems not to have been further considered, for after the Council of Basel, as Macfarlane points out, ‘it was John Turrecremata’s [Juan de Torquemada’s] defence of S. Bridget which stood authoritatively at the head of her published works’, rather than ‘Easton’s vaster and much more skilful study’, and he suggests that Easton’s work ‘slipped into limbo’.90 As the provenance of the manuscripts indicates, however, this was a treatise valued, along with Birgitta’s writings including the Rule, by members of her order. As we have seen, it is found, for example, in BL, Harley MS 612, the most important corpus of Bridgettine writings from Syon Abbey, home of the English Bridgettines, as well as in two Swedish manuscripts from the mother house in Vadstena. As the early provenance of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Hamilton MS 7, implies, it also appears to have been of interest to the Carthusians.91 Like the Bridgettines, the Carthusians valued meditation and prayer and their devotional life often included mystical experiences, an aspect that Easton strongly defended regarding Birgitta.

About the author Ann M. Hutchison is an emeritus member of the Department of English at Glendon College, York University in Toronto. She is also the Academic Dean and a Fellow of the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Her research into the literacy and education of medieval women inspired her to study St Birgitta of Sweden.

89 Schmidtke, ‘Adam Easton’s Defense’, 165 and 272. 90 Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 234. 91 From the Carthusian monastery of Erfurt; see above, p. 144, and Hogg, ‘Adam Easton’s Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae, 229–31; see also Macfarlane, who notes that the whole MS is devoted to Birgitta’s writings and writings about her; these include the bull of canonization, as well as the material of Easton’s Defensorium Sanctae Birgittae, ‘Life and Writings’, i, 218.

6. Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary Miriam Wendling

Abstract Adam Easton’s Office for the Visitation is a large-scale liturgical poetic work. With texts for Vespers, Matins, Lauds and the minor Offices, its sung performance could literally take hours. Easton’s Office was chosen from among several composed for the promulgation of the new Feast of the Visitation, but how it was circulated remains a mystery. It survives in more than a dozen notated sources from the late fourteenth through the sixteenth centuries, none of them identical. This chapter is the first study to examine the surviving sources of the Office with musical notation to provide the most likely explanation for how it was transmitted across Europe. Keywords: plainchant, Visitation of Mary, Historia, contrafactum

The Feast of the Visitation of Mary, which marks when Mary journeyed to visit her cousin Elizabeth, was a relatively late addition to the medieval Roman calendar.1 It was first promulgated by Pope Boniface IX in 1389.2 The reason for the universal institution of the feast, as outlined in the bull Superni benignitas conditoris, was not only to commemorate Mary’s journey to visit Elizabeth, but also, according to Boniface’s text, to bring the Church back together after the Western Schism – sentiments which also are repeated in the second and third readings for Matins.3 However, following a variety 1 Related in Luke 1: 39–56. 2 Bullarum diplomatum et privilegiorum sanctorum romanorum pontificum Taurinensis editio: locupletior facta collectione novissima plurium brevium, epistolarum, decretorum actorumque S. Sedis a S. Leone Magno usque ad praesens / cura et studio Collegii adlecti Romae virorum s. theologiae et ss. canonum peritorum quam SS.D.N. Pius Papa IX apostolica benedictione erexit auspicante Emo ac Revmo Dno S.R.E. Cardinali Francisco Gaude, 24 vols (Turin, 1857–72), iv (1859), 602–4, column 1. 3 Ibid., 603. Although the text used for the readings at Matins does not come directly from the bull, they recount similar stories. These readings are printed in L.J. Macfarlane, ‘The Life

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch06

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of factors, including the Schism, it was not universally taken up and was again confirmed in the mid-fifteenth century. 4 The feast was first introduced not in Rome, but locally by the archbishop of Prague, John Jenstein, and approved at a diocesan synod there in June 1386.5 It was celebrated there, although not without some contention and – because with a new feast often comes liturgy – an Office or Historia written by the archbishop circulated in some sources now held in some libraries in the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany.6 Nearly three years later, a consistory in April 1389 announced the feast in Rome and it appears to have first been celebrated there under Urban, using Jenstein’s Office.7 Another Office, however, gained much greater acceptance after the official promulgation of the feast and saw wider circulation in the fifteenth century.8 and Writings of Adam Easton, O.S.B.’, 2 vols, PhD dissertation, University of London, 1955, ii, 254–5. 4 R.W. Pfaff, New Liturgical Feasts in Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1970), 43. 5 I. Polc, De origine festi visitationis B.M.V., Corona Lateranensis 9a (Rome, 1967), 45, and R.E. Weltsch, Archbishop John of Jenstein (1348–1400): papalism, humanism, and reform in pre-Hussite Prague, Studies in European History VIII (The Hague, 1968), 88. Jenstein’s efforts were recorded by his friend Nicolaus Rakovnik, whose writings survive in manuscripts such as Wroclaw, University Library, I F 621 and I F 777. The former is available through a digitization project, http://dk.bu.uni.wroc.pl/cymelia/displayDocumentFotos.htm?docId=5002000166 (accessed 30 July 2014), the latter is quoted extensively in Polc, De origine, as above. 6 Jenstein wrote a text against Adalbert (Contra Adalbertum), arguing in favour of the new Office: Polc notes that Adalbert summarily rejected the feast and the Office (De origine, 45, 67). Adalbert’s argumentation took two approaches: the first, that the archbishop had failed to gain approval of the pope and the Prague metropolitan Cathedral Chapter before instituting it, and the second, that the feast was mentioned neither in the Gospel of Luke in a way that precludes objection – ‘denn das Ereignis der Heimsuchung sei etwas anderes als das Fest’ (because the event of the Visitation was something other than the feast), nor by an apostle. See J. Kadlec, Leben und Schriften des Prager Magisters Adalbert Rankonis de Ericinio, aus dem Nachlaß von Rudolf Holinka und Jan Vilikovský, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Philosophie und Theologie des Mittelalters, Neue Folge 4 (Münster, 1971), 33–8, at 35. Surviving copies of Jenstein’s Office include manuscripts such as Darmstadt, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS 872, an antiphonary and hymnary of the Teutonic Knights, where Jenstein’s Office begins on folio 236r. Manuscripts held in the Czech Republic include Prague, National Library, VI.G.3a (from St George in Prague, with musical notation, the Office begins fol. 3r) and XIII.E.14f (a fourteenth-century breviary from Prague, without musical notation, the Office begins fol. 12r). A fifteenth-century Polish source is Wrocław, University Library I F 396, http://www.bibliotekacyfrowa.pl/dlibra/ doccontent?id=6337&from=PIONIER%20DLF (accessed 27 Aug 2015). This Office is also found in some Carmelite books produced in Prague and used in Krakow; see J. Boyce, O. Carm., Carmelite Liturgy and Spiritual Identity: the choirbooks of Kraków, Medieval Church Studies 16 (Turnhout, 2008), 184. 7 Polc, De origine, 78 and 83–4. 8 Pfaff notes that the feast was confirmed at the Council of Basel and that a new Office and Mass were compiled in 1443 (New Liturgical Feasts, 25).

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This second Office, written by Adam Easton, is also a curiosity.9 The Office is the only known liturgical composition of the theologian and contains a substantial amount of text.10 But how did it come about? Urban VI had been planning to promulgate the Feast of the Visitation when he died on 15 October 1389. It thus fell to Boniface to do so, and, indeed, this was one of his first actions after his election.11 At this point in the story, questions about Easton’s involvement in the promulgation of the feast start to arise: a text preserved in a manuscript now held in Warsaw indicates that Easton was already involved in the study of the new feast before Urban’s death, so he must have been rehabilitated in some way by then, although he did not regain the title of cardinal until late in 1389.12 The exact timeline for the composition of the offices, be it before or after Boniface promulgated the feast, is unclear.13 Polc suggests that Jenstein’s Office was selected for use at the first celebration of the feast from several newly composed historiae.14 However, Easton’s Office became popular in the first half of the fifteenth century and is found in a variety of sources now held throughout Western Europe. The Office survives in a great number of breviaries and a smaller number of antiphonaries. An overview of the surviving sources can be found in Analecta hymnica 24.15

9 Biographical information about Easton can be found in M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 189–212; in R.B. Dobson, ‘Easton, Adam (c. 1330–1397)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (http://www.oxforddnb. com/view/article/8417); in Macfarlane, ‘Life and Writings’; and Greatrex’s chapter in this volume. 10 R. Strohm suggests that Easton may have also composed a piece of polyphony in honour of Urban VI before falling out of the pope’s favour. See The Rise of European Music 1380–1500 (Cambridge, 1993), 16–17. 11 The bull instituting the feast appears to be the first of Boniface XI’s papacy and he very clearly indicates Urban’s part in the institution of the feast in the third section of the text, see Bullarium diplomatum, iv, 603, column 1. 12 Polc, De origine, 76. Dobson notes that Easton was rehabilitated as a cardinal on 18 December 1389 (ʻEaston, Adam’). 13 The process of selecting an Office was recorded by Nicholaus Rakovnik (see note 5). Polc writes that eight Offices were considered (De origine, 86). However, Polc also seems to suggest that more than one Off ice was available for the f irst celebration of the feast in 1389, before Urban VI’s death (De origine, 83). 14 See above, note 7. 15 C. Blume and G.M. Dreves, eds, Historiae Rhythmicae: Liturgische Reimoffizien des Mittelalters, Folge 4, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, 24 (Leipzig, 1896), 89–94. Some additional sources (not listed in Analecta hymnica) of Easton’s Off ice have been used, including an antiphonary from the Czech Republic, now held in Prague, National Library, under the shelfmark of III.D.10.

158 Miriam Wendling

The choice of Easton’s Office for promulgation is attested to in secondhand literature and some manuscript copies of the Office.16 It has been suggested that Easton had promoted his Office over the others, yet Nicholas Rakovnik, the author of this statement, appears to be squarely in Jenstein’s corner.17 Whatever the situation, Easton’s Office was taken up widely among areas loyal to Rome. Macfarlane suggested that Easton’s Office must have been in the works well before his imprisonment, having been written sometime between 1379 and 1384.18 However, I have not found any evidence of this, nor does it seem that the feast was being discussed before the mid-1380s, when the archbishop of Prague instituted it in his diocese.19

Sources Easton’s Office survives in a variety of sources, many of which are from Central Europe, from the late fourteenth through the sixteenth century. The earliest surviving substantial source of the Office is held in the library of the former Benedictine Monastery of Rajhrad, MS 626. A colophon at the end of the main text block, on fol. 318r, dates the book to 1397. Easton’s Office is copied beginning on the verso of this folio and goes against the ruling pattern that had already been prepared on the page: the verso of fol. 318 had, like the recto, been ruled in a double-column pattern. Instead, the Office is copied in a single column format with ten lines of text and music per folio – the main book block has twelve. The remaining portion of the 16 I have found no mention of Easton nor of this particular Office in Boniface’s bull Superni benignitas conditoris. However, the choice of Easton’s Office for promulgation is attested to in the Rajhrad manuscript as well as the Vatican MS Ottobono lat. 676 (cf. Macfarlane, i, 201), as well as Paris, Bibliothèque National, MS Lat. 756 (cf. Macfarlane, i, 202). 17 See Polc, De origine, 87. Polc’s source here is the manuscript Wrocław, University Library, MS I F 777 (erroneously noted as I F 177 in Harvey, The English in Rome, 201, note 110). See also Wrocław, University Library, MS I F 621, fol. 5r, where Rakovnik’s text reads, ʻCardinale Anglicano dicto Adam […] qui hystoriam propriam quam super festo visitacionis mariae fecerat promovebat aliasque hystorias cum archiepiscopi historia impediebat suam volens non promovere.’ The text Polc cites from I F 777 (De origine, 87), ʻqui historiam propriam, quam super festo […] fecerat, promovebat aliasque historias cum archiepiscopi impediebat suam volens promovere’, is missing the ʻnon’ found in I F 621. Both of these texts, however, imply that Easton had written his own Office and impeded Jenstein’s; the ambiguity is in whether or not Easton promoted his own Office or did not want to promote Jenstein’s. 18 Macfarlane, ʻLife and Writings’, i, 208. 19 Pfaff’s analysis of the feast also notes no evidence of the feast before 1386 (New Liturgical Feasts, 40–2).

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Office is copied with the same layout on subsequent folios – however, it is imperfect: one folio is missing.20 It seems probable that this Office was a rather prompt addition to the manuscript. A further early source, in the form of a single leaf of an antiphonary with part of the first vespers antiphon, copied in Italy around 1400, is found in New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, accession number 90.61.3.21 This source is of particular interest because Easton is represented as the author of the Office, flanked by two saints, in a bas-de-page miniature.22 Sources I have used for this study are shown in Table 6.1:23 Library

Shelfmark

First Folio

Frankfurt a. M., University Library24 Rajhrad, Benedictine Monastery25 Prague, National Library Ljubljana, Archiepiscopal archives26 Munich, Bavarian State Library27 Munich, Bavarian State Library Prague, National Library

Ms. Barth. 94 Ms. R 626 XIII.A.5b 19, vol. 2 Clm 9508 Clm 18392 III.D.10

Fol. 141v Fol. 318v Fol. 77r Fol. 66v Fol. 26r Fol. 2r Fol. 131v

20 Fol. 323; a stub has been retained. After fol. 318, the ruling pattern changes which, although a codicological examination of the manuscript has not been possible, suggests that these folios may form a separate quire. 21 This leaf was discussed in B.D. Boehm, ʻChoirs of Angels: painting in Italian choir books, 1300–1500’, Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, New Ser., 66.3 (2009), 6–64, at 27 and 30. 22 It appears that this portrait may have been modelled on St Jerome, which accounts for the halo above Easton’s head. Sometimes represented as a cardinal, St Jerome would have been a suitable model for Easton, and the association of both with translation might strengthen this association. 23 A further source (Fulda, Hochschul- und-Landesbibliothek, Aa 55) has been omitted from this study as it appears to be melodically unrelated to the other sources and four responsories have been replaced with other texts (all three responsories from the second nocturn and the first responsory from the third). 24 http://sammlungen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/msma/content/pageview/2124615 [accessed 10.01.2014]. 25 This manuscript and the two held in the National Library in Prague are available via www. manuscriptorium.com without the facility to link to a specific folio. This manuscript is referred to as the ʻBreviarii Olomucensis. s. Libri horarum de tempore et de sanctis pars aestivalisʼ, reflecting a presumed origin of Olomouc; the scribe appears to note his location as ‘in villam wysschorrie’ (fol. 318r), which could be modern Vyšehorky. Dokoupilʼs catalogue entry suggests a common origin for this manuscript and R 625 and R 627 of the ʻEcclesiae B. Virginis civitatis Treboviensisʼ, which would place it in the diocese of Olomouc, Soupis rukopisů Knihovny benediktinů v Rajhradě / Catalogus Codicum Manu Scriptorium Bibliothecae Monasterii Ordinis S. Benedicti Rajhradensis (Praze, 1966), 318. 26 Antiphonarium ecclesiae parochialis urbis Kranj, ed. J.j Snoj and G. Gilányi, Musicalia Danubania 23, vol 23 (Budapest, 2007). 27 http://daten.digitale-sammlungen.de/bsb00079148/image_63 [accessed 26.10.2014].

160 Miriam Wendling Library

Shelfmark

First Folio

Copenhagen, Royal Library28 Utrecht, University Library29 Utrecht, Univeresity Library30 Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers31 Oxford, Balliol College Library32 Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers33

Ms. 3449 8º, vol. 9 Ms. 406 Ms. 408 Ms. 6 Ms. 225 Ms. 2

Fol. 106r Fol. 243r Fol. 176r Fol. 158r Fol. 206v Fol. 211v

Analysis That Easton’s Office is a contrafactum of Julian of Speyer’s Office for St Francis of Assisi is attested to in manuscripts of the Office.34 It is noted first in the rubrics of a copy of the text of the Office, Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. Ottobono lat. 676, which reads: ʻHere begins the Office of the blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth. Approved by Pope Boniface the ninth and to be sung according to blessed Francis.’35 Modern research on the Office connected it again to the Office of St Francis in 1900, with J.E. Weis’s study of Julian of Speyer.36 Weis lists Easton’s Office among one of many that used 28 A digitization of a microfilm of this manuscript is available from: http://www.uni-regensburg. de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_I/Musikwissenschaft/cantus/microfilm/copenhagen/vol9/images/106. jpg [accessed 10.01.2014]. 29 Utrecht, Bibliotheek der Rijksuniversiteit, MS 406 (3.J.7), ed. Ruth Steiner, introduction I. de Loos, index, C. Downey, Publications of Medieval Manuscripts 21 (Ottowa, 1997), fol. 244v. 30 Available http://objects.library.uu.nl/reader/index.php?obj=1874-339043&lan=en#pa ge//15/96/02/159602533049840412143307954412585413312.jpg/mode/1up [accessed 05.05.2018] 31 http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/one/fcc/0006 [accessed 10.01.2014]. 32 Birger of Uppsala, Officium Sancte Birgitte, ed. Carl-Gustaf Undhagen, Samlingar Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet 6 (Uppsala, 1960). 33 http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/de/list/one/fcc/0002 [accessed 10.01.2014]. 34 I use the term ʻcontrafactum’ here following R. Falck’s definition in ʻParody and Contrafactum: a terminological clarification’, Musical Quarterly, 65.1 (1979), 1–21, at 1–2: ʻWhen a melody of whole composition is reused, altered or unaltered, the result is a parody or a contrafactum, depending largely on when it was borrowed. If the borrower is a poet or musician who lived before about 1500, what is produced is likely to be called a contrafactum; if an eighteenth-century musician is the borrower, it is usually called a parody.’ Julian of Speyer’s Office for St Francis is found in C. Blume and G.M. Dreves, eds, Historiae Rhythmicae: Liturgische Reimoffizien des Mittelalters, Folge 1, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, 5 (Leipzig, 1889), 175–9. 35 ʻIncipit officium beate marie virginis a Helysabet. Approbatum per dominum Bonifaciam papam nonum et cantatur iuxta beati francisci.’ As transcribed in Macfarlane, ʻLife and Writings’, i, 201. This source of the Office does not contain musical notation. 36 J.E. Weis, Julian von Speyer: Forschungen zur Franziskus- und Antoniuskritik, zur Geschichte der Reimoffizien und des Chorals (Munich, 1900), 91.

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rhythmical aspects of Julian of Speyer’s Office for St Francis as models; he did not list melodic similarities. The issue of the contrafactum is a complicated one: this was certainly not a case of identical structures and melodies. Nor was there significant textual overlap – a technique which was used in some of the other Offices described by Weis and, indeed, in other examples of contrafacted Offices.37 Macfarlane revisited the topic of a textual, rhythmic contrafactum in his thesis on Easton’s works.38 He asserts that, ‘when these two Offices of Easton and Speyer are compared, it will be seen that their rhythmic and rhyming structures are identical. Similarly, Easton’s rhyming scheme aab, aac, coincides with the Franciscan’s. Thus the 8, 8, 7 rhythm used throughout Speyer’s antiphons and responses is likewise used by Easton. This may be seen at a glance when any of their antiphons or responses are placed side by side, and with the exception of one or two irregularities which will be noted later, the comparison holds good throughout the whole of the Office.’39 Macfarlane’s analysis was taken up almost wholesale by James Hogg in 2001, and again without analysis of the accompanying plainchant. 40 This analysis is in need of revision, as the relationship between model and contrafactum is not as straightforward as Macfarlane states. Another Office found on Weis’s list of Offices using Julian of Speyer’s as a model is Birger of Uppsala’s Office for Birgitta of Sweden. 41 Although 37 Weis divided the offices based on Julian of Speyer’s Offices for St Francis and St Anthony into two main categories (found in the Franciscan breviary or not) and several subcategories, including a) ʻmit wörtlicher Anlehnung an die Franziskus oder Antoniushistorie’ (from 87) and b) ʻOhne wörtliche Entlehnungen’ (from 90). Under offices from other breviaries, we find ʻnach der Franziskuschema’ (94), which includes the historia for St Birgitta of Sweden, written by the Archbishop Birger of Uppsala (95). See also Konrad von Megenberg, Historia Sancti Erhardi, ed. R. Hankeln, Wissenschaftliche Abhandlungen LXV/4 (Ottowa, 2000), xxviii–xxxvii, for a further treatment of a contrafactum and, finally, see also O.T. Edwards, ʻChant Transference in Rhymed Offices’, in Cantus Planus: papers read at the fourth meeting, Pécs, Hungary, 3–8 September 1990 (Budapest, 1992), 503–19, in which he focused on ʻthe relationship between verbal accent and musical treatment in the adaptation’ (504). 38 Macfarlane notes that he was unable to compare musical readings of the two offices; see ʻLife and Writings’, i, 214. 39 Ibid., 213. 40 J. Hogg, ʻCardinal Adam Easton’s Office for the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary’, in Medieval Spirituality in Scandinavia and Europe, ed. L. Bisgaard (Odense, 2001), 219–25. Easton’s Office has seen relatively little analysis, aside from the sources listed above, A. Hughes makes two notes of the Office in his book The Versified Office, noting the acrostic and the number of words for travel (The Versified Office, 2 vols [Lions Bay, 2011], i, 174–9, and ii, 494–5). 41 This Office can be found in C. Blume and G.M. Dreves, eds, Historiae Rhythmicae: Liturgische Reimoffizien des Mittelalters, Folge 1, Analecta hymnica medii aevi, 25 (Leipzig, 1897), 166–9.

162 Miriam Wendling �♭� � � � � � � � � ���������� � � � � �� � � � � � �� � � � �� � � �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad mir-an - de in - da-gin - nis � � Prague XIII A 5b � �♭� � � � � � � � � ���������� fol.77r � � � � �� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad mir-an - de in - da -gi - nis � � � Munich Clm 18392 �♭� � � � � � � � � � ���������� � � � � fol. 2r � � � � � � � � � � �� �� �� �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad -mi-ran - de in - da -gi - nis � � Ljubljana 19 � � � � � � � � � � � ���������� fol. 66v � � � �� � � � � � �� � � � �� � � �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad-mir-an - de in - da -gi - nis � � � Copenhagen � � � � � � � � � � � ���������� 3449 8º vol. 9, fol.106r � � � �� � � � � � �� � � � �� � � � Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad mir-an - de in - da -gi - nis � Prague III D 10, fol.131v � � Rajhrad 626, fol. 318v � � � � � � � � � � � ���������� � Utrecht 406, fol. 243r � � � � � �� � � �� � � � �� � � Munich Clm 9508 fol. 26r �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad-mir-an - de in - da -gi - nis � � � Frankfurt Barth. 94 � � � � � � � � � � ���������� � fol. 141v � � � �� � � � � � �� � � � �� � � �� Ac - ce - dunt lau - des vir-gi - nis ad-mir-an - de in - da -gi - nis � � Fribourg 2 � �♭� � � � � � � � ���������� � � � � fol. 211v � � � � � � � � � � �� �� �� �� Fran - cis - cus vir ca - thol - li-cus et to -tus a -pos - to - li - cus � � � Oxford 225 � � � � � � � � � � ���������� � fol. 206v � � � �� � � � � � �� � � � �� � � � Bir - git - te ma - tris in -cli - te fes -ta io - cun-da su - ci - pe New York

� � � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���� �� � � �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en vi - si - tat e... � � � � � � � � � � Prague XIII A 5b � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���� � � �� � � �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en vi - si - tat e - ly - za beth � � � � � � � ♭� � � � � � � � � � Clm 18392 � � ���� �� � � � � � �� � no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en - vi - si - tat e - li - za-beth �� � � � � � � � � � � � Ljubljana 19 � � � � � � � � � � ���� �� � � �� �� �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en - vi - si - tat e - ly - sa - beth � � � � � � � � � � � � � Copenhagen 3449 � ���� �� � � � � � � � � �� �� � � � no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en vi - si - tat e - ly - sa - beth � �� � � � � � � � � � � Prague III D 10 � � ���� �� � � � � � � � � � � � �� �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en vi - si - tat e - ly - za - beth � � � � � � � � � � � Rajhrad 626 � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���� �� �� �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te nam vi - si - tat e - ly - sa - beth � �� � � � � � � � � � � � � Clm 9508 � � � � � � � ���� � � � � � � � � � �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te cum vi - si - tat e - ly - sa - beth � � � � � � � � ♭� � � Utrecht 406 � � � � � � � � � ���� �� � � � � �� �� no - vi - ter pro-mul -ga te en vi - si - tat e - ly - za - beth � �� � � � � � ♭� � � � � � � � � � � Barth 94 � ���� � � � � �� �� � � �� �� no - vi ter pro-mul-ga te en vi - si - tat e - ly - sa - beth � � � � � � � � � � � Fribourg 2 � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���� �� �� �� ec - cle - si - e te - ne ri fi -dem ro - ma - ne do - cu - it � �� � � � � � � � � � Oxford 225 � � � � � � � � � � � � � � ���� �� �� � gau-des ma - ter ec - les - si - a quam de - co - ra - vit ho - di - e

New York

Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary

163

Prague XIII A 5b                         ce - li - ca pro - bi - ta - te  ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa - met    Clm 18392                           ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa - met ce - li - ca pro - bi - ta te    Cop   Ljubljana 19  Copenhagen 3449                          Clm 9508  ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa - met ce li ca pro bi ta te     Prague III D 10                           ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa - met ce - li - ca pro - bi - ta - te    Rajhrad 626                           ma -ter ip - sa - met ce - li - ca pro - bi - ta - te   ma - ri - a  Utrecht 406                           ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa - met ce - li - ca pro bi - ta - te    Barth 94                            met ce - li - ca pro - bi ta - te   ma - ri - a ma -ter ip - sa  Fribourg 2                          pres-by - ter - os -que mon -u - it pre cunc-tis re - ver - er - i    Oxford 225                            sum-me de - us cle -men -ci - e su - pre -ma ce - li glo - ri - a

Ex. 6.1. Accedunt laudes virginis

not noted in Weis, Speyer’s Office appears to also have served as a musical model for St Birgitta’s Office. This Office was written well before Easton’s Office for the Visitation, although the canonization took place after the institution of the Feast of the Visitation. 42 Easton’s role in the canonization process of St Birgitta is a reason to consider that he may have come across a copy of Birger’s Off ice well before he wrote the Off ice for the Visitation. For this reason, I have often transcribed a source of Birger’s Office alongside those of Easton’s Office and a source of Julian of Speyer’s Office for St Francis. The following analysis of the Offices indicates that the differences between Easton and Speyer’s Offices are indeed much deeper than Macfarlane states, although Speyer’s Office for St Francis can still be seen as a model for Easton’s Office. Below I present an analysis of some of the variation found between Easton’s Office and its model. Beginning as Macfarlane did with the first antiphon for Vespers (Ex. 6.1), Accedunt laudes virginis (Easton) and Franciscus vir catholicus (Speyer),

42 St Birgitta was canonized in 1391, but Birger died in 1383. U. Montag, ʻBirgitta v. Schweden’, Lexikon des Mittelalters, 10 vols (Munich, 1981–83), ii (1981), 215–18, at 215.

164 Miriam Wendling Rajhrad 626 fol. 318v Prague XIII.A.5b fol. 77r Ljubljana 19 fol. 67r Munich Clm 9508 fol. 26v Frankfurt Barth 94 fol. 142

                      Ac cen -dit ar -dor spi ri tus ma ri am tan-gens ce - li - tus   

M                            ri am tan-gens ce - li - tus   Ac - cen-dit ar-dor spi - ri - tus ma 

                           ri am tan-gens ce - li - tus   Ac - cen-dit ar-dor spi - ri - tus ma               Fribourg 2 fol. 211v                tus pre -el -leg -er - at in pa trem quan-do pre -er - at   Hunc sanc            Oxford 225 fol. 207r                   po - pu - li le - ti - ci - a Iu - dith se-quens ves - ti - gi - a  Tu

   Rajhrad 626                  de na -za-reth mi - gran-do mox ad mon-tan -na trans - tu-lit u - bi tu - mul - tu            PLM                   de na -za-reth mi - gran-do mox ad mon-tan -na trans - tu-lit u - bi - tu - mul - tu             Barth 94                 de na -za-reth mi - gran-do mox ad mon-tan -na trans - tul-it u - bi - tu - mul - tu            Fribourg 2                  ec-cle -si - e mi - o - ri hunc spi - ri - tu pro - phe - ti-co pro - mi-sum ap - os - to -        Oxford 225                   tu con-so - la -trix pa-tri - e per te nos-tris fi - du - ci - a re - is do - ne - tur ve -

   Rajhrad 626                    car - u it su - per - na de - gus tan - do        PLM                de gus tan - do it su - per - na  car - u        Barth 94                    car - u it su - per - na de - gus tan - do       Fribourg 2                   -li - co pre - dix - er - at ho no - ri       Oxford 225                  -ni - a de lar - gi - to - re gra ci - e

Ex. 6.2. Accendit ardor spiritus

Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary

165

comparisons can be made between the two Offices.43 In this case, everything matches – the number of lines, the syllable counts per line, and the rhyme scheme. It is then of little surprise that the melody which has been transmitted from Julian of Speyer’s Office is nearly identical to surviving sources of Easton’s Office.44 The variation found between these sources is typical of the type of variation that generally exists between liturgical books of this period: the disagreement on whether a b-flat, b-natural, or c should be sung as the third note of ʻce’ in ʻAccedunt’ is expected among chants with this melodic beginning. Other small variations include ʻvirginis’ where all sources start on g and end on d but arrive there through two different figures and the tendency of the scribe of Frankfurt a. M., University Library, MS Barth. 94, to repeat notes more than the scribes of other sources. A further antiphon from Vespers in Easton’s Office (Ex. 6.2), Accendit ardor spiritus, likewise ought to match Julian of Speyer’s own antiphon, Hunc sanctus. In this case, the syllable counts and rhyme schemes of the two chants match – however, although the melody transmitted with Easton’s text is obviously based on the melody from Julian of Speyer, the text underlay in sources of Easton’s Office is different. Further, there are more melodic differences, notably the descent to d in the opening phrase among sources of Easton’s Office. This descent is also found in the Oxford manuscript of the St Birgitta Office. Some differences – and this also holds true for the examples which will be discussed below – result from conventions used by particular scribes. The scribe of MS Barth. 94, again, tends to use far more repercussions than the other scribes. Macfarlane misidentified the verse Venit ex te sanctissimus (Ex. 6.3) of the second responsory, Dixit verba, of the first nocturn of Matins as the third responsory (which actually begins Elizabeth congratulans) when he suggested that ʻEaston’s third response of first nocturns: Venit ex te sanctissimus appears to have collected an extra line’. 45 Compared to the 43 Wolfgang Irtenkauf presented the first half of this antiphon along with Speyer’s corresponding antiphon and antiphons from an Office for the Trinity and for St Clare. However, he misidentified Easton’s Office as an Office for St Elizabeth. See, ʻReimoffizum’, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Bd. 11, Rasch-Schnyder von Wartensee (Kassel, 1963), 172–6 at 173–4 (image) and 175 (St Elizabeth). Irtenkauf’s analysis appears to be based on an article by Peter Wagner, which appeared in Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch in 1908: ʻZur mittelalterlichen Offiziumskomposition’, Kirchenmusikalisches Jahrbuch, 21 (1908), 13–32, at 25–7. Wagner, however, identifies the Office as one for the Visitation (25). 44 I have used an early-fourteenth-century Franciscan source for Julian of Speyer’s Office: Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, MS 2. 45 Macfarlane, ʻLife and Writings’, i, 214. This mistake is repeated in James Hogg, ʻCardinal Adam Easton’s Office’, 224; the text is transmitted correctly in the third part of Macfarlane’s

Fribourg Ms. 2 fol. 213r

Frankfurt a. M. Barth 94 fol. 144r

Prague III.D.10, fol. 134v

Prague XIII.A.5b, fol. 80r

Rajhrad R 626, fol. 321r

Munich Clm 9508 fol. 28v

Munich Clm 18392 fol. 4r

Utrecht Ms. 406, fol. 244v

Lubljana Ms. 19, fol. 68r

Fribourg Ms. 6, fol. 160v

Copenhagen 3449 8º, fol. 124r

Oxford Cod. 225, fol. 209r

Fribourg 2

Barth 94

Prague III.D.10

Prague XIII.A.5b

                       - te pau pe - re pres - bi - ter - o   Quam for - mi - dan                           nit ex te sanc -tis si - mus vo - ca - tus de   Ve                          tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de Ve - nit ex te sanc                            Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de                        ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de  Ve - nit 

                       Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis - si - mus de - - - -                              Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de   

                          Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de - 

                         ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de  Ve - nit 

                          Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis vo ca tus de si mus                             Ve - nit ex te sanc -tis - si - mus vo - ca - tus de -                           Dum par - ens par - it no - bi - lem Bir - git - tam

                    tam ui - li - pen-dit re-ci-pe - re ab -  iec    

                                  ma - tri in vi-a si -cut pre-dix-it an - ge-lus su -e  - i fi -li - us                                 ma - tri in vi - a - i fi -li - us si -cut pre-dix-it an - ge - lus su -e                                         - i fi -li - us vi -a si -cut pre-dix-it an - ge - lus su - e ma - tri in  

Rajhrad 626

Munich 9508

Munich 18392

Utrecht 406

Ljubljana 19

Fribourg 6

Copenhagen 3449

Oxford 225



                          si -cut pre-dix-it an - ge-lus su - e ma - tri in vi-a   - i fi -li - us                                         si -cut pre-dix-it an - ge - lus tu - e ma - tri in vi -a  - i fi -li - us                                 ma - tri in vi - a - i fi -li - us si-cut  pre -di - xit an - ge - lus su -e                                  vi -a - i fi -li - us si-cut pre-dix -it an - ge-lus su - e ma - tri in                                       - i fi -li - us si-cut pre-dix -it an - ge - lus su - e ma - tri in vi-a                                  - i fi -li - us si-cut pre-dix -it an - ge - lus su - e ma-tri in vi - - -  - a                                   ma - tri in vi -a - i fi -li - us si-cut pre-dix it an - ge - lus su - e                       si-bi si-mi - lem mi - ris clar - am vir-tu - ti-bus

Ex. 6.3. Venit ex te sanctissimus

Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary

167

other verses of the Matins responsories, however, he was correct in asserting that Venit ex te sanctissimus does indeed have an extra line. This extra line caused some difficulties in adapting the music from Julian of Speyer’s Office to Easton’s text. Both Easton and Julian of Speyer generally used nine-line responsories, divided into six (response) and three lines (verse). Easton retained a rhyme scheme similar to the antiphons for Vespers: AABAABAAB (where any set of A’s could be replaced with C) and a syllable count of 8-8-7. Julian of Speyer, on the other hand, used an ABABABAAB pattern and an 8-7-8-7 syllable count. The extra syllables in Easton’s responsories require attention. As the verse from the second responsory for Matins in the Office of St Francis has only three lines of text, whilst the verse for the Visitation has four, fitting a melody to the text is a bit more complicated than simply repeating a note, which would (in theory) be an easy way to compensate for an extra syllable. This example raises questions about the ʻhow’ of making the contrafactum and indeed about its transmission. The first half of the verse progresses without considerable variation, yet the second half shows a variety of different ways in which scribes coped with the added text. Each version draws on the same melodic material from Julian of Speyer’s responsory, but the amount of repetition of and variation on the material before the end of the verse is largely different for each scribe. The two short melodic phrases with which Speyer’s responsory ends, marked with solid and dashed lines, are used in differing repetitions and orders by the scribes of Easton’s Office. Of ten sources of Easton’s Office surveyed, no two have identical melodies. The first portion of this responsory also shows some variation which might be attributable to differing syllable counts, or which may have another cause entirely. In two of the sources held in Prague as well as Utrecht, University Library, MS 406, the first line of Easton’s responsory ends with a low A. 46 These three sources have very similar melodies for this first phrase. The Frankfurt source ends instead on a C; the low A comes on the first syllable of the next word. A line break between these two words and a custos at the end of ʻprophetica’ in that source clarify this. Other sources reach the low A thesis and in Analecta hymnica 24, see note 15. This mistake is also found in Hogg: ʻEaston’s third response at first nocturns, “Venit ex te sanctissimus”, reveals an additional line’ (Hogg, ʻCardinal Adam Easton’s Office’, 224). 46 Prague, National Library, XIII.A.5b, fol. 80r, and III.D.10, fol. 134v; Utrecht, University Library, fol. 244v.

Frankfurt Barth 94                           fol. 143v   fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra -vis mo-les pu - e - ri  Non   Prague XIII A 5b                           fol. 79r     fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra -vis mo-les pu - e - ri   Non  Rajhrad 626                  fol. 321v             Non fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra -vis mo-les pu - e - ri    Prague III D 10                             fol. 135r    Non fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra - vis mo-les pu - e - ri    Utrecht 406                        fol. 245r       fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra -vis mo-les pu - e - ri  Non  Ljubljana 19 fol. 68v Oxford 225 fol. 209r Fribourg 2 fol. 213r

                                Non fu - it chris-tus o - ne - ri nec gra -vis mo-les pu - e - ri                                  Hec spe - ci - o - sum fi - li - um su - per - ni re -gis di - li - git                                   Per - trac - tum do - mi ver-be - rat, plus cunc-tis fur - ens pa -ter

                       vis - ce - ri - bus ma tris dig - ne     Prague XIII A 5b                        vis - ce - ri - bus ma tris ne dig     Rajhrad 626               vis - ce - ri - bus ma - tris dig - ne     Prague III D 10                       vis - ce - ri - bus ma tris dig ne     Utrecht 406                        vis - cer - i - bus ma tris ne dig  Barth 94

Ljubljana 19

Oxford 225

Fribourg 2

Barth 94

                         vis - ce - ri - bus ma tris ne dig                            a - mi - cam vel - ut li li - um                             ob iur - gans - rat cit car - ce vin

                         ig - na - ra de pon - de - re cum cor -por a - li   sed

  Prague XIII A 5b                          ig - na - ra de pon - de - re cum cor -por a - li   sed        Rajhrad 626                sed ig - na - ra de pon de - re cum cor - por - a - li    Prague III D 10

Utrecht 406

Ljubljana 19

Oxford 225

Fribourg 2

Barth 94

                          sed ig - na - ra in pon - de - re cum cor -por a - li                             ig - na - ra de pon - de - re cum cor -por a - li   sed                            ig - na - ra de pon - de - re cum cor -por a - li   sed            

                     

Oxford 225

Fribourg 2

          

Adam Easton’s Office for the Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary

Barth 94

169

                      ni - gne. ro - bo - re trans - si - li - it be  

  Prague XIII A 5b                        ro - bo - re trans - si - li - it be ni - gne.     Rajhrad 626                     ro - bo - re trans si - li - it be - ni - ne.    Prague III D 10

Utrecht 406

Ljubljana 19

Oxford 225

Fribourg 2

                      trans - si - li - it ro - bo - re be - ni - ne.                          ro - bo - re trans - si - li - it be ni - gne.                            ro - bo - re trans - si - li - it be ni - ne                      pul-chram si - bi rex e - li - git.                    quem fur - tim sol - vit ma - ter. 

Ex. 6.4. Non fuit Christus

either before the end of ʻprophetica’, or in the following word, ʻElizabeth’. The final melisma on ʻmente’ is shorter in Prague III.D.10, but overall, the primary disagreements between sources of Easton’s Office for this responsory are found at ʻElizabeth’ and ʻbeata’. Comparing this verse to the Office of St Birgitta reveals that although there are some slight melodic differences between the St Francis and St Birgitta Offices, both verses have the same number of notes – unlike the various copies of Easton’s Office, in which the number of notes varies widely between sources. A further example can be found – again noted by Macfarlane, although in need of some revision, in the first antiphon of the second nocturn of Matins, Non fuit christus (Ex. 6.4). 47 Macfarlane’s assessment, ʻsmaller flaws, like an extra syllable in Easton’s first antiphon at second nocturns, Visceribus mater digne’, is in need of revision here – and not merely because of the extra syllable. 48 Macfarlane’s text implies that an extra syllable is the deviation, yet it goes further than that: Easton’s text contains six lines, the first five having eight syllables each and the sixth having seven syllables,49 and overall an AABCCB rhyme scheme. Julian of Speyer’s first antiphon for the second 47 The arrangement of chants in Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 9508, is somewhat different from that in other manuscripts and Non fuit Christus is found as the third antiphon of the first nocturn of matins on fol. 27v. 48 Macfarlane, ʻLife and Writings’, i, 214. ʻVisceribus mater dignae’ refers to the third line of Non fuit christus, which has eight syllables. 49 Deviating from his normal 8-8-7-8-8-7 pattern.

170 Miriam Wendling

nocturn of Matins for St Francis, Pertractum domi verberat, has four lines with an 8-7-8-7 syllable count and an ABAB rhyme scheme.50 Adam Easton

Julian of Speyer

Non fuit christus oneri nec gravis moles pueri visceribus mater dignae sed ignara de pondere cum corporali robore transsiliit begnigne

Petractum domi verberat plus cunctis furens pate obiurgans vincit carcerat quem furtim solvit mater

Again, scribes of Easton’s Office have had to cope with more text than the melody had previously had to support. Similar techniques to those used in Example 6.3 are visible: there is significant melodic correspondence in the first three lines of text. Then, the scribes of Easton’s Office needed to develop (lines 4 and 5) more material before rejoining Julian of Speyer’s antiphon for the final phrase. Easton’s additional text is covered by reworking parts of Julian of Speyer’s melody. At ʻde pondere’ the intonation is briefly used again and at ʻrobore’, in the Frankfurt source, we again see a melody similar to that found with Julian’s text ʻcarcere’ (and Easton’s previously used ʻ-tris digne’). We also see an approximation of Julian of Speyer’s melody used at the end of the section. Interestingly, the scribes of Easton’s Office have all coped in rather similar ways. Surveying the responsories from Matins, we often find consistency in the way that Speyer’s melodies are treated, even if the individual resulting setting of Easton’s text is not identical to the others. For example, most surviving sources begin the first responsory (Ex. 6.5), Surgens maria, with a descent (d-c) on the first syllable.51 The second syllable sees the pattern d-e-f-d-e-c, followed by a longer melisma. All sources but one (Clm 9508) follow this pattern; the melismas are of varying length – indeed, no two are identical – and the placement of the following text, ʻmaria’ varies as well. However, at ʻgravida’ all sources are again identical. Similarly, the sixth responsory begins f-g-a-g-bb-a in most sources.52 The length of the melisma which follows on this syllable ʻStel-’ is variable, and the following syllable ʻla’ 50 Julian of Speyer used the AABCCB six-line format for his antiphons for Vespers but switched to a four-line ABAB format for his antiphons for Matins. Antiphons for Matins in the Office for St Birgitta follow the same four-line ABAB format used by Julian of Speyer. 51 Rajhrad 626 and Prague III D 10 begin on c. 52 This responsory is not found in Clm 9508 and begins on c in Prague XIII.A.5b.

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Lubljana 19 fol. 68r

                            ma - ri - a gra - vi - da   Sur - gens  Prague XIII A 5b             fol. 79v                            Sur - gens ma - ri a gra - vi - da    Frankfurt Barth 94            fol. 143v                       ma - ri - a gra - vi - da   Sur - gens  Munich Clm 9508            fol. 28r             Sur gens ma - ri - a gra - vi - da    Utrecht 406        fol. 244v                      ma - ri a gra - vi - da   Sur - gens  Rajhrad 626                fol. 320v       Sur - gens ma - ri - a gra - vi - da    Prague III D 10               fol. 134r                   ma - ri - a gra - vi - da   Sur - gens  Munich Clm 18392              fol. 3v                      Sur-gens ma - ri - a gra - vi - da    Fribourg 2               fol. 212v               Fran - cis cus ut in pu - - - - - - - Lubljana 19

                           ca cu - mi - na   mi - gra - vit per   Prague XIII A 5b                          mi gra - vit per mon - tan - e     Barth 94                    gra - vit per [lacuna]   mi    Clm 9508                            mi - gra - vit per ca - cu - mi - na    Utrecht 406                          mi - na   mi - gra - vit per - - - - - ca - cu    Rajhrad 626                        mi - gra vit per ca - cu - mi - na     Prague III D 10                          gra - vit per ca - cu - mi - na   mi       Clm 18392                          - na ca - cu - mi mi gra - vit per    Fribourg 2                           -li ri cum ces sat ne - go - ci - a

Ex. 6.5. Surgens maria

172 Miriam Wendling                                             Ex. 6.6. Incipits

is sung on f.53 Thus, a pattern can be seen in which most, often all, sources use certain common melodic elements consistently. Other divergences in responsories may include filling in intervals, for example, a-c may become a-b-c; or changing an interval by a step, for example, a-b may be changed to a-c. These changes can also be observed in the antiphons and in long-standing chant repertoire.54 Relationships may appear to exist between some sources, for example, there is a close correspondence between Prague XIII.A.5b, III.D.10, and Utrecht 406 at the beginning of the second responsory, Dixit verba, yet this does not hold true for these manuscripts for other responsories (nor, indeed, for the verse of the responsory, as seen above in Example 6.3). Relationships between the antiphons for Matins are often similar to that seen above in Non fuit Christus and Pertractum domi.55 The extra two lines of text in Easton’s Office must be compensated for musically. There is often a good deal of melodic cohesion between the sources of antiphons from Easton’s Office, such as in the example of the second antiphon of the first nocturn of Matins, Inter turmas. Still, there are some puzzling differences, such as the incipits of the antiphon pair Tunc ad sermonem and Cor verbis novae (Ex. 6.6), in which sources of Easton’s Office often give an ascent of a fifth followed by either a minor third or a second, whilst Julian of Speyer’s antiphon begins with an ascent of a fifth followed by a unison. Example 6.6 shows the three different incipits used for this antiphon. 53 Except in Prague XIII.A.5b. 54 An example of interval filling in an antiphon can be found in Prague XIII.A.5b, in the second vespers antiphon, Divo repletur, where the scribe has begun ʻsurrexit’ a step below the other sources (on e) and filled in the interval with f and g to begin ʻrex-’ on a. The other sources begin ʻsur-’ on f and jump directly to a on ʻrex-’. 55 For the most part, the differentiae used in both Easton’s Office and Julian of Speyers’s are similar, with differences found for the third antiphon of the first nocturn and the first of the third nocturn. In these cases, there are also differences in the differentiae used in sources of Easton’s Office.

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Models and transmission The question of the model for Easton’s Office and of the transmission of the Office are inseparable. Julian of Speyer’s Office functions differently as a model for Easton’s texts and melodies. On a very general level, there is more melodic variation where Easton’s texts differ in length from Julian of Speyer’s. However, the variations in melody between settings of Easton’s text and that of Julian of Speyer are not limited to variations between an archetype of Easton’s melody and that of Speyer’s; rather, the amount of variation between sources of Easton’s Office is high. Further, there is more internal variation in Easton’s Office among chants where the melody is less syllabic – where line length and number are similar, syllabic chants exhibit less variation than melismatic chants. Easton’s Office should be considered not merely as liturgy, but as part of a phenomenon in which relationships may exist between Offices, with one serving as a model. Several decades before the introduction of the Office of the Visitation, another thirteenth-century Office – Laetare Germania, for Elizabeth of Hungary, was used as a template for an Office for St Erhard by Conrad of Megenberg. Roman Hankeln examined the sources, noting the different types of variation, mostly transposition or transformation and melodic change because of differing structure.56 Turning back to Easton’s Office and its relationship to Julian of Speyer’s Office, we can conclude that, as in Hankeln’s example, differing structure plays a role in melodic variation – in Easton’s case, an extremely significant role. Variation is low when the structure of a chant’s text and its length are similar, and increases as the amount of differences between exemplar and contrafactum increase. The question of the transmission of this Office is one that gives rise to more questions. Was the Office spread as text, or text and music? If copies of text and music were used, how is such great variation to be accounted for? Further, why do the later sources not converge on a melodic reading? The first question is one that might never see a definitive answer. However, I am inclined to argue that the text was circulated without music and that this can tell us a good deal about how scribes worked in this situation. Although there is a large amount of variation between copies of Easton’s chants where Easton’s text is considerably longer than Julian of Speyers, 56 Roman Hankeln, Historia Sancti Erhardi, Musicological Studies, XLV/4 (Ottowa, 2000), xxxv–xxxvii. Hankeln had only one, considerably later, surviving source for the Historia Sancti Erhardi, which eliminated the immediate need to grapple with the possibility of variation within the Office.

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the techniques for dealing with this extra length are similar. That is: most of the chants from Easton’s Office begin similarly to their counterparts in Julian of Speyer’s Office. They then, generally, diverge in the second half of the chant. No copy of Easton’s Office examined in this study has attempted to deal with divergences in text length in a radically different manner than the others, although the resulting melodies often differ. Therefore, it is most likely that the Office circulated by text and that various scribes and singers adapted it as best they could to Julian of Speyer’s well-known melody. In sum, Easton’s Office gives a clear example of what could happen when a scribe was confronted with a text that does not entirely match the music for which it was created. The relatively short period of circulation for this Office – officially, a period of just over half a century – probably had some effect on the lack of standardization of the melodies. Had it circulated longer, we might expect to have seen small clusters of closely related sources forming as the earliest sources were copied to make new sources. As it is, the notated – and many non-notated – sources show a quick, if brief, transmission within parts of Europe that had remained loyal to Rome.

About the author Miriam Wendling is a research associate in the Early Music Research Group at KU Leuven. Her current work examines the use of music in rituals for the dying and the dead.

7.

Between Tradition and Innovation: the sepulchral monument of Adam Easton at S. Cecilia in Trastevere Claudia Bolgia

Abstract This chapter discusses the original setting, appearance and authorship of the sepulchral monument of Cardinal Adam Easton, which survives in considerably reduced form in the church of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome. A re-examination of both visual and written sources, including a muchdebated drawing of the tomb in an already partially altered form, leads to new hypotheses about the original location, appearance and significance of the monument within the sacred topography of the church. Renewed visual and technical analysis will shed new light on the commission and its artists. Parallels are also drawn with the tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon in S. Maria in Trastevere in order to think about ‘portraiture’ in late-Trecento Rome. The reconstructed original tomb, alongside the extant effigy, bier and laudatory inscription, are then used to offer further insights into the life of Easton, his supporters and his desire for perpetual remembrance. Keywords: Easton’s tomb, effigy, portraiture, sepulchral monuments

The verse epitaph running around the now-lost upper part of the sepulchral monument of Adam Easton at S. Cecilia in Trastevere in Rome praised the English cardinal in the following terms: + Artibus iste pater famosus in omnibus Adam / theologus summus cardiquenalis erat / Anglia cui patriam titulum dedit ista beate / edes Cecilie morsque suprema polum anno M CCC LXXXX VII mense Septembris XV

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch07

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[This father Adam, famous in all the arts, was the greatest theologian and cardinal. England gave him birth, this house of the blessed Cecilia gave him the title, and death, coming last, gave him the heavens on 15 September of the year 1397]1

These two elegiac distichs perfectly encapsulate the most salient features of the cardinal: Easton – as the contributions to the present book amply demonstrate – was an authentic polymath, versed in all the liberal arts, and a most highly esteemed theologian. Socius of Cardinal Simon Langham since 1369, Easton was elevated to the cardinalate by Urban VI in 1381, and held the titulus or title church of S. Cecilia from 1382.2 Amongst the most dramatic moments of his eventful life was imprisonment in 1385 at the hands of none other than the suspicious Urban VI himself, who accused Easton of involvement in an anti-papal conspiracy.3 Easton was deprived of his office, tortured and released only as a result of intervention by the English Crown. The outcome could have been much worse: of the other five cardinals arrested with him, two were murdered. Nor would he be restored to the cardinalate until 1389 on the elevation of Boniface IX to the papacy. 4

1 I remember most fondly a preparatory on-site visit to Easton’s tomb in Rome together with Joan Greatrex. Much of my research for this article was undertaken as Samuel H. Kress Senior Research Fellow (2016–17) in the vibrant research environment of the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts in Washington, DC, and in Rome as Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (2017–18), working on a major book-length project, The Long Trecento: Rome without the popes (c.1305–1420). My gratitude goes to both institutions for supporting this project. For their assistance in the search for images and by facilitating reproduction permission, I cannot sufficiently thank the extraordinary team at the Department of Image Collections at the National Gallery of Art, namely Melissa Lemke, Deputy Director and Italian Art Specialist, Andrea Gibbs, Image Specialist for Architecture and, especially, the Director Gregory Most, whose help went far beyond the call of duty. For assistance with digital images, I also wish to thank Lorene Emerson and Katherine Mayo in the Digital Image Laboratory.  The verses are recorded in A. Ciacconio, Vitae et gesta summorum pontificum a Christo domino usque ad Clemente VIII, necnon S.R.E cardinalium cum eorundem insignibus, I‒II (Rome, 1601), II, 774; Vatican City, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 3084 (Joseph-Marie Suarès, Schedae manuscriptae), fol. 282r (see Fig. 7.17 below, and related discussion); Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 1327 (F. Gualdi, Memorie sepolcrali), fol. 149r, amongst others. The translation of the inscription is mine. 2 M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 198 and 200. On Adam Easton, see also R.B. Dobson, ‘Easton, Adam (c. 1330‒1397)’, in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (04), http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8417, and, of course, the essays in the present volume. 3 Harvey, The English in Rome, 201. 4 Ibid., 203.

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Fig. 7.1. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (Bequest of Mrs A.M. Minturn, 1890), manuscript leaf with Incipit of the Office of the Visitation, detail, from an antiphonary. Tempera, ink and gold on parchment, Venice, c.1400. Photo: www.metmuseum.org

Easton’s great liturgical achievement was the Office for the Feast of the Visitation of Our Lady in 1390.5 An antiphonary leaf with the incipit of the feast shows at the bottom two Dominican saints – one of them is St Dominic himself – flanking the central figure of an elderly cardinal holding a small church (Fig. 7.1). The figure has been identified with Easton,6 but this identification is not without problems, in particular because of the attributes, especially the halo. Although it was possible for someone who was not a saint to be depicted with a halo or labelled as a saint at the time, a sort of ‘canonization through images’ – to use the words of Vauchez7 – the small model of the church might suggest that the cardinal depicted here was involved in either the construction or restoration of the church for which the illuminated manuscript was also produced. Indeed, such a patron may well have been Easton but also possibly another eminent cardinal responsible for the commission of both church and manuscript, and attested as being in the odour of sanctity. The halo, combined with the miniature church, may also suggest that the cardinal was the titular saint of the church. Further research is required to identify this figure, starting from the provenance of the page, now preserved loose at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. It is, in any event, worth introducing Easton by looking at a beautifully illuminated page produced, probably in Venice or by a Venetian illuminator, not long after his Office was approved 5 Ibid., 203‒4. 6 B.D. Boehm, Choirs of Angels: painting in Italian choir books, 1300‒1500 (New Haven and London, 2008), 27‒30. See also the brief entry on the leaf at http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/ works-of-art/90.61.3/ (accessed 3 March 2014). 7 A. Vauchez, Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages, trans. J. Birrell (Cambridge, 1997), 85–103, esp. 88 (first edn in French 1988). For the significant case of Pope Urban V, chronologically very close to the time of production of this leaf, see C. Bolgia, ‘Cassiano’s Popes Rediscovered: Urban V in Rome’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 65 (2002), 562‒74.

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and which, under the title Accedunt laudes, had begun to circulate widely across Christendom, soon to become the most popular Visitation liturgy.8 Indeed, together with two other masters of theology, he had earlier been commissioned to examine the liturgy of the Transfixion of the Virgin, an early version of the Feast of the Seven Sorrows,9 further indicating his high reputation as a theologian from early on in his career. If the image in the illumination is indeed that of Cardinal Easton, it is a powerful and unique witness to the authority and respect that he gained. St Dominic and the other Dominican saint (suggesting that the manuscript was made for a Dominican convent) appear to be paying homage to the cardinal, whose authority and venerability is visualized not only through his central position but also through the gold background, the enthroned position, and the mandorla-like shape of his back frame. If – as I believe – the cardinal in the illumination is not Easton, the antiphonary is in any event testimony to the early spread of his Office and to some high-calibre art associated with it. The tomb at S. Cecilia survives in a much reduced form (Fig. 7.2), and presents numerous problems concerning its original appearance, location within the church, and authorship.10 It is usually assumed that the first evidence of a change in the monument’s position dates to 1599 when the tomb chest and recumbent effigy are recorded as having been moved to their present location against the reverse façade of the church, to the right on entering the main door, as part of a larger remodelling of the building at the behest of Cardinal Paolo Emilio Sfondrati for the Jubilee of 1600.11 8 For a date around 1400 see Boehm, Choirs of Angels, 30, but the leaf appears to be somewhat later. For the popularity of Easton’s Office, see Harvey, The English in Rome, 204, with bibliography. 9 Ibid., 194. 10 E.A., ‘Monumento del cardinale Adamo Inglese in Santa Cecilia a Roma’, Archivio Storico dell’Arte 4 (1891), 310: G. De Nicola, ‘Il monumento Adam a S. Cecilia in Roma’, L’Arte 10 (1907), 305‒7; L. Ciaccio, ‘L’ultimo periodo della scultura gotica a Roma’, Ausonia 1 (1907), 77‒80; L. Filippini, La scultura nel Trecento in Roma (Turin, 1908), 141‒2; A. Venturi, Storia dell’Arte Italiana, VI: La scultura del Quattrocento (Milan, 1908), 57; P. Toesca, Il Trecento (Turin, 1951), 360; J. Gardner, The Tomb and the Tiara: curial tomb sculpture in Rome and Avignon in the later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1992), 130‒2; J. Garms, A. Sommerlechner and W. Telesko, eds, Die Mittelalterlichen Grabmäler in Rom und Latium vom 13. bis zum 15. Jahrhundert, II: Die Monumentalgräber (Vienna, 1994), 31‒6; M. Righetti, ‘La nuova facies della basilica: tra Arnolfo e Cavallini’, in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, ed. C. La Bella et al. (Rome, 2007), 85–111, at 108–10; G. Kreytenberg, ‘Das Grabmal für Kardinal Adam Easton in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere und seine Bildhauer: Giovanni D’Ambrogio und Lorenzo di Giovanni aus Florenz’, Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Institutes in Florenz, 53 (2009), 197‒216. 11 Garms, Sommerlechner and Telesko, Mittelalterlichen Grabmäler II, 33; Righetti, ‘La nuova facies’, 107.

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Fig. 7.2. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton (d. 1397). Photo © Alinari, Firenze

During that intervention, the tomb was turned into a pendant of the later sepulchral monument of Cardinal Niccolò Forteguerri (deceased in 1473), which was similarly ‘reduced’ and set to the other side of the entrance.12 The finding of unpublished documents in the Archivio di Stato of Rome, however, reveals that the situation was different, and far more complex, than hitherto believed, as will be discussed below. For the moment, we should notice that what survives of Cardinal Easton’s tomb is a highly accomplished work of sculpture. The chest is articulated in three panels, housing a central prominent shield with the royal arms of England (the three lions and the fleurs-de-lis) surmounted by a crown (Fig. 7.3) and flanked on both sides by Easton’s coat of arms – a cross with a central eagle – crowned by the galero, the cardinal’s broad-brimmed tasselled hat (Fig. 7.4). We do not know whether Easton’s tomb had any applied paint, but the tortile colonnettes at the corners of the bier (Fig. 7.4) may originally have had mosaic inlay, in which case there was at least some polychromy on the tomb. On the short sides of the bier are very elegant high-relief foliage crosses on a bas-relief vegetal background (Figs 7.5–7.6). 12 Ibid.

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Fig. 7.3. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, bier, shield of the English Crown. Photo: author

Fig. 7.4. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, bier, shield of Cardinal Easton. Photo: author

Fig. 7.5. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, short side of bier, foliated cross Photo: author

Fig. 7.6. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, short side of bier, foliated cross, detail. Photo: author

This type of foliated cross finds precedents in the tombs on the façade of S. Maria Novella in Florence, for instance, but here the rendering is more mature and delicate, and includes girals branching out in an almost stiacciato vegetal relief. The gisant (Fig. 7.7) likewise is a masterful piece of carving. The cardinal is portrayed with his arms crossed over his chest, in a typical symmetric position and a sense of strong plasticity is conveyed primarily through the rendering of the drapery in deeply carved, concentric, oval-shaped folds. Easton wears a dalmatic and chasuble decorated with elaborately carved embroidery as well as liturgical gloves, and two rings on the right hand,

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Fig. 7.7. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, gisant. Photo © Vasari, Roma

Fig. 7.8. Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon (d. 1397), gisant. Photo © Vasari, Roma

one each on the middle and annular fingers. This detail is not typical of the effigies of Italian cardinals, but finds a parallel in the tomb of Archbishop Simon Langham (d. 1376) at Westminster Abbey. In Rome, another effigy of a cardinal with two rings is that of the French cardinal Philippe d’Alençon

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Fig. 7.9. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, gisant, head (frontal view). Photo © Vasari, Roma

(d. 1397) but, in this case, the rings are worn on the annular and little fingers (Fig. 7.8). In the central insert of the chasuble, Easton’s arms are depicted within a Gothic-compass pattern (Fig. 7.9); his head rests on two cushions richly decorated with intricate designs, obtained by the subtraction of marble, rather than by its engraving (Fig. 7.10). It is possible that the delicate round trefoils and pointed quatrefoils of the cushions were meant to be (or were indeed originally) filled in with glossy enamel, pasta vitrea or gold. Their use finds a parallel, for instance, in Orcagna’s tabernacle in Florence, where they are deployed in the background of the lunette. The insistent decorative rendering of the cushions contrasts with the smooth, surprisingly ‘undef ined’ and plain mitre. Was it originally painted, or decorated with applied gold, or has it been remade at some later date? There is no visible trace of remake; overall, the surface of the sculpture looks almost abraded, very far from the highly polished surfaces of contemporary sculpture and this may be a consequence of later removal of applied decorations. Similar plain mitres are found in the tombs of Cardinal Marino Vulcani (d. 1394) in S. Maria Nova (present-day S. Francesca Romana) and Cardinal Pietro Stefaneschi (d. 1417) in S. Maria in Trastevere.

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Fig. 7.10. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Adam Easton, gisant, head (side view). Photo © Vasari, Roma

Easton’s head is somewhat asymmetrically positioned, inclined towards the present viewer (an indication that the current view corresponds to the original ‘privileged’ view) and is vividly characterized, with the brow marked by deep wrinkles, giving the cardinal an intense expression, suggestive of concerns and depth of thought. The vitality of the figure is such (if we are allowed to use the word ‘vitality’ for the effigy of a defunct) that it seems as if the cardinal is on the point of opening his eyes and starting to speak. Whether this is just a realistically characterized image, aimed at conveying moral characteristics, or a whether it records the facial features and physical likeness of Easton is an open question. To contextualize its problematic features, we may wish to look at other sculpted images of close contemporary and significant figures in Rome, such as – for instance – the notary Francesco Felici, represented in prayer on the now-dismembered icon shrine of S. Maria in Aracoeli in 1372 (Fig. 7.11).13 Bearing in mind that this is the portrait of a living, not a deceased person, it can be loosely described as a characterization of a middle-aged layman, with the brow furrowed, the lips lightly touching as to suggest prayer, his gaze 13 C. Bolgia, ‘The Felici Icon Tabernacle (1372) at S. Maria in Aracoeli, Reconstructed: lay patronage, sculpture, and Marian devotion in Trecento Rome’, Journal of the Warburg and Courtald Institutes, 68 (2005), 27‒72.

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Fig. 7.11. Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, marble screen from the dismembered tabernacle of the Madonna Advocata in S. Maria in Aracoeli, the donor Francesco Felici, 1372. Photo: author

Claudia Bolgia

Fig. 7.12. Rome, Museo Nazionale del Palazzo di Venezia, marble screen from the dismembered tabernacle of the Madonna Advocata in S. Maria in Aracoeli, the donor’s wife, Caterina Felici, 1372. Photo: author

focused (originally) on the icon of the Madonna Advocata in an expression of intense devotion. It does not seem to be a strict likeness ‘from life’, and this is even truer for the image of his wife, Caterina, apparently idealized (Fig. 7.12). A later example is Boniface IX (1389–1404) (Fig. 7.13), the same pontiff who restored Adam Easton to the cardinalate. Albeit debated, the date of this statue oscillates between the end of the 1390s or early 1400s, that is, around the very time of the presumed date of Adam Easton’s monument.14 Apart from the fact that the state of conservation is much worse than that of Easton, the portrait is quite evidently the product of a very different artistic milieu. The two sculptures also belong to two different genres: this is an enthroned ‘image of authority’, and in its facial features – the eyes wide open with the pupil oriented upwards – would seem to have been inspired by the colossal images of late-antique emperors, still visible in Rome at the time (Fig. 7.14). 14 Eadem, ‘Il XIV secolo: da Benedetto XI (1303–1304) a Bonifacio IX (1389–1484)’, in La Committenza artistica dei papi a Roma nel Medioevo, ed. M. D’Onofrio (Rome, 2016), 331–59, at 353–4.

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Fig. 7.13. Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, cloister, marble statue of Pope Boniface IX, c. late 1390s–early 1400. Photo: author

Fig. 7.14. Rome, S. Paolo fuori le mura, cloister, marble statue of Pope Boniface IX, head, c. late 1390s–early 1400. Photo: author

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Fig. 7.15. Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere, tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon (d. 1397), gisant, head. Photo © Vasari, Roma

As a final example we ought to introduce the effigy of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon (Figs 7.8 and 7.15), who died in August 1397, a month before Easton, and who – like Boniface IX – must have known the English cardinal well. Indeed, as the leader of the commissioners for the canonization of St Bridget of Sweden, Cardinal d’Alençon worked closely with Easton. We have an amusing account of the grand banquet organized by the French prelate as part of the celebrations for the event, when a pie set before Easton was opened to let birds fly out, to the wonderment of all present.15 Philippe d’Alençon is buried not far from Adam Easton, in S. Maria in Trastevere, another prominent church of the same district. D’Alençon’s sepulchral monument (Fig. 7.8) was radically rearranged in the remodelling of the south transept of the church in 1584.16 Kühlenthal’s drawing remains 15 The origin of line ‘Four and twenty blackbirds / baked in a pie’ in the well-known English nursery rhyme ‘Sing a Song of Sixpence’? The source of the account is a monk from Vadstena, eyewitness to the event: Diarium Vadstetense: the memorial book of Vadstena Abbey, ed. G. Gejrot, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia 33 (Stockholm, 1988), nos 62–63: Harvey, The English in Rome, 205. 16 See, most recently, G. Kreytenberg, ‘Die Bildhauer von Altarziborium und Grabmal des Kardinals Philippe d’Alençon in Santa Maria in Trastevere in Rom: Giovanni d’Ambrogio, Lorenzo di Giovanni und Piero di Giovanni Tedesco’, Arte medievale, New Ser., 1 (2002), 91–126, with bibliography. For a discussion of alterations and multiple adaptations across time, in

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Fig. 7.16. Reconstruction of tomb of Cardinal Philippe d’Alençon. Rome, S. Maria in Trastevere. From Kühlenthal, pl. 24

the best reconstruction to date (Fig. 7.16), even if there are omissions.17 The comparison of the effigies is particularly interesting for Cardinal d’Alençon’s death at the age of about sixty on 14 August 1397 took place in the same year as Easton’s, but his features are idealized, and there is no trace of age on his smooth face.18 We shall return to this tomb as it has been suggested that the team of artists responsible for it was identical to that for the monument of Cardinal Easton. relation with other monuments in the church, see D. Kinney, ‘Managed Memory in S. Maria in Trastevere’, in Monuments and Memory: Christian cult buildings and constructions of the past: essays in honour of Sible de Blaauw, ed. M. Verhoeven, L. Bosman and H. van Asperen (Turnhout, 2016), 337–47. 17 M. Kühlenthal, ‘Zwei Grabmäler des frühen Quattrocento in Rom: Kardinal Martinez de Chiavez und Papst Eugen IV’, Römisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana, 16 (1976), 17–56, f ig. 24, at 36. For amendments to this reconstruction see Gardner, Tomb and Tiara, 128–9; Kreytenberg, ‘Die Bildhauer von Altarziborium’, 91–4. 18 Easton was probably born around 1330 (Dobson, ‘Easton Adam’, as in note 2), thus he was about sixty-seven years old when he died.

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Not least amongst the problems raised by Easton’s tomb is its original design. There survive a number of images of the monument in its presentday state – including a rather crude drawing from the Royal Collection19 – but only one reproduction includes lost components of the tomb. This is a drawing in a Vatican manuscript (undated but to be ascribed to the second quarter of the seventeenth century), accompanied by a note probably from the French prelate and erudite Joseph-Marie Suarès (Fig. 7.17), from which we learn that the monument had been moved from its former location ‘in isolato nella Cappella della Madonna vicino alla Tribuna’ – free-standing in the Chapel of the Virgin near the main chapel – to the foot of the church, where, as it happens, it could neither be set free-standing nor in its entirety.20 ‘Hence – the note continues – Cardinal Sfondrati decided to remove the four columns which supported the lid (coperchio), as shown in the drawing, and ordered that an inscription based upon that running around the lid should be inscribed on the modern base of the monument.21 We are also informed that the ‘remaining portion of the monument’ (‘il rimanente del monumento’) was donated to the nuns of S. Cecilia. The drawing is, therefore, clearly a hybrid – combining the extant monument with the canopy and colonnettes in the form that Suarès thought they had originally. As such, it has misled scholars who saw it either as a depiction of the appearance of the monument before the rearrangement of Sfondrati or as a restoration project. In reality Suarès was simply showing what he thought was the original relationship between the bier and the lid. The lid, as the note explains, had in the meanwhile been sold and set on top of a sarcophagus in the Ludovisi Gardens from whence it had recently been bought by a stonemason. It was, therefore, suggested that the piece be brought back to S. Cecilia, set on four granite columns found in the cloister, and installed free-standing in a side of the portico so that the verse inscription could be fully appreciated.22 19 RL 11814, published in Tombs of Illustrious Italians at Rome: il libro di disegni RCIN 970334 della Royal Library di Windsor, ed. by F. Federici and J. Garms (Florence, 2011) (=Bollettino d’Arte, special issue, 161), cat. n. 99. There is also a xylography in the Memorie Sepolcrali by Francesco Gualdi (Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 8252, tom. 1, fol. 167r), and an eighteenth-century drawing in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale of Rome (MS Vitt. Em. 552, fol. 47r): Garms, Sommerlechner and Telesko, Mittelalterlichen Grabmäler, ii, 31. 20 BAV, Barb. lat. 3084 (modern numeration fol. 282). Suarès was in Rome for two prolonged periods, the first between 1625 and 1633, as cameriere to Urban VIII, and then between 1666 and 1677, as prefect of the Vatican Library: J. Osborne and A. Claridge, The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo, Series A, Part II: Early Christian and medieval antiquities, 2 vols (London, 1996‒98), ii, 311. It seems most probable that his note on Easton’s sepulchre dates to the early period. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid.

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Fig. 7.17. Vatican City, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 3084 (Joseph-Marie Suarès, Schedae manuscriptae), fol. 282r Photo © 2017 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana

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This advice seems to have been taken seriously, as we learn from another manuscript, by the hand of Francesco Gualdi. This tells us that Cardinal Francesco Barberini, a distinguished patron of art with particularly notorious interest in church antiquities, commissioned Gualdi to buy the canopy back and return it to S. Cecilia, where it was indeed set in the portico, ‘raised and free-standing’.23 The written memory of Cardinal Easton, therefore, returned to S. Cecilia at some point around the mid-seventeenth century, only to be removed and dispersed again, probably in the restoration campaign of 1724.24 Not only the drawing but also the note running beneath it has been the source of misunderstanding. It is on the basis of this text that scholars have assumed that the monument was first moved in 1599, during the remodelling campaign of Cardinal Sfondrato. As a matter of fact, an unpublished account of the expenses for works undertaken in the church in 1584 under Abbess Cherubina Cardelli, preserved in the Archivio di Stato of Rome, provides different information. Amongst the several works undertaken at the time, as a response to the pastoral visit of the papal vicar, Cardinal Savelli, the shift in the position of the tomb is precisely listed under the date 14 July, for a price of seven and a half scudi.25 What is interesting is that the monument was not moved from a location ‘vicino alla Tribuna’, as we would expect from Suarès’s note, but from a corner inside the Ponziani Chapel (the second off the right aisle on entering from the main door), ‘where it was forgotten’.26 Even more interestingly, the document informs us that the tomb had been relocated there some 20 years before [that is, around 1560], when it had been moved from the place where it was first installed, just in front 23 Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 1327, fol. 149r: ‘Essendo stato, alcuni anni sono, venduto il detto coperchio, e trasportato altrove; il Sig. Card Francesco Barberini, singular protettore […] delle antichità ecclesiastiche, ordinò a me, Cavalier Gualdi, che lo ricomprassi; come feci; e volle che fusse riportato sotto ‘l porticale di questa chiesa, acciocché si vedesser almeno le parti di tal Memoria intere: […] Si può dunque al presente vedere nell’istesso portico, alzato e posto in isola, per sodisfare alla curiosità di chi vorrà leggere essa antica Inscrizzione nel marmo stesso.’ See also Vatican City, BAV, MS Vat. lat. 8251, tom. 3 (Gualdi, Memorie sepolcrali), fol. 530r. 24 On the remodelling promoted by Cardinal Francesco Acquaviva, see P. Marchetti, ‘Le trasformazioni della basilica nei secoli XVIII e XIX’, in Santa Cecilia in Trastevere, ed. C. La Bella et al. (Rome, 2007), 185‒200, esp. 189. 25 Rome, Archivio di Stato, Congregazioni Femminili Benedettine Cassinesi [hereafter CFBC], Monastero di S. Cecilia in Trastevere, b. 4224/2, fol. 20r: ‘Nell’anno del Signore 1584 essendo Abbadessa la Reverenda Madre Sor Cherubina Cardelli […] a dì 14 di luglio […] e nella detta trasportazione si spese scudi sette e mezzo, dico 7:50.’ 26 Ibid.: ‘et per che il cardinale Adam inglese stava in un cantone nella cappella ultima delli Pontiani à canto a l’oratorio di S.ta Cecilia, di modo che non si conosceva, a dì 14 di luglio fu tramutato e trasportato’.

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of the altar of the Blessed Sacrament with an iron grate all around it and other adornments, on which these inscribed verses appeared: Artibus iste pater famosus in omnibus Adam / theologus summus cardiquenalis erat / Anglia cui patriam titulum dedit ista beate / edes Cecilie morsque suprema polum/ anno M CCC LXXXX VI [sic] mense Septembri. These verses were not found in the church nor was any other memoria but have been located thanks to the care and sensibility of erudite old gentlemen.27

From these accounts of shifts and rearrangements, at least some indisputable data can be established. The tomb was originally free-standing: not only was it described as such by Suarès, but the epitaph ran all around the canopy. Indeed, by inserting a hand between the wall and the back of the bier, we can verify that the chest is carved on the other side too (presumably with the same coats of arms as on the front). Furthermore, the account of 1584 records that, before the move of about twenty years before, when the monument was still in its original setting, it was surrounded by an iron grille. The fact that the monument was free-standing is usually considered ‘of considerable historical importance within the Italian context’.28 According to the traditional scholarly view, this was a common solution north of the Alps and in the Kingdom of Sicily, but not in the rest of Italy. And we ought to remember – together with Gardner – that Easton had been the executor of Cardinal Langham, who is buried in a free-standing tomb at Westminster Abbey.29 Much intensive study is actually required for Rome, as there appears to be evidence for the existence of far more free-standing chapels and tombs than has previously been thought. For instance, the sarcophagus of Francesco Felici – whom we have encountered earlier – must have been either very close to or just within the Chapel of the Virgin, a monumental tabernacle chapel in the nave of the Aracoeli.30 Cardinal Agapito Colonna was similarly buried in front of the Chapel of the Virgin Mary in S. Maria Maggiore, a free-standing monumental canopied structure. Another such 27 Ibid.: ‘benché fussi più di 20 anni che era stato trasportato dal loco dove fu messo la prima volta, et era giusto avanti l’altare del Santissimo Sacramento con una grata di ferro à torno à torno et altri adornamenti nelli quali erano questi versi intagliati: [the verses follow] li quali versi né altra memoria non si ritrovava in chiesa ma per diligentia fatta tra Gentil’homini vecchi et historici si sono ritrovati; et nella detta trasportazione si spese circa scudi sette e mezzo, dico 7:50’. 28 Gardner, Tomb and Tiara, 130. 29 Ibid. 30 Bolgia, ‘The Felici Icon Tabernacle’, 27‒72; eadem, Reclaiming the Roman Capitol: Santa Maria in Aracoeli from the Altar of Augustus to the Franciscans, c.500‒1450 (New York and London, 2017), 379.

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chapel was in the north transept of SS. Bonifacio e Alessio.31 We do not know whether there was also a sepulchral monument associated with the latter, but the issue of free-standing chapels (either primarily conceived to house icons and relics or as sepulchral chapels, or both) in Rome and more generally in Italy certainly requires further study. It has not been sufficiently highlighted that the Counter-Reformation led to the removal not only of choir precincts, altars and shrines but also of tabernacle-like chapels and tombs from the interior of Italian churches, and it would not be surprising if research in this direction were to recover even more freestanding tombs than we actually think were ever created. On the basis of written and visual evidence alike, it is certainly time to acknowledge that there were many free-standing chapels within churches, quite apart from the discrete architectural chapels that breached their side walls, especially from the second half of the thirteenth century onwards. What is also certain is that the Vatican drawing shows a possible reconstruction, and our reconstruction hypothesis should not be ‘influenced’ too much by it. The trapezoidal shape of the baldachin is unparalleled as a tomb canopy, at least in this simplified form. The only architectural element which offers a parallel is found in elaborate tomb monuments, such as those of Cardinal De Bray at Orvieto (much altered), Cardinal Marco da Viterbo (d. 1369) in S. Francesco at Viterbo, Marie de Valois (c.1331–32) in S. Chiara at Naples (Fig. 7.18) and Enrico Minutolo (d. 1412) in the cathedral of Naples. We ought to think of the original appearance of Easton’s tomb as being far more elaborate and more germane to these tombs than scholarship has hitherto suggested – modern reconstructions having been too much affected by the visual ‘influence’ exerted by the Vatican drawing. Our hypothesis is strengthened by the fact that in the nunnery of S. Cecilia there survive a number of loose statuettes that can be stylistically associated with Easton’s tomb. They include a Madonna and Child (Fig. 7.19) and four smaller angels carrying candelabra (Figs 7.20‒7.23). The delicate and youthful Virgin holds a rose in her right hand while supporting a half-naked Child with her left hand. The drapery is ample and rendered through broad planes, with almost no broken line. The Child reaches out in the direction of the flower. In the late nineteenth century, Giuseppe Sacconi, the architect of the Vittoriano (the monument to King Victor Emanuel II on the Capitoline Hill), himself considerably well-versed in Italian art, was the first to propose the 31 Eadem, ‘Icons “in the Air”: new settings for the sacred in medieval Rome’, in Architecture and Pilgrimage, 1000–1500: Southern Europe and beyond, ed. P. Davies, D. Howard and W. Pullan (Farnham, 2013), 114‒42, esp. 128.

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Fig. 7.18. Naples, S. Chiara, tomb of Marie de Valois (1331–2). Photo © Alinari, Firenze

association of the tomb with the sculptures, at that time displaced in the convent cloister,32 whilst Pietro Toesca first suggested their attribution to the Florentine artist Giovanni d’Ambrogio and his son, Lorenzo di Giovanni, who, in November 1397, suddenly left the building site of Florence Cathedral without permission, as we learn from the payment record of the Opera del Duomo.33 For that reason, both were expelled from the workshop. Giovanni d’Ambrogio returned to Florence in January 1401 and was readmitted to the building site with no less a position than that of the capomastro of the Opera, a charge which he would fulfil – with some interruptions – until 1418.34 Lorenzo di Giovanni, too, is documented once more at S. Maria del Fiore in 1401, working at the Porta dei Canonici.35 The attribution of these statuettes to Giovanni and his son, Lorenzo, not uncontested in scholarship, has been revised with further – and so it seems to me – convincing parallels 32 E.A., ‘Monumento’, 310. 33 Toesca, Trecento, 360. 34 Kreytenberg, ‘Grabmal für Kardinal’, 207–8. 35 Toesca, Trecento, 360.

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Fig. 7.19. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, Madonna and Child, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma

Fig. 7.20. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma

Fig. 7.21. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma

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Fig. 7.22. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma

Fig. 7.23. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, nunnery, angel carrying candelabrum, probably from the tomb of Adam Easton. Photo © Vasari, Roma

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by Kreytenberg, who has also restated their association with the tomb of Easton.36 However, the actual reconstruction proposed by Kreytenberg,37 which is heavily dependent on a late-nineteenth-century proposal38 (in turn presumably dependent on the drawing by Suarès), and places the angels on top of the corner colonnettes, and the bier in turn on top of four angular columns, is unconvincing. Not only do the angels appear purposeless and too small in this position but such a monumental sarcophagus and its equally massive ‘cover’ cannot, technically, also be borne by such lofty angular supports. This reconstruction is also visually misleading as it is based on an arbitrary multiplication of the colonnettes at the corner of the bier, the one on the left-hand side for the lower supports, and the one on the right-hand side for the upper supports. The reconstructed supports ought instead to have been drafted in pen – or, in any event, clearly marked as to show their hypothetical nature. As it stands, this reconstruction leads the viewer to believe that eight colonnettes – four shown as supporting the canopy, and four shown as supporting the bier, all of them of the same size – survive. This reconstruction also leaves out the Madonna and Child, a group that may well have been in dialogue with a lost statuette of the deceased kneeling in prayer, as was common in late medieval tombs. We shall return to this point. We ought now to reconsider the tomb of Philippe d’Alençon, which – as we have said – has been often, and most recently, associated with Easton’s tomb. Comparisons with works in Florence have led Kreytenberg to assign the sculptures of the d’Alençon tomb to Giovanni d’Ambrogio, his son, Lorenzo, and Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, who was also absent from the Opera del Duomo in the period immediately following the death of Cardinal d’Alençon and until early 1400.39 His stylistic analysis does bear scrutiny: especially convincing is the ascription of the effigy (Fig. 7.24) to Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, an artist of northern training whose distinguishing characteristics seem to have been a polished surface, a somewhat mechanical rendering of the drapery and idealized facial features. The reference to artists active in Florence becomes even more convincing if we consider that one of Philippe d’Alençon’s executors was the Florentine Cardinal Angelo Acciaiuoli: it is reasonable to suppose that it was he who was responsible for attracting the artists to Rome.40 36 Kreytenberg, ‘Grabmal für Kardinal’, 197–216. 37 Ibid., 205, fig. 9. 38 E.A., ‘Monumento’, 310. 39 Kreytenberg, ‘Bildhauer von Altarziborium und Grabmal’, 91–126. 40 Gardner, Tomb and Tiara, 130.

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Fig. 7.24. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, left aisle, end wall, small pillar flanking the altar. Photo: author

Some details of Easton’s tomb (Fig. 7.9), such as the rendering of the patterns on the cushions ‘by subtraction’ or the embroidery on the dalmatic and chasuble speak of a similar artistic ambience. The vegetal motifs on the background of the English coat of arms find parallels in the Porta della Mandorla, and we have already mentioned how the vegetal crosses on the side of the bier are a mature development of those crosses seen in the tombs on the façade of the Florentine church of S. Maria Novella. Significantly, a similar cross, even if less imaginatively developed than in Easton’s tomb, is found on the altar formerly in Cardinal d’Alençon’s sepulchral chapel in S. Maria in Trastevere. The link with Florence is further reinforced by an interesting passage in Ghiberti’s third Commentary: he witnessed in Rome, in the region of S. Celso, the discovery of a most beautiful hermaphrodite statue, and its removal to S. Cecilia in Trastevere by a sculptor who was working on the sepulchre of a cardinal there. According to Ghiberti, the sculptor had ‘removed marble from it, the more easily to transport it to our land’ (‘per poterla meglio conducere alla nostra terra’). 41 Here the text is confusing as – grammati41 L. Ghiberti, I Commentarii, ed. L. Bartoli (Florence, 1998), 107–8: ‘vidi in Roma, nella olimpia quattrocento quaranta, una statua d’uno Ermafrodito di grandezza d’una fanciulla d’anni tredici, la quale statua era fatta con mirabile ingegno […] la scultura era coperta di terra per insino al pari della via. Rimondandosi el detto luogo, era sopra a Sancto Celso, in detto lato si fermò

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cally – this sentence refers to the sepulchre (sepultura), but – in terms of content – it is clear that the artist wished to take (and probably did take) the hermaphrodite to his homeland (la nostra terra), the same as that of Ghiberti, namely Florence. Although the date of this piece of information is problematic, 42 it confirms the Florentine origins of an artist working on the tomb of a cardinal at S. Cecilia in Trastevere, which must, therefore, have been the tomb of Easton as no other cardinal’s tomb is documented at S. Cecilia in the early fifteenth century. Another element which can be associated with the same Florentine artistic milieu, in this case an iconographic one, is the Madonna della Rosa (Fig. 7.19), the Virgin holding a rose, a type which was to become popular in Florence, where it features in the lunette of the Porta dei Canonici (for which the activity of Lorenzo di Giovanni is documented) or in the tabernacle dei Medici e degli Speziali at Orsanmichele (a work assigned by many to Piero di Giovanni Tedesco, c.1400), but – as far as we are aware – new to Rome. Kreytenberg has shown that the same Florentine workshop was active both at S. Cecilia and S. Maria in Trastevere. The effigy of Easton, with its profound conviction, is best associated with the sculptures of d’Alençon’s monument assigned to Lorenzo di Giovanni, such as some heads of the Apostles mourning the death of the Virgin which, in turn, may be compared with some heads of Prophets in the Florentine Porta della Mandorla.43 It is apparent that Easton is more realistically rendered, but in this case the artist was creating the effigy of a contemporary person, rather than a character from Scriptures. By this time we may no longer need to posit specific portrait devices, such as death masks, but it is worth considering that these may have been in use in both Italy and England for about a century.44 It has been argued that death masks are already documented in Florence by the 1370s (which would be particularly interesting for our purposes), but the argument is based on a misunderstanding of the source and does not withstand

uno scultore, fece trarre fuori detta statua e condussela a Sancta Cecilia in Trastevere ove el scultore lavorava una sepultura d’uno cardinale e d’essa aveva levato marmo per poterla meglo conducere nella nostra terra. La quale statua, dottrina et arte e magisterio, non è possibile con lingua potere dire la perfectione d’essa’. 42 See discussion in Gardner, Tomb and Tiara, 132. 43 Kreytenberg, ‘Grabmal für Kardinal’, esp. 208–9. 44 P. Binski, ‘The Early Portrait: verbal or pictorial?’, in Europäische Kunst um 1300, ed. G. Schmidt and E. Liskar, Akten des XXV. Internationaler Kongress für Kunstgeschichte, September 1983 (Vienna, 1986), 211–15; D. Olariu, La genèse de la représentation ressemblant de l’homme: reconsideration du portrait à partir du XIIIe siècle (Bern, 2014), 229–50, and 269–78.

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scrutiny. 45 In any event, it has been recently proposed that life masks were deployed in fourteenth-century Italy, and as early as the statue of Enrico Scrovegni (before 1336) in his Paduan chapel. 46 After all, the making of this type of mask – already used in Antiquity – is accurately described in Cennino Cennini’s Libro dell’Arte in the early fifteenth century. 47 Their early deployment may help to explain, amongst many other factors, the variety and complexity of approaches to portraiture in the Italian Trecento. It is fair to say that the tomb in S. Cecilia celebrated the English cardinal by combining tradition and innovation. There is no question that the effigy of Easton, at least the ‘realistic’ rendering of his head, was a considerable innovation within the Roman panorama of the time. The choice of two completely different types of portraits for d’Alençon and Easton – the first highly idealized, the second vividly characterized – is most interesting and worthy of consideration for scholars interested in the history of portraiture. It is traditionally assumed that the choice of one type or the other relates to different ‘genres’ (the image of a gisant being very different from an image of authority, for instance), or different contexts, or different times. Here we are faced with the effigies of two cardinals, who belonged to one and the same circle and whose tombs are not only nearly contemporary but also topographically very close and the work of the very same team of artists. To discuss whether such a striking difference had to do with French versus English taste, or with the taste of the testamentary executors or with distribution of work in the workshop, goes beyond the scope of this contribution, yet it is worth noting that – whilst the effigies were differently rendered, the physical corpses were similarly treated. Indeed, both must have undergone a sophisticated process of embalming as demonstrated by 45 Ibid., 252–5. The source in question is a letter from Poggio Bracciolini to Leonardo Bruni, concerning the death of the humanist Coluccio Salutati, a close friend to both of them. The crucial passage reads: ‘a te scire velim […] et cui itidem, ut ex magistro Loysio, aliquam sui effigiem expressisti’, which means ‘I would like to know from you […] and equally, for whom, you portrayed his image, as I learnt from master Luigi’ (not 'je voudrais aussi savoir... et, par ailleurs, si tu lui as fait un moulage de son visage comme il a été fait pour maître Loysius', as per Olariu’s translation). ‘Effigiem exprimere’ is a Ciceronian expression and refers to a portrait which might well be either physical or verbal. In this case, as Leonardo Bruni was a humanist, it is almost certain that it was a verbal portrait (and, in any event, not a ‘moulage de son visage’). The word accepi (I learnt) is implied in the phrase ‘ut ex magistro Loysio’ (which therefore must be read as ‘ut accepi ex magistro Loysio’). 46 L. Jacobus, ‘“Propria figura”: the advent of facsimile portraiture in Italian art’, Art Bulletin, 99 (2017), 72–101. I am grateful to Laura Jacobus for generously sending me a copy of her article before publication. 47 Cennino Cennini’s Il libro dell’arte: A new English translation and commentary with Italian transcription, trans. L. Broecke (London, 2015), 250–6.

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the fact that they were found in excellent state when ‘rediscovered’ in the sixteenth century. 48 Returning to the tomb, the extent to which the monument overall, in its general design and structure, was also innovative is difficult to assess for the reasons that we have mentioned, but it is probable that it was less so than usually assumed. We need to remember that there were statuettes associated with it. Whilst the size of the angels compares well with the pinnacle statuettes in the d’Alençon’s Gothic canopy, the Madonna and Child suggests that we should at least entertain the possibility that there may have originally been a kneeling cardinal who was being introduced to the Virgin: the gesture of the Child acquires more meaning if we posit such a presence. As we have seen, the trapezoid-shaped lid only finds parallels in more elaborate tombs, in which it does not function as a canopy but rather as the crowning element of the death chamber and platform support for sculpted groups (Figure 7.17). That Easton’s tomb was free-standing does not exclude the possibility that the trapezoid-component was the base for a similar group, in turn surmounted by a canopy proper, of the type deployed at S. Maria in Trastevere. Lacking conclusive evidence, this must remain a matter of speculation for the moment. We are, nevertheless, in a position to be able to say much more on the original location of the monument. Suarès states that it was formerly installed ‘in isolato nella Cappella della Madonna vicino alla Tribuna’ – free-standing in the Chapel of the Madonna near the apse. A note by Ugonio informs us that the altar of the Virgin had been consecrated in 1071 by Honorius II and was located to the right of the main altar. 49 The present chapel at the end of the right aisle, usually taken to be the one in question, is too small to have accommodated the tomb. Had the sepulchre been set there, it would have diminished the altar and hidden it from view. There are also practical problems of circulation, as there would have been only a limited space in between the tomb and the altar. Indeed, the chapels flanking the apse are clearly the result of later remodelling, obtained by closing off the last bays of the original aisles and reducing their height. 48 The body of Easton was found to be ‘intact in flesh and bones’ (‘essendosi trovato in carne et ossa intero’): Rome, Archivio di Stato, CFBC, Monastero di S. Cecilia in Trastevere, b. 4224/2, fol. 21r. Similarly d’Alençon’s corpse was found ‘whole intact without any loss in the nose or lips, dressed in a golden chasuble with the gloves’ (‘tutto intiero senza alcun mancamento di naso ne di labri vestito d’una pianeta d’oro con i guanti i[n] mano’): Vatican City, BAV, MS Chigi G. IV. 108, fol. 167v, quoted in Kinney, ‘Managed Memory’, 348 n. 38. 49 P. Ugonio, Historia delle Stationi di Roma (Rome, 1588), 133–4: ‘a man destra dell’altar grande, è un altare della beata Vergine privilegiato per i defunti da Papa Giulio III, consacrato nel 1071 da papa Onorio II’.

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The finding of the account of the interventions undertaken in 1584 allows us to reconstruct the original location of the tomb: according to the document, ‘the place where the tomb was installed the first time’ (‘il luogo dove fu messo la prima volta’) was ‘just before the altar of the Blessed Sacrament with an iron grate all around it’ (‘giusto avanti l’altare del Santissimo Sacramento con una grata di ferro à torno à torno’).50 The altar of the Blessed Sacrament can be identified as located against the end wall of the left aisle. The document of 1584 describes it as having the names of the saints buried underneath inscribed on its corner pillars (‘nelli pilastri delle colonne di detto altare’): ‘Sanctis Felicis Pape, Blasii Episcopi, Cosme et Damiani, Marci et Marcelliani, Pancratii, Valentini, Aquilae et Prisciae, Basilidis, Cyrini, Naboris et Nazarii, Gregorii Pape, Ceciliae, Agnetis et Marmete’.51 Since the altar was ‘short, low and not much honoured’, it was revetted with pietre mischie and reconsecrated on 7 August.52 Although it was remodelled at a later time, the present altar against the end wall of the left aisle (dedicated to SS Peter and Paul since at least 1670)53 still displays the inscription mentioned by our source (Fig. 7.24). It indeed records that in the year 1552 the relics of the mentioned saints were rediscovered ‘repertae’ under the altar of the Blessed Sacrament (‘sub altari Sanctissimi Corporis Christi’) while the inscription ends with the date ‘1098, indiction sixth’, presumably a record of the first consecration of the altar.54 We do not know whether such altar was still the medieval one (as the recorded date suggests), but we can be confident that an altar associated with the Most Blessed Sacrament was 50 See above, note 26. 51 Rome, Archivio di Stato, CFBC, Monastero di S. Cecilia in Trastevere, b. 4224/2, fols 20v–21r: ‘Et perché l’altare del S.mo Sacramento era corto, basso et non troppo honorato, fu guasto a dì 26 di luglio con licentia de superiori; dove in una cassa di legnio fragida furono trovate l’infrascritte reliquie, cioè Reliquie Sanctorum Felicis Pape, Blasij Episcopi, Cosme et Damiani, Marci et Marcelliani, Pancratij, Valentini, Aquilae et Prisciae [sic], Basilidis, Cirini, Naboris et Nazarij, Gregorii Pape, Ceciliae, Agnetis et Marmete; que reliquie etiam invente fuerant […]. Si come appare nelli pilastri delle colonne di detto altare dove è scritto. Et il detto altare fu riconcio nel modo che sta hoggi con Pietre mischie et fatto intagliare nel’architrave et mettere à oro le parole Altare privilegiatum, dove si è speso circa trentasette scudi e mezzo, 37:50. Et il detto Altare fu consecrato a dì 7 di Agosto [...].’ 52 See above, note 51. 53 G. Alveri, Della Roma in ogni stato, 2 vols (Rome, 1664), ii, 384. The dedication to SS Peter and Paul is still visible today on the horizontal entablature of the frame of the painting above the altar. 54 The inscription reads: ‘In isto altare sont [sic] / reliquiae sancto/rum Foelicis Papae Bla/sii Episcopi [the list of relics follows as in the document of note 51 above, but with 'Priscae' instead of 'Prisciae'] que reper/tae fuerunt de / presenti anno / MDLII sub altare / Sanctissimi Corporis / Christi Anno Domini / 1098 indictio/ VI.’

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Fig. 7.25. Rome, S. Cecilia in Trastevere, left aisle, end wall, small door. Photo: author

there from medieval times (certainly before Easton’s time) on the basis of the presence of a small Cosmatesque tabernacle for the Blessed Sacrament immured into the apsidal wall on the left-hand side (when looking towards the apse), which is very close to the altar in question. The archival document of 1584 provides an additional precious piece of information which helps us close the circle. Before its relocation and rearrangement, the altar of the Madonna was located ‘near the small door from which one exits the church to go to the Ospedale dei Genovesi’.55 The tomb of Easton is not mentioned in association with it inasmuch as this had already been moved in the Ponziani Chapel, as we have seen. But there can be little doubt that this altar was the one originally associated with Easton’s sepulchre and, indeed, formed part of Easton’s chapel. The small door in question was – as still is today – at the end of the left aisle, to the left of the Blessed Sacrament altar (Fig. 7.25). This piece of information tallies well with Ugonio’s statement that the altar of the Madonna was to the right of the main altar, as this means on the left-hand side when looking towards the apse (as always in his, and contemporary, writings).

55 Rome, Archivio di Stato, CFBC, Monastero di S. Cecilia in Trastevere, b. 4224/2, fol. 20v: ‘l’altare della Madonna quale stava à canto la porticella di dove si escie per andare al hospidale de genovesi’.

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If we combine this data with that provided by Suarès’s manuscript (namely, that the tomb was ‘free-standing in the Chapel of the Madonna near the main chapel’), only one possible interpretation remains: that the Chapel of the Madonna was a free-standing tabernacle-like structure comprising an altar dedicated to the Virgin and the tomb of Easton, situated towards the end of the left aisle, in front of the Blessed Sacrament altar, near the main chapel. There is no reason to doubt that the location described in 1584 as ‘the place where the tomb was first installed’ was the original one. It is apparent that the observers witnessed a medieval arrangement and setting, and had no memory of previous shifts. Whilst the monument had most probably not been moved before the 1560s, it may well have been altered. The original timber roof in the aisles was replaced by vaulting in 1484,56 and it is possible that a towering monument such as that of Easton (if our discussion is, even only in part, correct) may have been partially reduced, at least in height, by then. In any event, it is important to note that we should revise our approach to the monument of Easton as if it were simply a tomb: like the monument of Cardinal d’Alençon or that of Pope Boniface VIII a century earlier, just to cite the most significant examples, the monument of Easton was a sepulchral chapel, comprising an imposing and elaborate tomb, an altar and a monumental canopy above them, surrounded by an iron grille, marking the space of the chapel. This is not just a question of terminology and we should be careful about grouping chapels with individual tombs, as chapels had a different status, given the presence of a dedicated altar. Furthermore, the identification of the location of Easton’s chapel shows that this was very similar to that of the chapel of Philippe d’Alençon in S. Maria in Trastevere, suggesting that the end of the left aisle, to the right of the main chapel (left, when looking towards it), was a privileged place of burial at the turn of the fourteenth century, perhaps even reserved to titular cardinals. It additionally suggests that, before the early modern remodellings, the final bays of the aisles of S. Cecilia in Trastevere may have functioned as a sort of transept. It is also worth bearing in mind that the chapel was the work of what was probably the most up-to-date and sought-after Florentine workshop of the time, and that the reputation of one of the artists working on it was such that he would shortly be given the direction of the Opera del Duomo. The quality of Easton’s sepulchre can be easily demonstrated by a comparison with the tomb of Urban VI (d. 1389), the pope who had made the life of the English cardinal so difficult (Fig. 7.26). Surely the parallel speaks for itself! 56 R. Krautheimer, Corpus basilicarum christianarum Romae, 5 vols (Vatican City, 1937–77), i, 96.

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Fig. 7.26. Vatican City, Vatican Grottoes, tomb of Pope Urban VI (d. 1389) from Old St Peter’s. Photo: author

As for the ‘celebration’ of the cardinal, whomsoever his executor(s) was (or were) – perhaps Acciaiuoli was involved in this commission too or perhaps it was someone based at the venerable English College in Rome or a ‘colleague’ at the Curia – a great prominence has been given to the cardinal galeros on top of the Easton shields [Figs. 7.2 and 7.4]: these broad-brimmed tasselled hats are large in size and carefully rendered, advertising loud and clear the regained high-ranking position of Easton in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. An equally remarkable prominence is afforded to the arms and crown of England, the latter painstakingly carved in virtuous high relief [Figs. 7.2 and 7.3]: a proud reference to the Anglia patria mentioned in the inscription, presumably not only because it had given birth to the cardinal, but because – in the person of the king – it had so loyally supported the English prelate in the most tumultuous time of his career.

About the author Claudia Bolgia is Professore Ordinario di Storia dell’Arte Medievale at the Università degli studi di Udine. She has published widely on medieval Rome, including many articles in international peer-reviewed journals and a recent monograph on Reclaiming the Roman Capitol. Maria in Aracoeli from the Altar of Augustus to the Franciscans, c. 500–1450 (London and New York, 2017). The ‘Long’ Trecento: Rome without the popes, c.1305–1420, is in preparation.

8. Adam Easton’s Manuscripts* Patrick Zutshi Abstract After a brief introduction, this article provides descriptions of the eight extant Latin manuscripts which are known to have been in the possession of Adam Easton, as well as one manuscript where his ownership is questionable. The manuscripts passed to Norwich Cathedral Priory and are now divided between Cambridge University Library; Corpus Christi College, Cambridge; Balliol College, Oxford; the Bodleian Library; and the Bibliothèque Municipale, Avignon. Keywords: Adam Easton’s manuscripts

Since the publication of an article about Norwich Cathedral Library by H.C. Beeching and M.R. James a century ago, it has been known that Adam Easton assembled a substantial collection of manuscripts and that these manuscripts passed to the library of the monastery where he had been a monk, Norwich Cathedral Priory.1 N.R. Ker, in an article published in 1949 and reprinted with addenda in 1985, amplified and refined the researches of Beeching and James, although it requires attentive reading of Ker’s article to

* I am very grateful to Peter Jones for showing me his unpublished description of Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.6.3. For any errors in my description of this manuscript, I alone am responsible. I have based the descriptions of Cambridge, University Library, MSS Ii.3.32 and Kk.2.8 on the following publication: P. Binski and P. Zutshi, with the collaboration of S. Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: a catalogue of the collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, 2011). I am grateful to my fellow authors for permission to do this. I also wish to thank Jean-Pascal Pouzet for his comments on a draft of this chapter, and the librarians of the institutions where the manuscripts are held, who have afforded me every facility. 1 H.C. Beeching, ‘The Library of the Cathedral Church of Norwich, with an Appendix of the Priory Manuscripts Now in English Libraries by M.R. James’, Norfolk Archaeology, 19 (1917), 67–116, especially 71–2.

Wendling, M., Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397): Monk, Scholar, Theologian, Diplomat. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2020 doi 10.5117/9789463726528_ch08

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deduce which of the manuscripts that he cited were owned by Easton.2 The volume of the Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues which covers Norwich Cathedral emphasizes the scale of Easton’s collecting.3 Easton’s library was indeed substantial and contained around 200 manuscripts at least. 4 His career took him to Norwich, Oxford, Avignon and Rome, and it is likely that he acquired manuscripts in all or most of these places. Easton transferred some of his manuscripts to Norwich Cathedral Priory in about 1389–90; others he bequeathed to the priory, but they did not arrive there until some ten years after his death in 1397.5 Since there is no contemporary or later catalogue of Easton’s manuscripts, the principal evidence concerning his library is manuscripts which contain a record of his ownership. This evidence chiefly takes the form of pressmarks in manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral, Easton’s manuscripts having been assigned to class X (that is, the letter X, not the number ten). In an earlier article, I considered which manuscripts in class X belonged to Easton, and how and where he acquired them. I also sought to show how these manuscripts reflect Easton’s academic and intellectual interests, with a view to illuminating not only his possession of books but also his use of them.6 I pointed out that one can distinguish between two accessions of Easton’s books to Norwich Cathedral, the first being a donation and the second a bequest. This had only become apparent with the publication of references to the Norwich accounts in the entry for Easton in Joan Greatrex’s Biographical Register.7 It is not possible to assign individual books to the one or the other accession, although it would be reasonable to suppose that the books from the first accession have pressmarks with lower numbers than those from the second. The main purpose of the present paper is to provide summary descriptions of the extant Latin manuscripts owned by Adam Easton. I have used the researches of Seb Falk concerning Cambridge, University Library, MS 2 N.R. Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts from Norwich Cathedral Priory’, in N.R. Ker, Books, Collectors and Libraries: studies in the medieval heritage, ed. A.G. Watson (London and Ronceverte, 1985), 243–72, especially 253, 254 n. 4. 3 English Benedictine Libraries: the shorter catalogues, ed. R. Sharpe, J.P. Carley, R.M. Thomson and A.G. Watson, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London, 1996), 290–1. 4 P. Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal and His Books: the library and writings of Adam Easton’, in Der Papst und das Buch im Spätmittelalter (1350–1500), ed. R. Berndt, Erudiri Sapientia, 13 (Münster, 2018), 43–60, and tabulae 2–4, at 45–7. 5 Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 44–5. 6 Ibid. 7 J. Greatrex, Biographical Register of the English Cathedral Priories of the Province of Canterbury c.1066 to 1540 (Oxford, 1997), 502–3.

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Gg.6.3 (no. 7 below) which appeared after my earlier article went to press.8 For Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180 (no. 3), I refer to the more detailed treatment by Lynda Dennison in the present volume. I have not included one manuscript which ought to have pride of place, since I am not qualified to provide a description of it. This is a Hebrew manuscript of David Kimhi’s Book of Roots (or Sepher Ha-shorashim), being the second part of his Miklol, with extensive Latin annotations (Cambridge, St John’s College, MS I.10 (218)). Although there has been considerable interest in the manuscript, no detailed study of it has been published, to the best of my knowledge.9 The manuscript would undoubtedly repay the interest of one or more scholars with the requisite expertise in Hebrew and Latin. Conversely, I include one manuscript which has previously been assigned to Easton, but which there is reason to doubt was ever owned by him (no. 9). Each entry begins with the running number, the order being based on the Norwich Cathedral pressmark, not the current location and classmark, which are given after the running number. Next I give the main author and/or title of the work concerned; the place or country of the manuscript’s production, as far as it can be ascertained; the date of the manuscript; essential codicological information with regard to material, foliation, layout, and the incipit of the second folio (the latter is followed by a folio number if the incipit does not occur on what is now the second folio of the manuscript); the nature of the script; where several works are found in the manuscript, the details of these; an account of the miniatures and decoration, where present. The section on provenance gives the Norwich Cathedral pressmark and includes any remarks on Adam Easton’s acquisition of the manuscript as well as its subsequent history, and this is followed by a brief description of the binding. Further discussion of the manuscripts occurs under Notes and may include consideration of any marginalia or other annotations (which in the past have sometimes been ascribed to Easton). The entry concludes with 8 S. Falk, ‘A Merton College Equatorium: text, translation, commentary’, SCIAMVS, 17 (2016), 121–59. 9 See M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of St John’s College, Cambridge (Cambridge, 1913), 249; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 264, no. 83; M. Beit-Arié, The Makings of the Medieval Hebrew Book (Jerusalem, 1993), 129; M. Harvey, The English in Rome, 1362–1420: portrait of an expatriate community (Cambridge, 1999), 224; J. Olszowy-Schlanger, Les manuscrits hébreux dans l’Angleterre médiévale: étude historique et paléographique (Paris, Louvain and Dudley, 2003), 83; eadem, ‘Robert Wakef ield and the Medieval Background of Hebrew Scholarship in Renaissance England’, in Hebrew to Latin, Latin to Hebrew: the mirroring of two cultures in the age of humanism, ed. G. Busi (Berlin and Turin, 2006), 61–87, at 84; eadem, ‘Robert Wakefield and His Hebrew Manuscripts’, Zutot, 6 (2009), 25–34, at 26–29; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 47, 49–50, 53–5, 57.

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bibliographical references, which do not claim to be exhaustive and which do not normally repeat titles already cited in the course of the description.

1. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 74 Berengarius Biterrensis, Inventarium iuris canonici Southern France, Avignon (?); s. xiv in. Parchment, i + 247 fols, mainly 440 x 305 mm (315 x 205 mm), 2–3 columns, 67 lines, ruled in plummet, below top line, catchwords, quire and leaf signatures, 2o fo. An sine expressa SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (textualis) DECORATION Ornamental initials: particoloured initials in red and blue with elaborate penwork flourishing (4–28 lines, fols 1r, 25v, 60v, 107v, 115v, 117r, 121r, 145r, 151v, 162v, 165v, 172r, 205r–v, 216v, 232v, 239v, 244r); alternating blue and red penwork initials with penwork flourishing (2–4 lines). PROVENANCE Probably acquired by Easton in Avignon, 1370–6 (cf. Notes); inscription ‘Liber ecclesie Norwycensis per magistrum Adam de Eston monachum dicti loci’ (the same as nos 2 and 6 below), followed by the pressmark ‘X XXXIII’ (fol. 1r); one of the manuscripts of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1575), annotated by Stephan Batman (see fol. iv, and cf. no. 3 below); bequeathed by Parker (d. 1575) to Corpus Christi College. BINDING Quarter calf with buckram-covered sides (J.S. Wilson and Son, Cambridge, 1952). NOTES The author is Berengar Fredoli, bishop of Béziers (d. 1323), whose Inventarium was completed by 1300 (P. Viollet, ‘Bérenger Frédol, canoniste’, in Histoire littéraire de la France, xxxiv (Paris, 1914–15), 62–178, at 165). The delicate penwork of the ornamental initials is characteristic of Avignon (cf., e.g. F. Manzari, La miniatura ad Avignone al tempo dei papi (1310–1410) (Modena, 2006), 49, illustrating Vatican City, BAV, MS Ross. 304, from the first quarter of the fourteenth century). For a different view of the manuscript’s origin,

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see N. Morgan, S. Panayotova and S. Reynolds, eds, Catalogue of Western Book Illumination in the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge Colleges, Part II: Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, 2 vols (London and Turnhout, 2011), i, 288, no. 170, which assigns the manuscript to Italy: ‘The high quality penwork decoration of the initials is not sufficiently characteristic to enable attribution to a particular region or city in Italy, but in the early fourteenth century, when this book was made, Bologna still monopolized provision of books of Canon Law, so it was possibly produced there.’ A.B. Emden, A Biographical Register of the University of Oxford to A.D. 1500, 3 vols (Oxford, 1957–9), i, 621, stated that Easton annotated this manuscript. There were several annotators. The principal annotator cites canonistic and civilian literature and is likely to have taught law in a university. Neither he nor any of the other annotators can be identified with Easton, who was not a canonist but a theologian, with a certain antipathy to the learned laws (see above pp. 43–4). M.R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Library of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1912), i, 153; N.R. Ker, Medieval Libraries of Great Britain: a list of surviving books, 2nd edn (London, 1964), 137, 285; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 260, no. 50; Harvey, The English in Rome, 222–3, 226; M. Bertram, Kanonisten und ihre Texte (1234 bis Mitte 14. Jh.) (Leiden and Boston, 2013), 264 n. 4, 495 (citing further literature on Berengar); Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 49–50, 57, tab. 3.

2. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 151 Guillelmus de Sancto Amore, Collectiones catholicae et canonicae scripturae France or England, s. xiii ex.–xiv in. Parchment, 193 fols, 257 x 183 (182 x 132) mm, 26 lines, ruled in ink, below top line, catchwords, rubrics, page headings in red, auctoritates underlined in red, nota marks in margins, 2o fo. Qualiter apostolus SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (textualis) DECORATION Particoloured red and blue penwork initials with foliage infill and flourishing (4–8 lines); red or blue penwork initials with flourishing in blue or red (2–3 lines).

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PROVENANCE Inscription ‘Liber ecclesie Norwycensis per magistrum Adam de Estone monachcum [sic] dicti loci’ (the same as no. 1 above and no. 6 below), followed by the Norwich cathedral pressmark ‘X. XLVI’ (the same number as no. 3 below); presented to the Bodleian Library by Sir Walter Cope, 1602. BINDING Reversed calf with rectangular frame over earlier wooden boards (s. xvii in.). NOTES The Collectiones pursue the anti-mendicant theme of the author’s better known De periculis novissimorum temporum and were printed in Guillelmus de Sancto Amore, Opera omnia (Constance, 1632), 111–490 (see M.M. Dufeil, Guillaume de Saint-Amour et la polémique universitaire parisienne, 1250–1259 (Paris, 1972), especially 328–30; P.R. Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition in Medieval Literature (Princeton, 1986), especially 17–18). A Summary Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, ii/1 (Oxford, 1922), 122, no. 1929; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 138, 285; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 261, no. 51; Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition, 64 n. 4, 66, 107; A.G. Watson, ‘The Manuscript Collection of Sir Walter Cope (d. 1614)’, Bodleian Library Record, 12.4 (1987), 262–97, at 293, no. 9; Harvey, The English in Rome, 189, 223; J.I. Catto, ‘A Radical Preacher’s Handbook, c.1383’, EHR, 115 (2000), 893–904, at 897–8; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 46, 52–3, 57.

3. Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180 Ricardus Armachanus, De pauperie Salvatoris England (Oxford?), shortly after c.1356 (see Notes) Parchment, fols 130 + i, 292 x 170 mm (216 x 122 mm), 2 cols, 52 lines, ruled in plummet, below top line, catchwords, quire and leaf signatures, chapter numbers in margins, marginal notes in contemporary hands, 2o fo. iam cerno te SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (cursive) DECORATION Author portrait: initial S with FitzRalph seated, wearing a mitre and writing, on burnished gold ground (7 lines, fol. 1r); he writes ‘Sanctissimo’, which

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is the incipit of his work. Above, to the left is a scroll with ‘Armachan(us)’ inside it, and to the right a dove. Border decoration: to the right of the author portrait, in the right margin, are two friars, a Franciscan and a Dominican, with a devil seated on the Franciscan’s shoulders and another below him; below the lower devil are a Carmelite and an Austin friar, and below them two further devils embracing. The page is framed by diapered blue and pink bars with burnished gold decoration; foliage sprouts from the bars. Ornamental initials: burnished gold and diapered blue and pink initials, with floral finials (5–11 lines); blue initials with red penwork flourishing (2–11 lines) and without flourishing in Book VIII; book numbers at head of page in blue with red penwork flourishing (Books I–VII) or in blue and red without flourishing (Book VIII); ownership inscription in blue with red penwork flourishing (fol. 88r). PROVENANCE Inscription in display script at the end of Book VII (fol. 88r): ‘LIBER DOMINI ADE ESTONE MONACHI NORWICENSIS’, and the name ‘A Eston.’ On the second rear flyleaf (fol. 130), with pressmark ‘x.xlvi’ (fol. 1r, the same number as no. 2 above; ‘x’ also appears on fol. iv); annotated by Robert Talbot, canon of Norwich, s. xvi med.; one of the manuscripts of Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, annotated by Stephan Batman (cf. S. Horobin and A. Nafde, ‘Stephan Batman and the Making of the Parker Library’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 15 (2015), 561–81, at 574); bequeathed by Parker (d. 1575) to Corpus Christi College. BINDING Quarter calf with parchment-covered sides (s. xx). NOTES The author is Richard FitzRalph, archbishop of Armagh (d. 1360). Books I–VII of De pauperie Salvatoris were published in 1356 and known in Oxford shortly thereafter; Easton was in Oxford at this time (BRUO, i, 620). Book VIII was composed at Avignon in 1358–9. In MS 180 it is a later addition (fols 89v–128v), in an English hand roughly contemporaneous with the rest of the manuscript and decorated in a different hand from Books I to VII. This is one of only two manuscripts of the entire work. See K. Walsh, A Fourteenth-Century Scholar and Primate: Richard FitzRalph in Oxford, Avignon and Armagh (Oxford, 1981), frontispiece, 347, 377–8, 413, 433, 440, 472–5. The inscription on fol. 88r was written before the addition of Book

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VIII, while Easton’s name at the end of Book VIII (fol. 130r) indicates his ownership of that book or of the entire manuscript. Harvey, The English in Rome, 223, 227–8, suggests that the book may previously have belonged to Cardinal Simon Langham. James, Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, i, 420–1; A.G. Little, ‘Illuminated Manuscripts’, in A.G. Little (ed.), Franciscan History and Legend in English Mediaeval Art, British Society of Franciscan Studies, 19 (Manchester, 1937), 37–77, at 49, 66, plate 23; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 137, 285; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 261, no. 52; Szittya, The Antifraternal Tradition, frontispiece, 125 n. 10; R. Sharpe, A Handlist of the Latin Writers of Great Britain and Ireland before 1540 (n.p., 1997), 479; Harvey, The English in Rome, 192, 218; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 48–50, 52–3, 57; L. Dennison, ‘The Dating and Origin of Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180: Adam Easton’s copy of Richard FitzRalph’s De pauperie Salvatoris’, Chapter 2 in the present volume.

4. Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.2.8 Evangelia secundum Matthaeum et Marcum glossata Northern France (Paris?), s. xiii 2/4 Parchment, ii + 238 fols, 315 x 220 mm (190 x 130 mm), 1–3 cols, 18 lines (text), 35 lines (gloss), ruled in plummet, below top line, running headers, marginal and interlinear glosses and notes, 2o fo. (or)do m’is depositio (fol. 4) SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (textualis) DECORATION Historiated initials: to Matthew, angel in red tunic, writing at lectern on burnished gold ground (2 lines, fol. 4v); to prologue to Mark, pink lion with red halo, holding scroll, on burnished gold ground (3 lines, fol. 149v); to Mark, initial I with tower over tonsured saint holding up a book, in dark-red vestment, scroll below (12 lines, fol. 151v). Ornamental and minor initials: initial to Matthew prologue, with scroll ornament and lion head terminals in red and blue on burnished gold ground (3 lines, fol. 3r); initial to gloss to Mark, symmetrical coiled red and blue foliage and lion masks (18 lines, fol. 149v); alternating red and blue initials (1–2 lines) with blue or red penwork flourishes throughout text and gloss.

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Border decoration: decorated blue and rose bars extending from initials (fols 4v, 149v). PROVENANCE Norwich Cathedral pressmark ‘X.ciiii’, over an erased number (fol. 3r); apparently entered the University Library between 1583 and 1600 (see Ker, ‘Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 3). BINDING Full goatskin (Cambridge University Library, s. xx, replacing calf binding with rectangular panels of s. xvii in., which is kept separately). NOTES Next to the gloss to the prologue to Matthew, which states that Matthew wrote his Gospel in Hebrew, is the marginal note ‘M(a)t(heus) scripsit ebraice’ (s. xiv 2/2, fol. 3r). Given Easton’s interest in Hebrew, it is likely that this is in his hand. There is at least one further annotation in the same hand (fol. 149v–150r, and cf. fol. 2v). There were two other annotators of the manuscript. A Catalogue of Manuscripts preserved in the Library of the University of Cambridge, 6 vols (Cambridge, 1856–67), iii, 604; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 137; Ker, ‘Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 21, no. 80; Harvey, The English in Rome, 223–4; P. Binski and P. Zutshi, with the collaboration of S. Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: a catalogue of the collection in Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, 2011), 283–4, no. 312; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 49, 51–2, 57, tabula 4.

5. Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.1.21 Origenes (translated by Rufinus), Homiliae XVI in Leviticum England, s. xii ex. Parchment, ii + 60 fols, 212 x 142 mm (171 x 111 mm), 1 column, 38 lines, ruled in plummet, above top line, headings, nota marks, marginal notes of s. xiv–xv, 2o fo. (possi)mus legis eius (fol. 4r) SCRIPT Caroline minuscule

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DECORATION Ornamental and minor initials: black S with foliage infill (10 lines, fol. 3v); dark blue or red penwork initials (3–4 lines) throughout. PROVENANCE Norwich Cathedral pressmark ‘X. CXX’ (fol. 3v); apparently entered University Library between 1583 and 1600 (see Ker, ‘Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 3; T. James, Ecloga Oxonio-Cantabrigiensis (London, 1600), 60, no. 132, which number appears on front pastedown, fols ir and 3r). BINDING Full calf with rectangular frames (s. xvii in.; rebacked, Gray, Cambridge, 1962). Catalogue of Manuscripts, iii, 336; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 136; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 264, no. 81; Harvey, The English in Rome, 223; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 50, 57.

6. Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale (Bibliothèque Ceccano), MS 996 Bernardus de Gordonia, Practica seu Lilium medicinae England, s. xiv med. Parchment, 153 fols, 243 x 175 mm (some leaves are smaller being offcuts, textblock varies in size), 2 cols, 32–55 lines, ruled in plummet, below top line, rubrics, catchwords, quire and leaf signatures, nota marks, faces and pointing hands in margins, 2o fo. nisi in declinacione SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (cursive) PROVENANCE Price ‘precium x so(l.)’ (fol. 1r) may indicate what Easton paid for the manuscript; inscription ‘Liber ecclesie Norwycensis per magistrum Adam de Eston. monachum dicti loci’ (fol. 1r, the same as nos 1 and 2 above), above which is the pressmark ‘X.CLIII’; it is unclear how the MS moved from Norwich to Avignon, where it is one of 168 manuscripts which belonged to the Dominicans of Avignon.

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DECORATION Red and blue penwork initials (2–5 lines); blue and red paragraph marks. NOTES The manuscript is in a variety of English or mainly English hands. There are marginalia in different contemporary hands throughout, many of them lengthy and concerning diet. Some marginalia were written first in plummet, then overwritten in ink. On fol. 13r in the top right-hand corner what appears to be a name occurs, written vertically: ‘w us inetoc’(?). The parchment is of poor quality, although superior to that of Gg.6.3 (no. 7). BINDING Full calf with decorated frame (s. xix). Catalogue général des manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, Départements – xxvii: Avignon, i (Paris, 1894), pp. xviii–xx, 467–8; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 136, 285; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 271 (addenda); Harvey, The English in Rome, 223; L.E. Demaitre, Doctor Bernard de Gordon: professor and practitioner (Toronto, 1980), 186; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 48, 50, 57.

7. Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.6.3 Astronomica, etc. England (Oxford?), s. xiv med. Parchment, vii + 392 fols, 194 x 122 mm (some leaves are smaller being offcuts, textblock varies in size), 1–2 columns, 36–41 lines, ruled in ink, below top line, rubrics, catchwords, numerous tables and mainly astronomical diagrams, some with colour wash, 2o fo. solis (heading), Tabula medii (text) SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (cursive) CONTENTS Iohannes Maudith, Tabulae (fols 2r–44v); Richardus de Wallingford (attrib. Iohannes Maudith), Canones super quatuor tabulis (TK 1230, fols 45r–48r); Iohannes Maudith, Tabula (eleven stars verified for 1316) (fol. 48v); Canones eclipsis solis (TK 1477, fols 49r–54v); Richardus de Wallingford, Tractatus de sectore (TK 1417, fols 54v–80v, 285r–287r); Canones de eclipsibus (TK 1213 and

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51, fols 91r–108r); Albumasar (translated by Iohannes Hispalensis), Flores (TK 1013, fols 108r–111v); short texts on planets, weather etc. (including TK 1449 and 1093, fols 112r–123r); Mappae clavicula (TK 1470, fol. 123v); Tabula equationum dierum (fol. 124r–126v); Iohannes Maudith, Nomina stellarum fixarum (eighty-six stars verified for 1316) (fol. 127r–128r); Tabula stellarum fixarum anno domini 1316 (fol. 128r); Tabula ad sciendum mensem, diem et horam introitus solis anno domini 1396 (fols 129r–132r); Campanus Novariensis (adapted by Richardus de Wallingford), Tabulae (TK 841, fols 132v–133v); Robertus Grossatesta, De impressionibus aeris (TK 57, fol. 134r); Tabula dignitatum et testimoniorum extracta de libro Albumasar, De iudiciis astrorum (fol. 134v); Tabula calculata anno Christi 1324 (fol. 135r); text beg. ‘Omnis autem planeta’ (TK 995, fols 136r–139r); Rogerus de Hereford, De iudiciis astronomiae (TK 1299, fols 139r–153r); De declinatione stellae ab equinoxiali (TK 1447, fols 153v–154r); Zael Benbrit, Introductorium ad astrologiam (TK 1411, fols 154v–182v); Zael Benbrit, De electionibus (TK 985, fols 182v–192v); Almanac saturni etc. (fols 193r–197v); Tabula solis inventa anno Christi 1320 (fols 198r–199v); Nota modum equandi domos (fol. 200r); Robertus Grossatesta, Tractatus de spera (TK 763, fols 200v–205v); Ps.-Gerardus Cremonensis, Theorica planetarum (TK 223, fols 206r–212r); Tabula equationis motum diurnum (fol. 212r–v); Opus imaginum secundum consilium Tholomei (TK 1015, fols 213r–v); Tabula mediorum motuum argumenti solis (fols 214r–217r); Ps.-Iohannes de Lineriis, Equatorium beg. ‘Quia nobilissima’ (TK 1224, fols 217v–220v); Rogerus Bacon (?), Physica (TK 1621, fols 221r–222v); Quaedam nobilia experimenta theoricae praedictae (TK 935, fols 223r–228r); Tabula equationis solis et lunae (fols 229r–230v); Campanus Novariensis, De quadratura circuli (TK 136, fols 231r–233r); Ars multiplicandi (TK 597, fols 233r–v); Iohannes de Lineriis, Theorica planetarum (fragments) (fols 233v–260r); Petrus Musandi, Detractiones (extracts) (TK 737, fols 260r– 270r); text beg. ‘Si quantitas diametri’ (TK 1458, fols 271r–272v); Profatius Iudaeus (adapted by Iohannes Maudith), Ars et operatio novi quadrantis (TK 18, fols 273r–284r); text beg. ‘Corporalis mundi machina’ (TK 267, fols 284v–287r); Euclides (translated by Adelardus Bathoniensis), Elementa (TK 1152, fols 287v–288r); Richardus de Wallingford, Tractatus Albionis (lacking part II, including list of fifteen stars verified for 1327) (TK 74, fols 288v–303v, 376r–v); Allgorismus in novis numeris (TK 1212, fols 309r–310v); Liber quantitatum mensurandarum per numerum (TK 1215, fols 310v–315v); De regulis generalibus (TK 1540, fols 315v–317v); Opus geometricum (TK 794, fols 317v–321v); Petrus de Sancto Audomaro, Compositio instrumenti (TK 1288, fols 322r–330r); De catis (fol. 330v); Tabulae Toletanae (fols 332v–339v, 358r–359v); Tabula ad sciendum quota feria annorum Christi anni Arabum (fol. 340r); Tabula notarum annorum Arabum et mensium (fols 340v–346r); Tabula equationis (incomplete)

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(fols 346v–352r); text beg. ‘Si vis ut socius qui ludit’ (fo. 352v); De calculatione eclipsium (TK 953, fols 360v–366r); Tabulae Buth id est motus solis in una hora etc. (fols 366v–371r); Nota de equatione dierum (TK 928, fols 371v–372v); Iohannes de Lineriis, Tabula sub anno domini 1321 (fols 373r–375v); Iordanus de Nemore, De numeris datis (incomplete) (fols 377r–381v). DRAWINGS Simple drawings of domus (fol. 315r), a church, defensive towers and other buildings (fols 317v–321v). PROVENANCE Probably acquired by Adam Easton at Oxford, since some of the texts in the volume reflect the Oxford Arts curriculum (Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 48); Norwich Cathedral Priory, with Norwich pressmark ‘X.clxx’ (fol. 1r); William David and John Style, presumably former owners (fol. 1r, s. xvi?); Sir Thomas Knyvett (D.J. McKitterick, The Library of Sir Thomas Knyvett of Ashwellthorpe c.1539–1618 (Cambridge, 1978), 163, no. 56); John Moore, bishop of Ely (d. 1714); presented to University Library by George I, 1715. BINDING Quarter calf with paper-covered sides (s. xviii ex.–xix in.). NOTES MS Gg.6.3 contains a very large number of mainly short scientific texts in different hands. Many of the texts are unique to this manuscript. They have been identified principally by reference to L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, A Catalogue of Incipits of Mediaeval Scientific Writings in Latin, revised edn (London, 1963), which is cited above under Contents as TK, followed by the column number. The manuscript is in a disordered state: see, for instance, the distribution of the Tractatus de sectore under Contents. Falk, ‘A Merton College Equatorium’, prints and translates the anonymous text that occurs on fols 217v–220v, with incipit ‘Quia nobilissima’, and argues that it describes an instrument which ‘perfectly matches the characteristics of the oldest surviving equatorium, with astrolabe, at Merton College, Oxford (c.1350)’ (121). The two lines of verse at the head of fol. 164v read: ‘Fratres fallaces minores orbi loq(u)en(tes) / accendunt isates simoni magi que coquentes.’ Here the Franciscans are impugned for their use of herbs or woad (‘isates’). The verse may well reflect Easton’s negative view of the friars: sometime between c.1357 and c.1363 he was in Norwich defending the Benedictines against

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their attacks (Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 52–3), and he owned two anti-mendicant works, William of St Amour’s Collectiones and Richard FitzRalph’s De pauperie Salvatoris (above, nos 2–3). Catalogue of Manuscripts, iii, 214–15; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 136; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 264, no. 82; J.D. North, ‘Medieval Star Catalogues and the Movement of the Eighth Sphere’, Archives internationales d’histoire des sciences, 20 (1967), 71–83; J.D. North, ed., Richard of Wallingford: an edition of his writings, 3 vols (Oxford, 1976), i, 3–19, 171–4; ii, 39–41, 129, 381–3, 385; iii, plate II; B.B. Hughes, ‘“De regulis generalibus”: a thirteenth-century tract on problem-solving’, Viator, 11 (1980), 209–224 (printing the text at fols 315v–317v); Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 40, 50, 52, 57.

8. Oxford, Balliol College, MS 300B Iohannes Saresburiensis, Policraticus Italy, s. xiv in. (except quires 10–11, 18–21, see Notes) Parchment, i + 184 folios, 275 x 185 (206 x 133) mm, 2 cols, 41 lines (37–8 lines in quires 10–11, 18–21), ruled in plummet, below top line, catchwords, 2o fo. vivere tutus eius (fol. 3) SCRIPT Gothic bookhand (cursive) DECORATION Red penwork initial flourished in blue (4 lines, fol. 2r); particoloured red and blue penwork initial (9 lines, fol. 5v); red or blue penwork initials (2–5 lines), but from fol. 16v onwards spaces left blank for two-line initials, except in quires 10–11 and 18–21, which display two-line red penwork initials. PROVENANCE Erased inscription, of which only ‘Liber ecclesie Norwicensis’ is legible, with pressmark ‘X.CLXXXXIII’; but already at Balliol College s. xv in., to judge from the inscription ‘Liber domus de Balliolo Oxonie’ (fol. 1v). BINDING Reversed calf with decorated rectangular frame (Ned Doe, 1724–7; see R.B. Mynors, Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Balliol College, Oxford (Oxford, 1963), p. lii).

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NOTES Several marginal notes draw attention to passages concerning the superiority of ecclesiastical to secular power, which was also the subject of the Defensorium ecclesiasticae potestatis by Easton. One or more of these annotations may well be in Easton’s hand. What appears to be the earliest of them (fol. 62v) reads: ‘quod episcopus correxit publice imperatorem et suspendit eum’. Quires 10–11, 18–21 are in a different hand from that of the rest of the manuscript. The hand is almost certainly the same as that of a letter from Easton (Avignon, 18 November [1376]), Westminster Abbey Muniments no. 9229* (see R. Weiss, ‘The Study of Greek in England during the Fourteenth Century’, Rinascimento, 2 (1951), 209–39, at 236 n. 6; Mynors, Catalogue, 320–1; J. Bolton Holloway, Anchoress and Cardinal: Julian of Norwich and Adam Easton, O.S.B., Analecta Cartusiana, 35: 20 (Salzburg, 2008), 175 n. 47, 199) and is therefore likely to belong to Easton’s secretary, who supplied defective portions of the text of Balliol MS 300B. The same hand made corrections and additions to the manuscript. Ker, Medieval Libraries, 139; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 264, no. 83a, 272 (addenda); Harvey, The English in Rome, 223; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist cardinal’, 46, 49–51, 57, illustrations 1–2.

9. Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.3.32 Ps.-Dionysius, Opera England, s. xii med. Parchment, iv + 126 fols, 312 x 230 mm (212–28 x 72–125 mm), 1–2 cols, 29–32 lines, ruled in plummet, above top line, rubrics, distinctiones, glosses keyed to text by letters, numerous marginal notes (s. xiii–xvi), 2o fo. (maxi)mo confessore ac CONTENTS Ps.-Dionysius (translated into Latin by Iohannes Scotus Eriugena), De coelesti hierarchia (fols 1r–28r), De ecclesiastica hierarchia (fols 28r–58r), De divinis nominibus (fols 58r–108r), De mystica theologia (fols 108r–112r), Epistolae (fols 112r–124r); excerpts from Polycrates, Clement of Alexandria, Philo (fols 124r–126r). SCRIPT Caroline minuscule

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DECORATION Ornamental and minor initials: three bold initials (18–26 lines) in gold, blue, red, green and orange, with blossom foliage and angular knotwork on burnished gold or blue/ochre ground diapered with white dots (fols 1r, 58v, 108v; two more initials cut out, fols 6r, 28r); two burnished gold initials (3–7 lines) outlined in red and decorated with red, green, blue and ochre arabesque foliage (fols 112r, 124r); red, blue or green initials (2–6 lines), filled with arabesque or linear patterns. PROVENANCE Inscription ‘Iherarchia dyonisii quam emit dominus Andruynus antequam esset Parisius ante [Parisius seems to have been crossed out in error]’ (s. xiv, fol. 126v); record of deposit in the Exeter chest, Oxford or Cambridge University (s. xv 1/2, fol. 125v); Norwich Cathedral Priory, with pressmark ‘X.ccxxviii’, over an erased number (fol. 1r); annotated by Robert Talbot, canon of Norwich Cathedral, s. xvi med.; apparently entered University Library between 1583 and 1600 (see Ker, ‘Norwich Cathedral Priory’, 3; James, Ecloga, 59, no. 111 (which number occurs inside front cover, on fol. iir and on fore-edge)). For further discussion of the manuscript’s history, see Notes. BINDING Full calf with rectangular and diamond-shaped frames (s. xvii in.; rebacked, Stoakley and Sons, Cambridge, 1918). NOTES M. Harvey, ‘Adam Easton and Pseudo-Dionysius’, Journal of Theological Studies, 48 (1997), 77–89, at 79, following a suggestion by L.J. Macfarlane (‘The Life and Writings of Adam Easton O.S.B.’, 2 vols, PhD dissertation, University of London, 1955, i, 51 and n. 1) maintains that the inscription refers to the purchase of the manuscript by Cardinal Androin de la Roche, from whom Easton acquired it, but Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 46–7, questions this interpretation, arguing that the manuscript was not Easton’s and that it came to Norwich in the second half of the fifteenth century. Harvey, ‘Adam Easton and Pseudo-Dionysius’, 79–80, shows that Easton’s Defensorium ecclesiasticae potestatis made use of Ps.-Dionysius but a different version of the text from that in Ii.3.32. On the text of the latter, see D. Luscombe, ‘The Reception of the Writings of Denis the Pseudo-Areopagite into England’, in Tradition and Change: essays in honour of Marjorie Chibnall, ed. D. Greenway, C. Holdsworth and J. Sayers (Cambridge, 1985), 115–43, at 131–2.

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Catalogue of Manuscripts, iii, 434–5; Ker, Medieval Libraries, 136; Ker, ‘Medieval Manuscripts’, 264, no. 84; R.H. and M.A. Rouse, eds, Registrum Anglie de libris doctorum et auctorum veterum, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 4 (London, 1991), 76; Harvey, The English in Rome, 223–4; R.M. Thomson and M. Gullick, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Medieval Manuscripts in Worcester Cathedral Library (Woodbridge, 2001), 21; Binski, Zutshi and Panayotova, Western Illuminated Manuscripts, 40–1, no. 40; Zutshi, ‘An Urbanist Cardinal’, 50, 57.

About the author Patrick Zutshi is former Keeper of Manuscripts and University Archives at Cambridge University Library and a Fellow of Corpus Christi College. He is currently working on sources concerning the outbreak of the Great Schism of 1378.

Index Ab origine mundi 144 Accedunt laudes virginis 163, 178 Accendit ardor spiritus 165 Adalbert Rankonis de Ericinio 156 Adam Easton early life 17; Avignon, 23, 30, 90–92; Norwich 17-18, 25–26, 65, 90–91; Oxford 18–21, 26–27, 90–91; Rome, 17, 40; Defensorium ecclesiastice potestatis, 16, 22–25, 30, 103, 119–123, 125–126, 131–132, 135–137, 141, 144, 222; Defensorium Sancte Birgitte, 55, 139, 143–144, 146–147, 151–153; Officium Beate Marie Virginis 58, 155–174 177; Deposition, 35–41; and St. Birgitta of Sweden, 42, 55, 140; elevation to cardinalate, 46, 141, 176; books 58, 65–66; deprivation of cardinalate and captivity, 55, 142, 176; likeness, 116, 177, 182 (fig. 7.9) 183; restoration to cardinalate 58; refutation of Wyclif 103; tomb 178–183, 188–191 Agapito Colonna 191 Alfonso Pecha 33–34, 42; Informaciones, 34; Conscripcio […] Urbani, 34, 38 All Saints, North Street (York) 114 Angelo Acciaiuoli 197, 205 Anonymous (Perugia) 139, 143–149 Aristotle 18, 66, 89, 93, 146–147, 149, 152 Avignon 16, 20, 22–25, 29–31, 33, 39, 42, 65, 90–92, 98, 119–120, 126–132, 140, 178, 210, 213, 216–217, 221

Charles of Durazzo 47, 49–50, 52 Cherubina Cardelli 190 Chronicon Siculum 49–52, 58 Clement V Pastoralis cura, 37 Clement VII 29, 31, 36, 39, 44–45, 47, 49, 51, Cola di Rienzo 128–129; Commentarium in Monarchiam Dantis, 129–120 Conrad of Megenberg 173 Cor verbis novae 172

Baldus 44, 46 Bartolomeo Mezzavacca 47–48, 50–52, 54, 59 Bartolomeo Prignano see Urban VI Bartholomeus de Placencia 50 Bartholomeus de Zabriciis de Bononia 33, 38 Beauchamp Chapel (Warwick) 112 Beauchamp Hours 114 Bernabò Visconti 132 Betrand de Veyraco 40 Bertrand du Poujet 127, 129, 131 Betrand Lagier 38–39 Birger of Uppsala, 160–161, 163 Birgitta of Sweden, Saint 42, 139–153; Canonisation, 42, 55, 142; Office, 163, 165, 169–170; Quattuor oraciones, 144–145, 152; Regula sancti salvatoris, 144–145, 152; Revelaciones, 41–42, 139–140, 150; Sermo angelicus, 144–145, 152. Boccaccio 126, 129; Trattatello in laude di Dante, 127–128 Boniface IX, pope 42, 55, 57–59, 139 142–143, 146, 152, 157, 160, 176, 184–185 (fig.), 186; Ab origine mundi, 152; Superni benignitas conditoris, 155, 158

Galeotto de Petramala 48–49, 52, 54 Gian Galeazzo Visconti 49, 54 Giovanni da Legnano 132 Geoffrey Chaucer 119–120, 126, 131–133; House of Fame, 132; Second Nun’s Tale, 133 Giovanni Bertoldi da Serravalle 134–136 Giovanni d’Ambrogio 193, 197 Gloucester College, Oxford 15, 18–19, 21–22, 90, 97–98, 140 Gobelinus Person Cosmidromius, 49–50, 53–55 Gregory XI 24, 39–41, 47, 103, 142 Guillaume d’Aigrefeuille 39–41, 59 Guterius Gometii 47 Guy Malesset 39

Cennino Cennini 200 Charles IV, emperor 41

Jacobo Orsini 39, 43, 50 Jean de Cros 32, 38–39, 41

Dante Alighieri 119; Monarchia, 120–127, 130, 135–137; Commedia, 129, 134, 136; Inferno, 131 Dietrich of Niem De Schismate, 49–56 Dixit verba 165 Doom 105, 107, 112–113 Eckhard von Dersch 41 Edmund Stafford 57–58 Edward II 108 Edward III 108 Enecus de Vallterra 36 Fitzwarin Psalter Artist 73–74, 89, 94–95, 99 Francesco Felici 183–183, 191 Francesco Gualdi 176, 188, 190 Francesco Tebaldeschi 37, 46 Francesco Uguccione 45 Franciscus de Siclenis de Papia 45 Franciscus vir catholicus 163

Hell mouth 107 Holkham Psalter Artist 67, 69–73, 89–90, 94–95, 98–99 Horsham St Faith Priory (Norfolk) 111 Hugh of St Victor 25, 123–124 Hunc sanctus 165 Inter turmas 172 Israhel van Meckenem the Younger 114

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Joan, Queen of Naples 49 John I, King of Castile 31, 61 John XXII, Pope 127–128 John Bale 17, 136–137 John Foxe 137 John Hawkwood, Sir 132 John of Gaunt 108–109, 111 John of Jenstein 156–158 John Lutton 95, 99 John Welles 56 John Wyclif 23–24, 47, 98, 102–103, 105, 115, 121, 125; De civili dominia, 121; De ecclesia, 103; De eucharistica, 115; in Lutterworth, 104, 116–117; disinterment, 112 Julian of Speyer 160–163, 165, 167, 169–174

Pierre de Vergne 39 Piero di Giovanni Tedesco 197, 199 Pietro Corsini 39, 50, 59 Pietro Stefaneschi, Cardinal 182 Pietro Tartari 51 Pileo de Prata 47–48, 52, 54, 59 Peter IV, King of Aragon 31–32, 34

Katherine of Sweden 42

Simon Langham 22–23, 29, 40–43, 46, 59, 121, 141, 176, 181, 191, 214 Simone Brossano 39, 50 Sine nomine letters 128–129 St Cecilia in Trastevere 133, 175, 178–183, 190, 194–196, 198–199, 201–204 St Maria in Trastevere 181–182, 186–187, 198–199, 201, 204 St Elizabeth of Hungary Office for, 173 St Gregory 115 St Jerome 24, 113, 141, 159 St Maria in Trastevere 175, 182, 186–187, 199, 201, 204 Surgens Maria 170

Laetare Germania 173 Last Judgment 107, 112 Leonardus a Griffonio, OFM 47 Libri de Schismate 31–32, 35–36 Linianus 132 Liturgical dress 110, 180, 182, 198, 201 Lorenzo di Giovanni 193, 197, 199 Lutterworth (Leicestershire) 102–109, 111–117 Margaret, Queen of Naples 47, 49, 51 Marino Vulcani 182 Martín de Zalva 31, 40, 61 Marsilius of Padua 120, 130, 134–136 Mass of St Gregory 113–116 Mattheus Clementis 32–33, 35, 42 Matteo Porta 131 Niccolò Forteguerri 179 Nicholas de Hoo 19–20 Nicholas de Lyra 72, 146 Nicholas Eymerich 45, 53 Nicholas Frattion 41 Nicholas Misquinus, OP 37–38, 53 Nicholas Rakovnik 156–158 Nicholas Radcliffe 21 Non fuit christus 169, 172 Norwich Cathedral Priory 15–21, 25–27, 29, 58, 65, 68, 70, 72–73, 89, 98, 133, 140, 207–209, 212, 215–216, 219, 222 Pauperie Artist 65–68, 70, 74, 89, 94–95, 98–99 Perino Tomacelli see Boniface IX Peter of Aragon, OFM 34 Peter de Luna 31, 33–34, 39, 44 Pertractum domi verberat 170, 172 Petrarch 126–130, 132 Petrus de Yspania/de Guadalfajara 38 Petrus Raymondi de Barreria 44–45, 47,51 Philippe d’Alençon 181, 186–187, 197–200, 203–204 Pierre de Monteruc 39–40

Ramsey Psalter 67, 69, 73, 98 Ranulph Higden, Polychronicon 67–68 Richard II, King 46–47, 55–58, 108 Richard FitzRalph 20, 90–92; De pauperie Salvatoris 24, 65–66, 90, 212–214, 220 Robert of Geneva see Clement VII Roger Foucault 41–42

Thomas Aquinas 25, 146, 149 Thomas Brinton 18–19, 26–27, 98, 102–103, 117 Thomas Chaundler 92–93 Thomas de Acerno 53 Thomas Gascoigne 116 Thomas Petra 53 Thomas Southam 40 Thomas of Walsingham Historia Anglicana, 49, 55 Three Living and Three Dead 104, 106, 108–112 Urban VI 30, 38–39, 51–52, 56, 132, 140–143, 146, 156–157, 176; creation of cardinals by, 46–48 Visceribus mater digne 169 Walter Burley 93; Commentary on Aristotle’s Ethics and Politics, art historical assessment of 66–67 William Abell 112 William Andrew, OP 41 William Bateman 18–19, 26–27 William Courtenay 46-47 Whethamstede, John 119, 134–137; Manipularium doctorum, 134–135 Wyverstone Parish Church 114–115



Index of Manuscripts

Avignon, Bibliothèque municipale (Bibliothèque Ceccano) MS 996 216–217 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 9523 145 Cambridge, Christ’s College, MS 2 70, 94, 98 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 74 210–211 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 180 24, 89, 65–67, 72, 77–79, 81, 86–87, 89–90, 92–93, 98, 209, 212–213 Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 358 57 Cambridge, St. John’s College, MS A 12 82–84, 95, 99 Cambridge, University Library, MS E.2.22 99 Cambridge, University Library, MS Gg.6.3 217–220 Cambridge, University Library, MS Kk.2.8 214–215 Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.1.21 215–216 Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.2.24 69, 98 Cambridge, University Library, MS. Ii.3.32 221–222 Copenhagen, Royal Library, MS 3449 8º, vol. 9 160 Durham Cathedral Library, MS A. 1. 3 72, 99 Frankfurt a.M., Universty Library, MS Barth. 94 159, 165, 167, 170 Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, MS 6 160 Fribourg, Couvent des Cordeliers, MS 2 160 Holkham Hall, MS 26 67, 69, 74, 94, 98 Lincoln, Cathedral Chapter Library, MS 114 144–145 Ljubljana, Archiepiscopal archives, 19, vol. 2 159 London, British Library, MS Arundel 86 95, 99 London, BL, Cotton MS Titus D XX 134 London, BL, Harley MS 612 144 London, BL, Royal MS 4 C. VI 69, 99 London, BL, Royal MS 14 C. IX 69, 98 London, BL, Add MS 26764 134 London, BL, Add MS 29433 114 London, BL, Add MS 62523 115

Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm 9508 159 Munich, Bavarian State Library, Clm 18392 159 New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acession nr. 90.61.3 159, 177 Oxford, All Souls College, MS 86 93, 99 Oxford, Balliol College, MS 95 68, 93, 99 Oxford, Balliol College, MS 225 160 Oxford, Balliol College, MS 300B 220–221 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 151 211–212 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Bodley 316 67–70, 82–83, 88, 94, 98 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Don b. 5 81, 88, 93, 98 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Hamilton 7 144 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Liturg. 198 73, 79, 94, 99 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson B. 191 70, 99 Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Rawlinson G. 185 94 Oxford, Corpus Christi College, MS 89 70, 99 Oxford, Merton College, MS 310 74, 76, 80, 82–83, 89, 90, 93, 95, 98 Oxford, New College, MS 242 66–67, 70–74, 77–78, 80, 82–84, 89, 92, 93, 95, 98 Oxford, Pembroke College, MS 2 70–71, 85, 89, 99 Paris, Bibliotheque National de France, MS Lat.  765 73, 99 Paris, Bibliothèque National de France, MS Lat. 3222 92 Paris, Bibliothèque National de France, MS. Lat. 4992 68 Paris, Bibliothèque National de France, MS. Lat. 11745: Prague, National Library, MS III.D.10 159, 169, 172 Prague, National Library, MS XIII.A.5b 159, 172 Rajhrad, Benedictine Monastery, MS 626 158–159 Rome, Archivio di Stato, CFBC, Monasterio di S. Cecilia in Trastevere, b. 4224 200 Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense, MS 1327 190 Uppsala University Library, MS C 193 145 Uppsala University Library, MS C 518 145

228  Utrecht, University Library, MS 406 160, 167 Utrecht, University Library, MS 408 160 Vatican, Vatican Archives, Arm. LIV, vol. 14–48 17, 31–32, 45, 60, 62–63 Vatican, BAV, MS Barb. lat. 3084 189 Vatican, BAV, MS Ottobono lat. 676 160

Cardinal Adam Easton (c.1330–1397)

Vatican, BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 3199 129 Vatican, BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 3934 35, 59–63 Vatican, BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 4116 120 Vatican, BAV, MS Vat. Lat. 6891 131 Worchester, Worchester Cathedral MS. F. 65 21