Western Medieval Manuscripts : Sermons

Western Medieval Manuscripts

The sermons of Jacobus de Voragine (d. 1298) form the principal contents of this manuscript. The Sermones de tempore per annum siue sermones dominicales (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(33);return false;'>15r-127r</a>) were, as their name suggests, for preaching on Sundays; the Sermones de sanctis (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(277);return false;'>137r-256v</a>) for preaching on saints' feast days. This practical arrangement complemented the Church's liturgical calendar, and is reflected in other books used or read as part of this: for instance, the differentiation in the biblical readings provided in <a target='_blank' class='externalLink' href='https://cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/MS-DD-00005-00005/1'>breviaries</a> between the 'Temporale' and the 'Sanctorale'. Except for the first and sixth quires of the Sermones de tempore (Quires 2 and 7 - see Collation), these sermon compilations were copied by a single scribe: a William of 'Eglisfehan' - presumably Ecclefechan - who recorded his name and motto on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(257);return false;'>127r</a>, and repeated the latter on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(468);return false;'>256v</a>. This William, or more likely another contemporary scribe, supplemented these with a collection of twenty-six anonymous 'Sermones de mortuis' - for preaching at funerals - which he copied onto a separate quire bound in between these two (ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(261);return false;'>129r-136r</a>).Four whole quires and parts of three others were lost from the manuscript that William had copied; two quires in the Sermones de tempore were replaced by a hand of the 15th century. Another hand of the same period added an alphabetical index of themes and exempla in the Sermones de tempore, from 'Abstinence: there are six types' to 'Zoroaster: he was murdered by Nino'. Each entry is keyed to the text by sermon number and a letter that points more specifically to a passage within. Sermon numbers were added against the text by a later hand (i.e. not William's), the letters only rarely; the former replace an earlier sequence, part of which is found on ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(61);return false;'>29r-34r</a>, and many are clearly written over erasures. The likelihood is that this index was a generic production, made for any copy of Voragine's sermons rather than this one specifically, and efforts were then made to make it fit by altering the numbering in the manuscript. Gaps in the numbering (as at ff. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(182);return false;'>89×90</a>, for example) indicate that further losses occurred after this point.A variety of other, miscellanous texts have been copied by other 15th-century hands, including into spaces that were originally left blank. These include passages about King Robert of France, excerpted from the Chronica pontificum et imperatorum of Martin of Troppau, and about St Etheldreda from the Historia ecclesiastica of Bede, accounts of a couple of miracles, and passages on the life of Moses - all of which may have furnished the owner of the book with some further inspiring or cautionary material for the composition of his own sermons. An untitled, anonymous sermon that begins with a quotation from Isaiah 24:16 - 'A finibus terrae laudes audiuimus gloriam iusti' - was written into the space after the 'Sermones de mortuis', and may have been one such sermon (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(275);return false;'>136r</a>). For a little over forty years, this manuscript was in the possession of Richard Gosmer (d. 1547), vicar of Basingstoke from 1499 until his retirement c. 1541. Gosmer wrote his name and the volume's dicta probatoria on the pastedown (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>1v</a>; cf. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(35);return false;'>16r</a>). The utility of such a volume for a parish priest is obvious: Voragine's writings would have furnished Gosmer with the raw material for sermons that he was expected to preach to his parishioners (in the vernacular, though, rather than Latin). However, we have little sense of the use Gosmer may have made of these sermon compilations; there are scattered annotations throughout, but none of the longer and potentially more informative of these is by Gosmer's hand. Evidently, though, the manuscript lay close at hand, for the pastedowns (now lifted) and endleaves are crammed with notes that Gosmer made over the course of approximately a decade in the early 16th century.It is these notes rather than the sermons that have attracted most scholarly attention (see, for example, Swanson (2006) and Cavill (2021)). They shed light on the practicalities of day-to-day life in a late medieval English parish, and in particular on tithes and mortuaries: the dues owed by parishioners to their priest for his support. Gosmer recorded numerous payments made or owed to him by his parishioners, some of which obligations he balanced against his debts to them for various goods or services. For instance, Gosmer noted that 'Alicia Cowdre owes to me 26s. 8d. etc; I owe to her for 5 virgates of cloth 26s. 8d. etc - equal' (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>1v</a>, l. 24), but also recorded further transactions, which accounts he made on St Linus's Day (23 September) 1504. This concluded with them jointly settling their accounts with one another on the Feast of the Nativity following (25 December): that he owed her 20s., and she owed him 21s 8d., and that the 20s. was paid on 2nd April. Several further reckonings with Alicia Cowdre occur over the course of Gosmer's notes, and it is common for names to recur in multiple places, evincing ongoing economic relationships between the townsfolk and their priest. Among these notes are medical recipes that hint at Gosmer provision of bodily as well as spiritual ministrations, though whether these were for his own use or for the benefit of his parishioners is not clear. These include cures for cough and colic (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>1v</a>, ll. 32-33); an eye-wash made of powder of zinc sulphate (white coperose) (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(8);return false;'>2v</a>, ll. 21-22); a plaster made of scrambled egg tempered with honey and wheat-flour and mixed with the juice of rue and march (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>3r</a>, l. 60); a remedy for itching that involves rubbing the affected area with black soap (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, l. 7); a cure for swelling using warmed sweet wine and white alum (but how it is administered is left unexplained) (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, l. 8); a treatment for a sore that requires the sufferer to lay a sponge on the affected area overnight (and during the day if he wishes), placing a linen cloth between the sponge and the sore if it is too painful (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, l. 9); and three short recipes for a plaster to heal a cut, a fumigation to remedy frenzy and 'a good medicine to dry a sore' (for full transcriptions, see Contents). In an extended entry, Gosmer also recorded the stages in the treatment of a horse, 'when he was wrounge a pon the shulder' (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(8);return false;'>2v</a>, ll. 11-19) - the phrase suggesting that Gosmer witnessed the cure being administered, presumably on one of his own horses. First, the dead flesh was cut away, then layers of raw flax, lime and then fresh horse dung were applied to the wound and left for three days. On each of those days, the horse was washed with hot brine, avoiding the sore, and then anointed with 'roders seyme', a kind of melted grease (perhaps a type used by horse-riders). On the fourth day, a salve was made of black soap, oil and honey boiled together, to which was added rosin before it was boiled again, allowed to cool, and then applied with a stick to a linen cloth that had been primed with raw flax. This made a plaster that was then laid on the sore. Linen cloth was to be used, Gosmer noted, and never woollen, and the plaster must be made fresh each day and the horse washed beforehand with hot urine or warm water. The date of this treatment is not given, but the entry preceding it is dated the Saturday before Advent (l. 20) and a noted dated 10 January 1506 (l. 23), suggesting it was undertaken in late 1505. Gosmer also paid for various accoutrements in 1509: three new collars (2s.), a horse rope for tying the horse (3d.), a whipcord (2½d.), two harnesses (11d.). He noted that on St James's Day (25 July) he bought horse-shoes and nails at Reading, for 10½d, and on Assumption Day (15 August) paid John Smith 1d. 'pro ferruris equorum', i.e. to shoe horses, which Smith did again shortly afterwards, for 2d.). A further 6d. was spent 'for horsshoys the wensday bifor seynt georges day' the following year (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(10);return false;'>3v</a>, ll. 30, 33 and 38). Of particular note are transactions relating to books and Gosmer's clerical activities. Gosmer paid for the rebinding of an antiphoner described as 'dimidis' (perhaps one of two volumes, or an incomplete volume), either on or after 2nd July 1505 (the date of the preceding item), and itemised the cost: 13d. for a white calfskin, 7d. for two red skins, 2½d. for a white sheep's skin, and 5d. for a pair of boards (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>1v</a>, ll. 37-38). This was presumably one of the books of Basingstoke church. A Master Walter Towker owed Gosmer for various expenses, the first of which was 2s. for part of a portiphorium, another liturgical manuscript (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(7);return false;'>2r</a>, l. 10). On the eve of St Lucy's Day (12 December ?1509/?1510), Gosmer recorded that he and Robert Stocker had reckoned their accounts with one another, concluding that 'I owe him clearly 22d.'; part of the calculation included Stocker owing Gosmer for writing on parchment the testament of Gilbert Lowker, at a cost of 12d (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, ll. 43-44). Further evidence of Gosmer's fulfilment of such services is found on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(471);return false;'>258r</a>, where he copied two further wills, presumably drafts to be recopied later: the first dated the Vigil of the Assumption of Mary (i.e. 14 August) 1505 for Agnes Lytyllwerkede (ll. 42-45), the second dated 12 December 1505 for William Mershe (ll. 46-49). In two places on f. 2r, Gosmer wrote reminders to himself to pray for the soul of John Hosy, 'who died in the service of the king after he [i.e. Henry VII] came to England'. There was a John Husee/Hosey who was a near-contemporary of Gosmer when he was a fellow at Magdalen College, Oxford, but who had died several years earlier, certainly by September 1499. However, Gosmer's entry suggests this may instead be the John Hosy who was one of Henry VII's fiscal agents and is recorded as Keeper of the King's Wards in the privy purse expenses of Queen Elizabeth of York. What connected him and Gosmer is unknown, however. Perhaps the most striking expenses Gosmer records - and those that have elicited little comment from researchers so far - are those for building materials. Gosmer notes payments he made for repairs to his home and other buildings in his care: to Thomas Cox, carpenter, for two and a half days' work on the gate/door and stables at the rectory, 15d. (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(8);return false;'>2v</a>, l. 65); to John Colyns, thatcher, for three and a half days' work mending the vetch house and stable, plus another day threshing oats, 13d. (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(10);return false;'>3v</a>, l. 25); and to Thomas Tyler's man for 'mending the floor in the chancell where we syng', 2d. (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a>, l. 41). However, the quantity of raw and manufactured materials and their cost suggest that Gosmer was involved in a project of an altogether greater scale. For example, the money owed for six cartloads of tiles, three thousand bricks, three cartloads of lime, fifty 'hepyers' (?hoppers / ?shovels) and 17 'crastis' (?ridge-tiles) was part of the reckoning Gosmer made with Thomas Newman on 13 July 1506, the total amounting to 80s. (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(6);return false;'>1v</a>, ll. 44-45). Thomas Afforest of Dudley was paid 3s. for a thousand five-penny nails and 2s. 2d. for a thousand three-penny nails, and he promised to deliver within fifteen days after the feast of St Gregory a further thousand six-penny nails and two gross of 'lathnaylis' (f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(9);return false;'>3r</a>, l. 52). The last are apparently for roofing work: laths are narrow wooden battens onto which roof-tiles are nailed. Indeed, Gosmer paid Robert Box on account 3s 4d., on the eve of the Annunciation, for making 2000 roof-tiles. There follows on f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(11);return false;'>4r</a> a succession of payments to several labourers - all named - for various building works they undertook: to John Irysh, mason, and his servant Thomas Absolon, for ground-pinning and other ground-work; to Humfrey Laborell for digging a trench 'and other things'; to Richard Umfrey for taking down the old rafters and removing the ground-pinning; to Thomas Cholde for laying the first foundations with raw mortar; to Thomas Gamon, servant of Thomas Absolon; and to William Hayn, mason. Gosmer also bought a further six thousand lath-nails in Reading, paid Thomas Newman on account for lime and tiles, and paid for the fitting of tiles with iron in the eaves. On f. <a href='' onclick='store.loadPage(12);return false;'>4v</a> is a sequence of accounts largely concerned with the felling of trees and the cutting and carriage of timber: some for sale, but the rest for other purposes. A clue as to their destination is afforded by one item of income: 13½d. from Gilbert Hoskyn towards buying new bells ('pro noua campana tintinabula emenda') (f. 3r, l. 10). During Gosmer's incumbency, Basingstoke church underwent a major expansion. According to Nikolaus Pevsner, the chancel had been remodelled in 1464-65, but it was only c. 1510-25 that the nave, aisles and west tower were built. Gosmer was the perfect man for the job. Prior to coming to Basingstoke, he had served at Magdalen College as Third then Second Bursar for periods between 1490 and 1494 - evidently where he had picked up his habit of detailed accounting. From 1495-97, he also supervised the building of the College's tower. It is perhaps no coincidence that, as Pevsner noted, 'the composition [of the tower at Basingstoke] is similar to that of the lower stages of the chapel tower at Magdalen College, Oxford'. Though their work remains in cities, towns and villages across the country, we often know little about the craftsmen who built parish churches. Thanks to Gosmer's punctilious if ad hoc record-keeping on the endleaves of this manuscript, we know the names of some of the labourers who manufactured and supplied the raw materials, who laid the foundations and who built the church that still stands in Basingstoke city centre. It would be interesting to find out if any of them had been contracted to work in Oxford a decade or so earlier and had followed their client southwards. Dr James Freeman Medieval Manuscripts Specialist Cambridge University LibraryReferences<div style='list-style-type: disc;'><div style='display: list-item; margin-left: 20px;'>A.B. Emden, A biographical register of the University of Oxford, to A.D. 1500 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957-59), p. 794</div><div style='display: list-item; margin-left: 20px;'>Michael Bullen, John Crook, Rodney Hubbock and Nikolaus Pevsner, Hampshire: Winchester and the North, The Buildings of England (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2010), p. 156</div></div>