The monks of Westminster : being a register of the brethren of the convent from the time of the Confessor to the dissolution with lists of the obedientiaries and an introduction / by E.H. Pearce.
- Ernest Pearce
- Date:
- 1916
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The monks of Westminster : being a register of the brethren of the convent from the time of the Confessor to the dissolution with lists of the obedientiaries and an introduction / by E.H. Pearce. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![John de Redyng names, of whom only one, John de Wratting, is on the list of Priors. In the rest of Flete’s story, without reckoning the Abbots, about whom he is frequently our only source of chronological information, we find that in all he alludes to twenty brethren, of whom six were Priors, and that Dean Robinson’s introduction makes us acquainted quite incidentally with six more. A Westminster historian, who might have been expected to introduce us to some of his companions in the Refectory, is the author of the Chronicle of the years 1346-67, who calls himself “ quidam frater Johannes de R. monachus Westmonasteriensis,” and whom Dr Robinson1 has finally identified with John de Redyng [q.v.]. The full text of this interesting document has recently been edited with introduction and notes by Professor James Tait2, and it turns out to be entirely dis¬ appointing to any one who approaches it with our present needs in view. There is mention of four Abbots—Simon Bircheston, Henle, Langham, and Litlington,—and of one Prior, the unfortunate Benedict de Cherteseye, but no monk below that rank is allowed to intrude his name or concerns into Redyng’s pages. One other chronicler raises the same expectations, even though his own name can only be conjectured. In a communication to the British Academy (Proceedings, Yol. in; issued separately and entitled An Unrecognised West¬ minster Chronicler, 1381-1394), Dr Robinson has given reasons for supposing that the continuator of the Polychronicon for those years3 was a Westminster monk. This document ,(op. cit. pp. 9, 22) introduces us to John Lakyngheth [q.v.] as the king’s candidate for the Abbacy when Colchester was elected, but it does no more to add to our knowledge of individuals. In the mere number of monastic names we make a large advance when we open the pages of Richard Widmore, whose thorough examination of the Muniments has already been referred to4. Now, Widmore’s index, if it were complete, would mean that we must prepare for disappointment. Apart from Abbots and Priors it includes only eight monks, of whom five are otherwise known as chroniclers or men of letters,—John de London, Richard Circestr’, John de Redyng, Sulcard, Warner; the legend of John Canterbery’s. [q.v.] great stature and of his warlike exertions is recorded, and a notice of Ralph Selby’s interment is repeated from Camden. But Widmore’s contribution to our investigation is much greater than is implied by his index; for he has copied from the Widmore. held in the light of the facts given about them in the present volume leads to the conclusion that the date of this investigation is c. 1393. 1 Article Simon Langham, Church Quart. Rev., July 1908, p. 346. 2 Manchester University Press, 1914. 3 MSS. of Corpus Cliristi Coll., Camb., no. 197. 4 For similar acknowledgments cf. J. A. Robinson, Flete, p. vii; R. B. Rackham, Nave of Westminster, p. 4.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b31347162_0020.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
