Monday, March 30, 2015

Palm Sunday 1461: the bloodiest battle of the Middle Ages in England


For the people of Towton, the bloody red cope of the Palm Sunday procession has another significance; for on that day, in 1461, the armies of York and Lancaster met on the battlefield amidst a snowstorm in a contest for the English crown. By its end, an estimated 28,000 men altogether were dead. Both sides announced no quarter was to be given. The fleeing Lancastrians filled the rivers with their dead, both from drowning and from being cut down. Only when they were filled to the brim could the retreating soldiers cross, stepping over the corpses of their fallen comrades. The waters flowed red with blood for days afterward.

Before the battle, the Yorkist commander Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick, called the Kingmaker, is said by legend to have killed his horse, saying "Let him fly that will, for surely I will tarry with him that will tarry with me". This told his men that he was going to fight on foot beside them, and that by killing his horse, he'd have no chance to flee the field if the battle went sour. According to local tradition, this was the reason that, for several centuries afterward, a large patch of ground in south Warwickshire was cut in the shape of a horse every Palm Sunday. Since the soil underneath was of red clay, this was called the Vale of the Red Horse.





All articles in my Holy Week 2015 series, short and long




The kiss of peace (for Spy Wednesday)





Terra tremuit! (the Offertory antiphon of Easter Sunday)

Palm Sunday in Sarum

From the Benedictional of Saint Aethelwold.
Yesterday was Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week. For most people, the most memorable aspect is the blessing and distribution of palms. It commemorates Christ's entry into Jerusalem a week prior to the Resurrection, with the faithful laying palm branches; a symbol of victory (and of sacrifice); at His feet. It's a powerful message that even many mainstream Protestant churches have either maintained or, perhaps, revived after several centuries of suppression on the basis of it being seen as idolatrous pomp. When the English Reformation began under Henry VIII, even though pilgrimages were suppressed and saints' shrines destroyed, the lusty king did not feel he could go so far as to take the palms away from the people: 
"On Palme Sunday it shall be declared that bearing of palmes renueth the memorie of the receivinge of Christe in lyke manner into Jerusalem before his deathe"
So widespread and cherished was the custom of bearing palms that it was said in England, "he who hath not a palm in his hand on Palm Sunday must have his hand cut off".

For me, though, the first thing that always comes to mind first on Palm Sunday is not the vegetation, but the reading of the Passion. You're always going to be in for a long day at church because, even if the procession is omitted, the entire account of the Passion will be read (traditionally, that of Saint Matthew). The custom of reading the Passion on Palm Sunday goes back at least as far as Saint Augustine, so we're talking about a tradition that precedes even the fall of the western Roman Empire!

The first Palm Sunday Mass I ever attended was at my neighborhood Catholic parish church, shortly after my conversion to Catholicism. One of my very best friends was considering converting, too, but I felt that I had to be honest with him and take him to church at an "average" suburban parish where Mass is offered as it is in about 99% of Catholic churches in this country today, rather than one of the few preserves of liturgical sanity that I had hitherto showed him exclusively. The reading was divided between the celebrating priest, a couple of laypeople, and the congregation reciting the parts of the crowd. This arrangement was pretty tame compared to some other wacky configurations I've heard, though since the Passion at this church was recited and not sung, the entire thing felt like it just went on and on unto the ages of ages, amen. (It was also a little unnerving for the entire congregation to say "crucify Him! Crucify Him!" But that's another story.)

Later, I found out that the Passion is traditionally sung in three voices: the Chronista (narrator) in a middle voice, the Christus (all the words of Christ) in a bass, and the Synagoga (the "synagogue", but truly, all the dialogue lines other than Christ's) in a tenor. Hearing them together, at once we see a glimpse of the medieval Church's flair for the dramatic, for it was around the 12th century that the Passion began to be divided among several voices, in the same period that mystery plays and other religious dramas were coming to the fore. The deep voice of the Christus shows forth the sheer masculinity of a God-man ready to sacrifice Himself without complaint, like all dutiful fathers who go endure the travails of daily life to provide for their loved ones without once complaining of their lot or seeking thanks. It contrasts with the whiny trill of the Synagoga: the cowardly shrieks of Peter denying any association with his master, the fickleness of the crowd, a governor's meek surrender to injustice. Not to mention, the variety of voices also makes a very long text go by faster in an already-prolonged Mass.

The Palm Sunday Passion with three deacons at Saint Peter's Square, in the Benedict XVI era.

The Roman Missal supposes that three deacons are present to sing the Passion (and sometimes, the schola cantorum would sing the parts of the turba, the crowd). Even at the height of clerical vocations in medieval Europe, it's hard to imagine that this arrangement was ever possible save for the great basilicas of the eternal city. The Sarum Missal, as in Rome, held the three-deacon arrangement. The rubric goes:
"Then followeth the Passion. And it is to be noticed that it is to be sung or recited in three tones—high, low, and middle. Because all the contents of the Passion are either the words of the Jews, or the disciples, or the words of Christ ; or the words of the Evangelist who tells the story. Therefore know that where you find the letter (a) prefixed, the words following are the words either of the Jews or the disciples which are to be recited in a high [alto] tone. Where you find the letter (b) prefixed, the words following are the words of Christ, which are to be recited in a low [bass] tone. Where you find the letter (m) prefixed, the words following are the words of the evangelist, which are to be read or sung by a middle [tenor] voice. This rule is to be observed in all the recitations of the Passion."

The Sarum tradition adds another dramatic touch. At the words "yielded up the ghost", the Roman Rite only has everyone kneel for a moment. In Sarum, the chronista prostrated before the altar at that point and was directed to pray the Pasternoster, Ave Maria, and the words, "Into Thy hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ; Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, Thou God of truth".

What other peculiarities can we see in the Sarum observance of Palm Sunday? First of all, there were no palms as far north as England. This isn't to say that the English didn't know what palms were; for, especially in pre-Reformation times, they were a well-travelled people and made pilgrimages to Rome, Spain, or Jerusalem, where the traditional leaf abounded. Still, back home, provisions for alternate flora had to be made, so the Sarum Missal instructs the priest to bless "flowers and leaves". (The Roman Missal liberally phrased the blessings as palmarum [seu olivarum aut aliarum arborum] ("palms [or olives or other trees]".) So for the English, the day was also sometimes called Willow, Yew, or Blossom Sunday.

Many folks in the traditional Catholic community lament Pope Pius XII's revisions of the Holy Week services in 1955, which cut out a tremendous number of prayers, antiphons, readings, and other ceremonies. With the exception of the revised times (like having the Mass of the Last Supper and the Easter Vigil at night), I too share their laments. I can't imagine, for instance, why anyone would think it was a good idea to strike out the rite whereby the procession would end upon arriving at the door of the church by knocking upon it with the foot of the processional cross. But the Sarum order of Palm Sunday was even richer than its Roman counterpart. The blessing of palms began with an exorcism:
"I exorcise thee, O creature of flowers and leaves, in the name of God the Father almighty, and in the name of Jesus Christ His Son our Lord, and in the power of the Holy Ghost. Henceforth all power of the adversary, all the host of the devil, all the strength of the enemy, all assaults of demons, be uprooted and transplanted from this creature of flowers and leaves, that thou pursue not by subtlety the footsteps of those who hasten to the grace of God. Through Him who shall come to judge the quick and dead, and the world by fire. R. Amen."

From the Hours of the Duc de Berry.
The processional order could clearly only be used in full at Salisbury Cathedral itself, since it describes a detailed path through the cloisters and a total of four stations where readings pertaining would be proclaimed. I'm unsure of how lesser churches would have adapted them for their own use. Nonetheless, the Missal calls for two processions at the start. The first, larger procession was led by the celebrating priest and his ministers, and a large, red cross. The bulk of the congregation would follow this path. The second procession was made up of a smaller band of clerks, lifting high a pyx carrying the Blessed Sacrament. Thus, the first procession represented the crowd awaiting Christ in Jerusalem, and the second stood for Christ Himself, surrounded by His small group of disciples. The two processions began going in opposite directions, but then met together at the first station. The two processions then joined together, as the first escorted the second in triumph through the other three stations around and within the church. A special scaffold or platform was erected over the great portal of the cathedral so that choir of boys could sing the hymn Gloria laus (as in the Roman Mass) as the procession came to the door, with the crowd responding in turn.

In the last few editions of the Sarum books, we see a curious new addition: a boy designated to play the part of a prophet, complete with sackcloth robes, fake beard, and wig, to signal to the larger procession that the smaller procession, bearing Christ in Eucharistic form, was in sight. He sang, "O Jerusalem, look to the East and see; lift up thine eyes, O Jerusalem, and see the power of thy King". This was really the culmination of a century-old tradition, not sanctioned by the liturgy but prevalent nonetheless, of adult men playing the parts of prophets to herald the arrival of the Eucharistic procession. Many records survive of churches hiring these men for the part, and furnishing them with costumes. What's fascinating is how these prophets, which would surely be considered bizarre and condemned as a liturgical abuse today, were actually the product of a surge in devotion to the Eucharist. The prophets first cropped up in the 1400's in response to the Lollards, who accused the Catholics of committing idolatry by worshipping the Eucharist, treating the elements as though they were God Himself. And here we have the prophets, ordinary men rising up to emphasize that worship, directing the people to turn east and acclaim the Lord in triumph: Hosanna in the highest.

The Lenten array in action: the veil falling from the great rood of the Anglican Saint Mary's, Primrose Hill. See more here.

One last bit of dramatic flair. From the beginning of Lent, the people's view of the high altar and sanctuary has been further obscured by the curtain hanging over the rood screen. This formed part of the "Lenten array" where all images in the church were covered not only from the start of Passiontide (beginning the week before Palm Sunday) but the entire period of Lent. On Palm Sunday, the great rood, the cross suspended over the screen separating the choir and the people, was to be unveiled. The procession stopped at the entrance to the choir, under the rood. The priest began the hymn Ave, Rex noster ("Hail, our king") by singing "Hail" three times. Each time was louder than the last, and at the last, the veil, suspended by hooks, would suddenly be tugged down to the astonishment of the people, revealing the cross which had been hidden away for so many weeks. The choir would then resume the rest of the hymn: 
"our King, Son of David, Redeemer of the world, whom the prophets have proclaimed to be the Saviour of the house of Israel that is to come. For thee the Father sent into the world to be the saving victim, whom all the saints expected from the beginning of the world, and now expect. Hosanna to the Son of David. Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest."





All articles in my Holy Week 2015 series, short and long




The kiss of peace (for Spy Wednesday)





Terra tremuit! (the Offertory antiphon of Easter Sunday)

Modern Medievalism.... in medicine?

This is the first time I've ever considered medicine to fall within the purview of Modern Medievalism. But yes, an old Anglo-Saxon treatment (from a work called Bald's Leechbook, no less) works effectively against MRSA. See link here.


"Take cropleek and garlic, of both equal quantities, pound them well together… take wine and bullocks gall, mix with the leek… let it stand nine days in the brass vessel…"

Friday, March 27, 2015

Anatomy of a prayer: a collect from a medieval rite of reinterment

 
 
I've been following the blog called How to Rebury a King with great interest. This site is maintained by Dr. Alexandra Buckle, a musicologist and consultant for the committee that created the Anglican liturgies for the reinterment services at Leicester Cathedral this week. Not long ago, Dr. Buckle discovered an old manuscript detailing the rite of reinterment as it was used for Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick (whose tomb made an appearance in my recent article on hearses and hearse-cloths). While manuscripts detailing medieval burials abound, this particular document is the only one in known existence that outlines the order of service for a reburial.
 
That blog's entry for today (here) shared a collect for reinterment which draws on the imagery of Ezekiel's valley of bones, but which is not known to exist anywhere else, period. Unfortunately, that prayer had a section that was purged for its overly medievalist, overly Catholic material for Thursday's service; but Dr. Buckle was gracious enough to at least post the full prayer and translation for the rest of the world to see. I'll also reproduce it here, but in reverse order.
 
 
Here's the prayer used at the service on Thursday, contemporized and purged (as seen on page 16 of the order here):
"Almighty and eternal God, creator and redeemer of souls, who by the prophecy of Ezekiel deigned to bind together dry bones with sinews, to cover them with skin and flesh, and to put into them the breath of life: as we return the bones of your servant Richard to the grave, we beseech you to grant him a peaceful and quiet resting place, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever."
 
 
Now, here's the full prayer in translation, with the excised portion in colored text:
"Let us pray. Omnipotent and eternal God, creator and redeemer of souls, who through the prophecy of Ezechiel are worthy to bind together truly dry bones with sinews, to cover them with skin and flesh, and to put into them the breath of life, we supplicants pray to you for the soul of our dear [INSERT NAME] whose bones we now place in the grave that you may deign to grant him a peaceful and quiet resting place and, that having remitted all his sins of worldly heedlessness as conceded to him by a pardon of full indulgence, that, through your ineffable mercy, you erase and wash away all of it, whatever he has erred in this world by his own or another’s guilt. Who with God the Father and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, God through all for ever and ever. Amen."
 
 
And finally, for reference for the scholars among you, the original Latin text:
"Oremus. Omnipotens sempiterne Deus, animarum conditor et redemptor, qui per Ezechielis vaticinium ossa vehementer arida nervis compingere, pelle et carnibus superinduere, ac in ea spiraculum vitæ intromittere dignatus es: te supplices deprecamur pro anima in cari nostri N [nomine], cuius ossa iam denuo tradimus sepultura, ut ei tribuere digneris placidam et quietam mansionem et remittas omnes lubrice temeritatis offensas, ut concessa sibi venia plenæ indulgentiæ quicquid in hoc seculo proprio vel alieno reatu deliquit, totum ineffabili pietate tua deleas et abstergas. Qui cum Deo Patre et Spiritu Sancto vivis et regnas, Deus per omnia sæcula sæculorum. Amen."
 
I don't blame Dr. Buckle for whatever role she had in excising the prayer. The Church of England's doings aren't any of my business; indeed, such medievalisms as "a pardon of full indulgence" and "by his own or another's guilt" would feel quite out of place there. No doubt Archbishop Cranmer came to many of the same conclusions back in the 1540's and 1550's when he took the axe to all the Catholic funerary rites as much as the populace would allow him to without rioting.
 
What's more tragic, I say, is that this sort of bowdlerization was exactly the same as that systematic process of destruction that Archbishop Bugnini applied with his liturgical jackhammer to the Missal, Breviary, and other sacred texts in use by the Roman Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. Yikes!



-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.

At last, a requiem fit for a Catholic King: solemn Latin Mass

 
The church of Saint Catherine Labouré in Leyland hosted a solemn Requiem Mass on the same day as his reinterment in Leicester. It was according to the Missal of 1962. Here are some images from the blog of Father Simon Henry, whose original post may be found here. The good priest says that after the Mass, the congregation enjoyed "a themed buffet with such tasty morsels as Yorkshire pudding with venison sausage or duck in port sauce, Pye of pork meat made with paest royall, Ribbes of beef, Quail eggs and roasted chicken calf." I'm jelly now.

Also, an interesting observation: a commenter on Father Simon's blog notes that the Greyfriars; that is, Franciscans; who originally buried King Richard would have probably used the Roman Missal, rather than the Sarum Missal or any other local use. So, the Requiem Mass as celebrated in the 1962 books would be almost identical to any Mass the friars may have celebrated when they received Richard's body.



Chanting the Gospel

 

Just look at that wonderful, wooden Gothic reredos


Communion of the servers; note the banner with Richard's personal sigil, the white boar, at left
 
A catafalque for the king





Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.

The poet laureate on Richard III

 
I'm sharing this mainly because this is the only full segment of Thursday's reinterment that's been posted online so far; not because I'm part of the Benedict Cumberbatch Fan Club. Nonetheless, it's a good poem, and Cumberbatch actually has a couple of good reasons for being involved (namely, for being the latest actor to take up the role of Richard III in the next Hollow Crown series, and also for being a descendant of the House of York).
 
And, I admit, BBC's Sherlock is pretty good.




 
'Richard', by Carol Ann Duffy (Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom)
 
My bones, scripted in light, upon cold soil,
a human braille. My skull, scarred by a crown,
emptied of history. Describe my soul
as incense, votive, vanishing; your own
the same. Grant me the carving of my name.

These relics, bless. Imagine you re-tie
a broken string and on it thread a cross,
the symbol severed from me when I died.
The end of time – an unknown, unfelt loss –
unless the Resurrection of the Dead …


or I once dreamed of this, your future breath
in prayer for me, lost long, forever found;
or sensed you from the backstage of my death,
as kings glimpse shadows on a battleground.





Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.

O God of Earth and Altar

I was, unfortunately, unable to watch Richard III's reinterment ceremony yesterday, but I looked through the program and saw a hymn by G.K. Chesterton which I've never seen or heard of before. I subsequently found that there are a couple of tunes the hymn is set to, but this one seems the superior of the two. I love it, even though it appears in almost no Catholic hymnals. I wish this, and not "On Eagles' Wings", were standard fare for funerals in English speaking Catholic-dom.



O God of earth and altar,
 bow down and hear our cry,
 our earthly rulers falter,
 our people drift and die;
 the walls of gold entomb us,
 the swords of scorn divide,
 take not thy thunder from us,
 but take away our pride.

 From all that terror teaches,
 from lies of tongue and pen,
 from all the easy speeches
 that comfort cruel men,
 from sale and profanation
 of honor, and the sword,
 from sleep and from damnation,
 deliver us, good Lord!

Tie in a living tether
 the prince and priest and thrall,
 bind all our lives together,
 smite us and save us all;
 in ire and exultation
 aflame with faith, and free,
 lift up a living nation,
 a single sword to thee.




Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Thursday, March 26, 2015

Richard III's claim to the throne: by sanguinity, statute, or sacrament?

The funeral crown for Richard III, designed by Dr. John Ashdown-Hill of the Looking for Richard project.
As we all know, whether the Ricardians or right about Richard III's innocence of the various crimes imputed to him or not, the established belief remains that Richard usurped the crown from his nephews, that his claim was never legitimate. In light of that, I've long wondered why England has since continued to recognize Richard as king at all. Beginning in the reign of Henry VII Tudor, Saint Thomas More wrote an (unpublished) biography of his predecessor, titled The History of King Richard III, not Richard the Usurper; and More refers to the man as "King Richard" at every point in the narrative following the coronation, even though the work's villainous characterization of the man was the chief inspiration for Shakespeare's play. Richard III also appears in the line of kings on the British Monarchy's official website and even has his own page here, where it explicitly says,
"Richard III usurped the throne from the young Edward V, who disappeared with his younger brother while under their ambitious uncle's supposed protection."

If his claim was never legitimate to begin with, wouldn't he be a pretender? Like Antipope John XXIII (1410-1415), would he not be an antiking, with any future heirs to the throne taking the name "Richard III" rather than "Richard IV"? A few of you out there, reading this, may be far more versed on matters of royalty than myself and will rush to say "well, actually...", which is fine. But to stimulate the conversation, I've collected some of my own observations, gleamed from the various sources I've been able to read thus far.

Sanguinity: the law of blood

William and Mary
The dynastic wars that plagued Richard III's entire life; cousins overthrowing cousins, brothers raising arms against brothers, uncles throwing nephews in towers; couldn't happen today because the line of succession in the United Kingdom is now rigidly fixed by law. In 1685, long after Protestantism had been established in England, King Charles II died without issue, and the crown passed to his younger brother, James II, a convert to Catholicism. Parliament originally tolerated this awkward arrangement because they thought it would be temporary: that he would die and the crown would pass to his Protestant daughter, Mary. When James suddenly had a son, it looked like a Catholic line of succession would be established, so Parliament made a deal with Mary. If she could get her husband to raise an army and depose her father, Parliament would make them joint monarchs. They called it the "Glorious Revolution" and put William and Mary on the throne, but from that point onward, it was clear that Parliament was really in charge. Making and breaking kings by a vote, Parliament established the current laws of succession. The foundational statute is the 1701 Act of Settlement, setting forth male-preferred primogeniture from the descendants of Electress Sophia of Hanover who are not Catholic and have not married a Catholic. The Act has been strictly adhered to ever since, and now governs a list of over 5,000 names and their order from the throne.

In Richard III's day, the matter of succession left a lot more up for debate. Over the centuries since the Norman conquest, it had become customary for the crown to pass from eldest son to eldest son, but any time there was a deviation from this normal course, there was risk of a coup or a civil war. All political theories aside, it often boiled down to a contest of arms. He who could rule by force, ruled.

Richard's elder brother, King Edward IV, died in 1483, leaving behind two sons born from his wife, Queen Elizabeth Woodville: Edward, Prince of Wales, and Richard, Duke of York. Since both were still boys, the king named his younger brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, as Lord Protector, with full regency powers until the prince would come of age. Seems pretty straightforward, right? Edward had no reason to believe that the crown wouldn't pass on down to his children. He was popular enough when he died, and his youngest brother was his most loyal supporter. In an age where treachery was the rule of the day, and the middle brother, George tried to overthrow his big brother twice, Richard was remarkable for never having betrayed him even once.

The coronation of Edward V was set for June 22, an event which never came to pass. Instead, on that day, a preacher named Ralph Shaa gave a sermon outside Saint Paul's Cathedral, proclaiming that Edward V and his brother were bastards, and that their father, Edward IV himself, was born from an affair. The latter accusation was never taken seriously, but for some reason, the first charge grew in acceptance. The fullest account of this sordid affair comes from the French chronicler Philippe de Commines. The story goes that the bishop of Bath and Wells, Robert Stillington, also a member of the king's council, approached the lord protector and confided to him that the two princes were illegitimate because Edward IV was a bigamist. Philippe wrote:
"The bishop discovered to the Duke of Gloucester that his brother king Edward had been formerly in love with a beautiful young lady and had promised her marriage upon condition that he might lie with her; the lady consented, and, as the bishop affirmed, he married them when nobody was present but they two and himself. His fortune depending on the court, he did not discover it, and persuaded the lady likewise to conceal it, which she did, and the matter remained a secret."

Edward did have an reputation throughout his reign for being a philanderer, and even his marriage to Queen Elizabeth was performed in secret. Now, according to the bishop, Edward had contracted an earlier marriage to one Lady Eleanor Butler, who was still alive when Edward met Elizabeth Woodville. If Edward did indeed marry Eleanor, it necessarily meant that the marriage with Elizabeth was invalid, and all children issued between them were illegitimate, even though Eleanor was dead by the time Edward V was born. There was also the small matter of Richard's other nephew, the eight-year old Earl of Warwick, son of that middle brother, George. But since George's treason in the previous reign had earned him and his descendants an attainder, legally barring them from inheritance, that left Richard as next in line.

George pays the price of treason: being drowned in a barrel of malmsey.

Statute: the law of assent

The first act issued in Richard's first and only Parliament, in 1484, was the Titulus Regius, which explains the reasoning behind the princes' exclusion from the succession as such:
"And here also we consider how that the said pretensed marriage was made privately and secretly, with edition of banns, in a private chamber, a profane place, and not openly in the face of the church, after the laws of God’s church, but contrary thereunto, and the laudable custom of the Church of England.  And how also, that at the time of the contract of the same pretensed marriage, and before and long time after, the said King Edward was and stood married and troth plight to one Dame Eleanor Butler, daughter of the old Earl of Shrewsbury, with whom the said King Edward had made a precontract of matrimony, long time before he made the said pretensed marriage with the said Elizabeth Grey in manner and form aforesaid.  Which premises being true, as in very truth they been true, it appears and follows evidently, that the said King Edward during his life, and the said Elizabeth, lived together sinfully and damnably in adultery, against the law of God and his Church; and therefore no marvel  that the sovereign Lord and head of this Land, being of such ungodly disposition, and provoking the ire and indignation of our Lord God, such heinous mischiefs and inconveniences, as is above remembered, were used and committed in the Realm amongst the subjects.  Also it appears evidently and follows that all the issue and children of the said King, been (being) bastards, and unable to inherit or to claim anything by inheritance, by the law and custom of England."

At the end, the Titulus asserts Richard's undisputed lineage and his personal virtues: his "great wit, prudence, justice, princely courage, and the memorable and laudable acts in diverse battles, which as we by experience know you heretofore have done for the salvation and defence of this same Realm". Interesting that Parliament is evaluating Richard's résumé to begin with, rather than relying solely on genealogical claims. But the most interesting language is at the end of the act. I highlight some key words among the last three paragraphs in bold:

"Wherefore these premises by us diligently considered, we desiring affectuously the peace, tranquility and weal public of this Land, and the reduction of the same to the ancient honourable estate, and prosperity, and having in your great prudence, justice, princely courage and excellent virtue, singular confidence, have chosen in all that is in us is, and by this our writing choose you, high and mighty Prince, into our King and sovereign Lord, etc., to whom we know for certain it appertains of inheritance so to be chosen.  And hereupon we humbly desire, pray and require your said Noble Grace, that, according to this election of us the three Estates of this Land, as by your true inheritance, as by lawful election; and in case you so do, we promise to serve and to assist your Highness, as true and faithful subjects and liegemen, and to live and die with you in this matter, and every other just quarrel.  For certainly we be determined rather to adventure and commit us to peril of our lives and jeopardy of death, than to live in such thraldom and bondage as we have lived long time heretofore, oppressed and injured by new extortions and impositions, against the laws of God and man, and the liberty, old policy and laws of this Realm wherein every Englishman is inherited.  Our Lord God King of all Kings by whose infinite goodness and eternal providence all things have been principally governed in this world lighten your soul, and grant you grace to do, as well in this matter as in all other, all that may be according to his will and pleasure, and to the common and public weal of this Land, so that after great clouds, troubles, storms and tempests, the son (sun) of justice and of grace may shine upon us, to the comfort and gladness of all true Englishmen.
"Albeit that the right, title and estate, which our sovereign Lord the King Richard the Third has to and in the crown and royal dignity of this Realm of England, with all things thereunto within this same Realm and without it, united, annexed and appertaining, have been just and lawful, as grounded upon the laws of God and of Nature, and also upon the ancient laws and laudable customs of this said Realm, and so taken and reputed by all such persons as been learned in the above said laws and customs.  Yet, nevertheless, for as much as it is considered that the most part of the people of this Land is not sufficiently learned in the abovesaid laws and customs, whereby the truth and right in this behalf of likelihood may be hid, and not clearly known to all the people, and thereupon put in doubt and question.  And over this, how that the Court of Parliament is of such authority, and the people of the Land of such nature and disposition, as experience teaches, that manifestation and declaration of any truth or right, made by the three Estates of this Realm assembled in Parliament, and by authority of the same, makes, before all other things, most faith and certainty, and, quietening men’s minds, removes the occasion of all doubts and seditious language.
"Therefore at the request, and by the assent of the three Estates of this Realm, that is to say, the Lords Spiritual, and Temporal and Commons of this Land, assembled in this present Parliament by authority of the same, be it pronounced, decreed and declared, that our said sovereign Lord the King was and is very and undoubted King of this Realm of England; with all things thereunto within this same Realm, and without it united, annexed and appertaining, as well by right of consanguinity and inheritance as by lawful election, consecration and coronation.  And over this, that, at the request, and by the assent and authority abovesaid be it ordained, enacted and established that the said crown and royal dignity of this Realm, and the inheritance of the same, and other things thereunto within the same Realm, or without it, united, annexed, and now appertaining, rest and abide in the person of our said sovereign Lord the King, during his life, and, after his decease, in his heirs of his body begotten."

What we are seeing is an elevation of the idea that Parliament makes the king, as much as royal blood or the rites of coronation. Parliament embodies the three estates of the realm (the clergy and nobility in the House of Lords, and everyone else in the House of Commons). According to the Titulus, their assent validates Richard's claim to the crown. This would appear to be a victory for the Whiggish version of political philosophy, affirming the "consent of the governed" doctrine that virtually all modern nations now subscribe to (in theory, at least). Richard, however, was among the first, if not the first kings of England since the Norman Conquest to accept the crown on Parliament's authority. Such an idea was not known since Anglo-Saxon times, when Parliament's ancient predecessor, the Witenagemot, reserved the power to elect kings. In the 11th century, abbot Aelfric of Eynham wrote:
"No man can make himself king, but the people has the choice to choose as king whom they please; but after he is consecrated as king, he then has dominion over the people, and they cannot shake his yoke off their necks."

And that brings us to the third way in which kingship is conferred: the consecration, or anointing.

Sacrament: the law of God

King Richard's strongest modern-day supporters, the Ricardians, often express their disappointment that he isn't being given a full state funeral despite being an "anointed king of England". This is yet another statement that eludes us in America, and probably quite a few in Britain itself. Here, we imagine that the central moment of the coronation is the placing of the crown on the new king's head. A fair assumption, since that's literally what the word "coronation" means; but in truth, it is the anointing that's the most sacred part of the ceremony. 

Britons are more likely to be aware that once the old king is dead, the next king's reign already begins; "the king is dead, long live the king". In recent centuries, the coronation is put off for a year or more to allow the nation to mourn, and also to give time for all the ceremonial preparations. This then gives the cynical Briton the impression that the coronation is just an extravaganza of pomp and pageantry, thrown on taxpayer's dime. It is not essential. And perhaps, in our modern, legalistic, de-sanctified world, the coronation really is just a pantomime of homage to past days.

But it was not so in the medieval world. The time between the old king's death and the new king's coronation was measured in months, or even weeks. When one considers the time it took for a noble out in the marches just to hear news of the king's death, not to mention travel to get to London by horseback or carriage across poor roads, we see that for a medieval king, time was of the essence. Coronation was necessary to properly begin the new reign.

By the time of Richard III, there had been much debate over what exactly the coronation did; whether it actually empowered the king, or merely was an outward sign of his inherent authority. Nevertheless, the central rite had airs of sacramental significance. I am speaking here of the anointing. The archbishop began singing Veni Creator Spiritus ("Come, Creator Spirit"), then the king came forward. Just as in baptism, the archbishop of Canterbury anointed the king with the Church's simple oil, the oil of the catechumens, at the hands, elbows, shoulders, breast, and head. But then, he anointed the king once more with the chrism: the holy oil of greater significance, consecrated by the bishop for the sacraments of Confirmation and Holy Orders. By using the chrism (a privilege of the kings of England that originally had to be granted by the Pope), the archbishop was imparting a sacramental character to the coronation rite. I use the word "sacramental" in the loose sense, just as one might describe a rosary or any other blessed holy object as a sacramental; but in medieval times, before the Church solemnly defined the number of holy mysteries instituted by Christ at seven, coronations were often imagined to be the "eighth sacrament". So holy was this rite that even in 1953, during the coronation of Elizabeth II, an event which was by far the most viewed event on television then and for many years since, all cameras were strictly banned from capturing the act of anointing in either photo or video.

Almost a hundred years before Richard III, his namesake, Richard II, was deposed by the Duke of Lancaster, the future Henry IV; this first challenge to the line of succession set the stage for the Wars of the Roses. Though Richard named Henry as his heir and abdicated his office (probably by force), the chronicler Thomas Walsingham relates that Richard, so he said, could not renounce his anointment, nor the spiritual power it bestowed upon him. Richard II's argument for holding the throne, in spite of his written abdication, was that the anointing conferred an indeliable mark: just as Holy Orders made a priest "forever according to the order of Melchizedec", a king, once anointed, was forever sovereign. 


Was Richard a true king?

I began this article by asking: how could Richard be king if he usurped the crown? As with so many other questions raised about the two years of his reign, we'll probably never know the truth as to whether Edward IV actually was a bigamist. But if we consider the three items that confer kingship; sanguinity, statute, and sacrament; it looks like Richard III was at least two for three.

If the two princes in the Tower were dead by the time Richard III faced off Henry Tudor at Bosworth in 1485, and if we accept that the heirs of George, Duke of Clarence could legally be barred from the succession by an act of attainder, then Richard was king at least by the time of Bosworth under the Yorkist reckoning.

If a king can be made by statute; if Parliament has the power to select kings; then Richard was king. The Titulus Regius was passed by Parliament.

If coronation is a sacrament(al), then Richard was king. He was anointed and crowned on the 6th of July, 1483. The ceremony was one of the most well-attended for the age, with many peers of the realm, even from the Lancaster side, in attendance.

For these reasons, Henry Tudor seems to have acknowledged Richard as king, even if a tyrant worthy of killing. After Richard was slain and Henry entered London victorious, he had a serious problem: justifying his claims to the throne before Parliament. To be honest, I still haven't quite figured out Henry's precise reasoning. It's said that he claimed the "right of conquest", but I haven't seen a document that explicitly says that Parliament ever acknowledged such a method legally exists. Correct me if I'm wrong. But what I can discern for certain is that Henry never made much of a genealogical claim; he was so obscure that he would have been laughed out of Westminster had he tried that tactic. Nor did he mean to justify it through his Yorkist wife, Elizabeth (the older sister of Kings Edward IV and Richard III). Henry deliberately set the coronation before the marriage so that he would be seen to rule on his own right, rather than as a consort.

And, if Richard III was truly an anointed king of England, is it not odd that his reburial is not accompanied with the full splendor and support of a state ceremony? But that... is another story, for another time.



Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.

Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Happy (Old Style) New Year!

The Annunciation from the Black Book of Hours.
 
For many centuries in England, Florence, and several other dominions in medieval Europe, the 25th of March was legally considered the first day of the new year. It was Lady Day, the feast of the Annunciation, when the archangel Gabriel delivered the news to the Virgin Mary that she would bear the Christ in her womb. The Annunciation is, of course, on the 25th of March because it is nine months from Christmas.

"Whan that the month in which the world bigan,  
That highte march, whan God first maked man"
--Chaucer, the Nun's Priest's Tale, Canterbury Tales
 
The English so hallowed this beginning to the story of the Incarnation that Lady Day was retained as the new year, at least legally speaking, long after the Reformation until 1752, when the British government decided it was finally time to adopt the Gregorian calendar. Since 1582, Pope Gregory XIII's calendar reform had pushed the Catholic world to uniformly adopt the feast of the Circumcision, January 1, as the new year; previously, different realms had recognized Christmas, Lady Day, the Circumcision, and a plethora of other dates to commence it.
 
There is still one vestige of Lady Day's influence: in Britain today, the tax year begins on April 6. Because the country's transition from the old calendar to the new shaved off 11 days in 1752, many people threatened to riot if they weren't allowed the full year's cycle to prepare their taxes. The start of the year, therefore, was pushed 11 days to April 6.

Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Richard III: of hearses and hearse cloths



Though last Sunday's procession for Richard III may seem impressive and stately to us, I invite you to consider the possibility that funerary processions (though perhaps not to the same scale) were a relatively common sight even among the commons of the Middle Ages, thanks to the efforts of the guilds. The procession to the church was a visible call for the entire community to come together to mourn and pray for the deceased's soul.
 
A hearse cloth dating to 1539, London.
After being brought into the church, the medieval; denizen's coffin was borne over a hearse; not the car or carriage used to transport a body, but a metal frame which suspended candles over the body while it rested in the middle of the church for one to three nights before the burial. Traditionally, it would have been placed on the hearse, covered with a hearse-cloth (or a pall), and then the clerks would sing the evensong Office of the Dead, beginning with the Placebo. Most parish churches owned a simple hearse cloth for all parishioners to share, but among the wealthier classes, it was common to commission a specially embroidered cloth with fantastical designs to ensure that the deceased would be remembered.
 
Artist Jacquie Binns embroidered the hearse cloth that currently lays over the coffin of Richard III while it awaits reinterment. While it's not what I would have designed, to say the least; and I'm perplexed at how the organizers neglected to build a hearse at all; I can at least appreciate how the artist decided to incorporate the likenesses of several people who were instrumental in the recovery of the king's remains, including Philippa Langley and Dr. John Ashdown-Hill. Some of those personages appear in Channel 4's excellent documentary on the search for Richard III's remains below (even if, as Langley later complained, the documentary made it seem as though she was in love with Richard): Richard III - The King in the Car Park.


One of the more elaborate examples of a hearse, in the medieval sense.
 
One of two or three surviving hearses in all of England. This one is over the tomb of Sir Richard Beauchamp in Warwick.
 
Another is the Marmion Tomb, West Tanfield.


Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.


A requiem for Richard: on the cult of purgatory, chantry chapels, and the king's faith



Yesterday, the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, celebrated a requiem Mass for Richard III at Holy Cross Priory, a Catholic church near (Anglican) Leicester Cathedral. I've only been able to find one photograph, the one you see above. I find it most regrettable that the Mass wasn't of a form that Richard would have easily recognized, especially since the Dominican Rite liturgy is apparently celebrated at the priory daily. Still, there are two noteworthy links to the past from that Mass which I'm compelled to point out.

1.) One of the choirs that sang at the Mass was the Choir of Saint Barnabas Cathedral, Nottingham. Saint Barnabas was one of the first Catholic parishes built in England after Catholic emancipation. It was designed by Augustus Welby Pugin in 1841, sponsored largely by Pugin's longtime patron, Lord Shrewsbury. Unfortunately (with no disrespect intended to its current members who serve in good faith), the choir has not been of the traditional boys/men style for many years.

The Westminster vestment, front
2.) The chasuble worn by Cardinal Nichols at this Mass was an antique; so old, in fact, that some people were upset at the risk simply wearing it at all would pose to the fabric. It is the Westminster vestment, dating to the 15th century and believed to have been worn by the Benedictine monks of Westmnster Abbey during the reign of Richard III. Further, its designs match that of a vestment described in Richard's royal inventories. We have reason to believe, therefore, that Richard may have attended Mass by a priest wearing this chasuble at least once in his life. One description says of the needlework:

"Over the crucifix is a dove symbolizing the Holy Ghost; and over the dove is God the Father surrounded by glory. On each side of the crucifix are two angels in mid air, with chalices in each hand receiving the Precious Blood from the wounds of the dying Christ. At the foot of the crucifix is a figure in armour over which is thrown a robe open at front. This and the following single figures are standing under an architectural canopy in which we see 'Perpendicular' characteristics. On the orphrey on the front of the chasuble are: St. Edward the Confessor, a female and a male saint, the three being crowned and richly attired. All the figures are graceful and edifying. The main body of the chasuble is covered with a beautiful woven 'pomegranate pattern.' Though the general effect of this vestment is somewhat spoilt by its being cut down to the French 'violin shape,' yet it is, nevertheless, very rich and fine." (The Month, Volume 103, page 617)

And yes, before one jumps to the assumption that this chasuble is proof of the fiddleback style's antiquity, I assure you it's quite the contrary! Some Rococo-era vandals sliced the fabric away to conform this fine vestment to the fashions of the day; probably the priests and seminarians of Ushaw College (an active seminary until it closed in 2011 due to lack of vocations), who received the vestment as a gift in 1867. Ushaw does provide us with another Pugin connection, however. Augustus Pugin designed its first chapel, in 1847. Two of his sons, also architects, provided buildings of their own.


Why the requiem Mass matters

What's a requiem Mass, anyway? The name comes from the first word of the Introit chant which begins that Mass: Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine. "Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord." It, and all the other proper chants of the Mass have long since been set to famous scores by classical composers such as Mozart's (which were still meant to be sung in the context of actual Masses, not concert-halls), but you may listen to the original plainchant version, which I sing with my Gregorian schola from time to time, below:


Rest from what, though? This liturgy is officially called the Missa pro defunctis, the Mass for the dead: and its chief purpose is to be offered to ease the suffering of a soul in purgatory. Since purgatory is a uniquely Catholic doctrine, only the Catholic Church ever offers requiem Masses for the dead (although the Eastern Orthodox, to my knowledge, have similar services). Most other Christian sects teach that souls only go to one of two places: heaven or hell. But in the Catholic faith, it's understood that many souls, even if they've been forgiven of the eternal consequences of sin (the loss of eternal salvation) by confession, must still atone for temporal consequences of sin by the purifying process we call purgatory, before being admitted to the gates of heaven.

A solemn requiem Mass from a book of hours.
I explained the doctrine in part in my past article on indulgences, but in short, the Church encourages her members to pray always for the souls of all the faithful departed because those prayers may ease the passage of such souls to eternal life. Any prayer may be said to give relief for the souls of deceased loved ones and so on, but no prayer is higher in value than that of the sacrifice of the Mass. Because the Mass is the highest prayer, by which Christ's sacrifice on the cross is mystically re-presented in an unbloody manner, the Church has long applied the Mass's boundless merits to the souls of the departed.

A better understanding of what the requiem Mass is may be gathered by considering who doesn't receive them:
-Requiems are never offered for canonized saints, of course, because those souls are already in heaven and have no need for prayers of repose.
-Requiems are also not offered for the souls of baptized infants and children who die while young; because they died before reaching the age of reason, they had no occasion to ever commit sin, and therefore died as saints. They are buried instead with the Mass of the angels, the clergy wearing white vestments rather than black.
-The question of children who die before their parents can baptize them is a thorny one; while I personally have no doubt that God would bring those children to heaven, this was not a "given" until recent times. Still, even in the strictest theological understandings, a baby has no reason to go to purgatory, so requiems are not offered for them, either.

This leaves everyone else; at least, all Catholics who are known to have died at least nominally within the faith. So, anyone who didn't die while excommunicated. All these Catholics may have the requiem Mass prayed for them, even the worst sinners. [Edited to add: a commenter adds, citing the Catholic Encyclopedia, that the requiem Mass may be offered privately, but not publicly, even for deceased non-Catholics and excommunicated persons under certain conditions.] While the requiem's prayers are of no avail to people who are in hell, there's no way for any of us to know who's there; therefore, having the requiem offered for them is always a good thing. What's more is that the requiem Mass, though it forms a central part of the burial rites of any adult Catholic, is by no means limited to that moment. It can be offered for any Catholic on most days (excluding feasts of certain rank), and is especially recommended on the anniversary of either death or of burial. And, unless the person is declared a saint, requiems may be offered for that person every eligible day until the end of time. And here is where Richard III enters our story.


Richard's chantry chapels

We can get a window into Richard III's beliefs by examining how he treated the dead. From the 13th century until the Reformation, the English were perhaps Christendom's most zealous believers in purgatory and the need to offer souls for the faithful departed. An entire institution was created just for this need: the chantry chapel. A chantry was an endowment for one or more priests to offer requiem Masses and other prayers (such as the Office of the Dead) for the soul, or souls, of the patron. Basically, a priest was given an income solely to offer requiem Masses. Since a priest traditionally could not offer Mass more than once a day, these chantry priests had no liturgical duties to the greater community and could focus the rest of their time on charitable works; a feat much lamented when Edward VI's reformers came around to suppress all the chantries and confiscate their wealth for the king's advisors in the name of redistribution for "the public good".

Remains of the St Leger chantry chapel at Saint George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. It was endowed for two priests to sing for their souls ("with too prestys sy’gyng for ev’more. On whose soule god have mercy") for Sir Thomas St Leger and his wife, Anne of York. Anne was the older sister of Kings Edward IV and Richard III. One of her living descendants, Michael Ibsen, provided his DNA to positively identify the remains of Richard III.
Medieval cathedrals and parish churches alike in England are still filled with the remnants of the chantry chapels, which are often like private churches within a church. These alcoves were originally built by the wealthy, but eventually, people of the common classes also pooled funds together to build chapels to be shared among several families, or for guilds. In the medieval Church, we can see that there was serious preoccupation with the fate of one's deceased relatives and other loved ones. Even by medieval standards, though, Richard III took that devotion to a new level. I will mention some examples named in Aubrey's National and Domestic History of England, among other sources:

-after his elder brother's death, Richard paid the friars in Richmond "for the saying of one thousand masses for the soul of King Edward IV"
-he endowed the chantry priest at the village of Sheriff-Hutton, where he had imprisoned Earl Rivers, with an additional ten pounds per year
-he elevated the chantry at Middleham, where he first met his wife, Anne Neville, into a college of 12 priests; the charter explains his intention was "in part of satisfaction of such things as at the dreadful day of judgement I shall answer for" (so says Seward's Richard III: England's Black Legend)
-and, most notably, he planned to erect a chantry chapel at York Minster with 6 altars and 100 priests. Seward observes that this would have been a monumental expense involving also expenses for hundreds of additional servants, and a great many vestments and vessels. If he had succeeded, Richard would have had enough priests to offer requiem Masses for his soul all day long on every permitted day of the year: truly, in perpetuity.

The Markham Chapel, built in the reign of Henry VIII, is an example of one of the many chantry chapels built in ordinary parish churches: a church within the church. All around it are designs from the "dance of death" motif, reminding all who see it of their own impending mortality.
Yet another abortive project, which was actually on the verge of completion, was Richard's chantry chapel at the site of the Battle of Towton. Claiming the lives of around 28,000 men in 1461, Towton was the bloodiest battle of the Wars of the Roses, and in fact, all of English history until the Somme during World War I. Richard's brother, Edward IV, ordered his men to take no prisoners; bodies piled up in the river until the waters ran red with blood for whole days. Richard set his men to dig the bodies out of mass graves, where they had lain for over twenty years by this point, and re-buried in consecrated ground. He set aside forty pounds for the chantry chapel to be raised atop the very battleground, where priests would pray for the souls of the men on both sides of the war, York and Lancaster. The king said:
"the people of this kingdom, in a plentiful multitude, were taken away from human affairs; and their bodies were notoriously left on the aforesaid field and in other places nearby, thoroughly outside the ecclesiastical burial places, in three hollows. Whereupon we, on account of affection, contriving the burial of the deceased men of this sort, caused the bones of the same men to be exhumed and left for an ecclesiastical burial in these coming months, partly in the parish church of Saxton in our said county of York and in the cemetery of the said place, and partly in the chapel of Towton aforesaid, and in the surroundings of this very place."

After the ascent of Henry VII, the construction was abandoned and the chantry chapel fell to ruin. Archaeologists have, however, apparently discovered its remains just last year.


Richard's personal devotions

Aside from the chantry chapels, Richard endowed many other priests to offer Masses for the living, and seems to have endowed the creation of more college chapels during his two years than any other king of England in the same amount of time. But what about his private devotions? Did Richard even pray at all when his subjects weren't looking? Or was piety, as in the scene of his pretended reluctance to accept the crown in Shakespeare's play, all just going through the motions?

Our best indicators would be from the books Richard was known to have owned. In yesterday's article, I commented on the Wycliffe New Testament that he seems to have had since his days as duke of Gloucester. He also had an Old Testament in paraphrase verse, a book of private revelations by Saint Mechtilde called the Book of Special Grace,  and of course, a book of hours. This was found among his belongings at Bosworth Field. Henry Tudor presented it to his mother, Margaret Beaufort, probably as a trophy.

The book of hours was, without question, the most important religious book for (well-to-do) laymen in the Middle Ages. More than the Bible or the Missal, the book of hours was the lay Christian's guide to daily prayer. At its core laid the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a simplified version of the full Divine Office prayed by clerks and monks. And England, more than any other kingdom in Christendom, was known for zealous observance of the divine Hours through the day even from lay folk. Like their modern counterpart, the hand missals, books of hours also included the seven penitential psalms, the litany of saints, and all the other essential prayers one might desire, even custom additions or specially composed prayers at the patron's request. Eamon Duffy has a wonderful volume on this subject called Marking the Hours, with special emphasis on all the little notes in the margins that medieval owners left for us to analyze (everything from typical prayers to store inventories, shopping lists, and gossip).

An Annunciation scene in Richard's book of hours.
Richard's book of hours was already an antique by the time he got it, but he made it his own with a prayer added at the end. I quote only one section of a longer text:
"Lord Jesus Christ, son of the living God, deign to free me, your servant Richard, from every tribulation, sorrow and trouble in which I am placed and from the plots of my enemies, and deign to send Michael the Archangel to my aid against them, and deign, Lord Jesus Christ, to bring to nothing their evil plans... even as you brought to nothing the counsel of Achitofel, who incited Absolom against King David."

Seward goes on to psychoanalyze Richard's prayer, as though it suggests a man living in the paranoia and guilt of past sins. The strongest evidence in favor is the prayer's heading: de beato Juliano. The prayer invokes the name of Saint Julian the Hospitaller, who (according to the Golden Legend) was forgiven by Christ even after murdering his own parents. Would this prayer, then, resound in a special way for a man who ordered the deaths of his own nephews in a bid for the crown? On the other hand, as a Ricardian would point out, there's nothing unusual at all in the language of Richard's prayer for a pious man of the age. It was a time when the faithful were preoccupied with the last petition in the Lord's Prayer, of deliverance from all temptation and evil spirits; a worldview which reached its full and truly ridiculous exaggeration in the person of a young monk named Martin Luther a few decades hence. The consequences of its backlash would spell the end of spiritual unity in the Christian west.


God outside of time
If this all seems like nothing more than a journey through the superstitions of a long-dead age, I apologize for sharing my ideas so poorly. No, I wrote only to explain a system of belief that's now effectively alien to the modern man, even the average modern Catholic. Strange to say, though, that it wasn't the Reformation that brought an end to the idea of chantries for the dead. The last chantry in England was endowed by Queen Mary during her brief restoration of Catholicism, but elsewhere, purgatorial societies; that is, fraternities of people enrolled together with a pledge to pray for the souls of the departed of a particular community, such as the local parish church; had a rebirth in the later 19th century and persisted in strength until (you guessed it) Vatican II. The idea of such a medievalism then became an embarrassment among the enlightened clergy, which just about every bishop and priest of the day liked to fashion themselves as... and so, the societies withered down to extinction in short order.

Thankfully, since God exists outside of time, the modern Catholic need not feel enslaved to the whim of theological trends, and can rest assured that prayers offered in the year 2015 can be just as powerful for someone who died in 1485 as though they offered up on the altar on the very day of death.

Cardinal Nichols isn't the only one to offer prayers on behalf of the forgotten king. The Dominican friars at Holy Cross will pray Vespers this evening. And, notably, on the day of reinterment, the church of Saint Catherine, Leyland will be celebrating a sung requiem Mass in the traditional Latin Rite, with music "in the style and manner" of Richard's day. My own efforts to organize a requiem Mass for Richard (and the princes in the Tower, and all who died at Bosworth Field) came to naught, but I'll be uniting my prayer intentions on that day with any Masses being offered for the same on the 26th. I hope that if anyone out there happens to attend a requiem for Richard that you will kindly share pictures with me to repost here.

I end this post with the text of Cardinal Nichols's homily during the Requiem Mass at Holy Cross Priory, first posted on the Catholic Herald. As with the homily at Compline, it's worth reading (and for frock flick viewers, look out for the thinly veiled reference to that Cromwellian agitprop piece known as Wolf Hall).
This evening we fulfil a profound and essential Christian duty: that of praying for the dead, for the repose of their eternal souls. Here we pray for King Richard III, ‘King of England and France and Lord of Ireland’ to use a title he ascribed to himself. This is a remarkable moment.
The prayer we offer for him this evening is the best prayer there is: the offering of the Holy Mass, the prayer of Jesus himself, made complete in the oblation of his body and blood on the altar of the cross, present here for us on this altar. This is the summit of all prayer, for it is made in and through the one person, the eternal Word, through whom all created beings have life. It is a prayer that arises from the very core of creation, the cry of the Word returning to the Father and carrying within it the totality of that creation, marred and broken in its history, yet still longing for the completion for which it has been created. It is, therefore, such an important Catholic tradition to seek the celebration of Mass for the repose of the souls of those who have died, especially for each of our loved ones whose passing we mourn. Let us not forget or neglect this great gift.
During this week, Mass is being offered in many Catholic Churches for the repose of the soul of King Richard III. Rightly so. That is exactly what he would have wished, having himself set up at least one chantry chapel for Masses to be celebrated for the dead of both sides of the Battle of Towton in 1461. This was a most violent conflict, marking the defeat of Henry IV, a single day on which between 10-20,000 Lancastrians were killed and a stark demonstration of the tragedy of civil war. Prayers were indeed needed.
Surely we can be confident that, despite the haste and the violent confusion of the time, this same Sacrifice of the Mass was celebrated by the Greyfriars for the repose of the soul of the defeated King at the time of his burial in their church here in Leicester in August 1485.
Indeed we know that Richard was a man of anxious devotion who kept and marked his own book of prayers and who must have attended Mass throughout his life. Remarkably we also know that this vestment that I wear this evening is recorded as belonging to the royal wardrobe of Richard III. We may reasonably speculate that Richard participated in the celebration of Mass at which this same vestment was being worn.
Richard was not a man of peace. The times in which he lived and the role into which he was born did not permit that. But now we pray for his eternal peace.
Richard was a man who sought to offer to his citizens justice through the rule of law. He brought in important changes to the administration of law, including the institution of the Court of Requests at which poor people could bring their grievances to law. He improved the conditions of bail, enabling people to defend their property in the period before trial and he ordered the translation into English of written laws and Statutes again to make them more widely available. His role and arbiter and judge appear strongly in contemporary records and he twice asserted, in one legal dispute, that ‘we intend, nor will none otherwise do at any time, but according to the King’s laws.’ His actions did not always match those words. But this evening we pray that the merciful judgement of our loving God is extended to him in every degree, for we know that it is only the gift of God’s mercy that protects us from the demands of God’s justice.
I am much relieved that this evening we are not required to come to any such judgement ourselves. Indeed the judgement of our fellow human being is only of passing consequence for we know how fickle that judgement can be. This we see most clearly as reflection continues on the dramatic years of the House of Tudor in both fiction and historical research: saints are recast as sinners and sinners can become saints. But that is not our business.
Ours is to beseech of our loving Father the embrace of his mercy for this our brother who lived and died so long ago but who through such strange circumstances is again at the centre of public attention and human judgment. We pray for him as a sinner, like every other person, even if his life was lived on a more spectacular scale and in a more public arena than most. Today then we seek not to assert the greatness of Kings but the greatness of God’s mercy towards them and towards us all.
Richard, we know was not the physically most handsome of men. We know he suffered a brutal death, suffering ten fierce blows to the head. We know that his body was subject to humiliation after death, paraded from the field of battle by being thrown naked over the back of a horse and there receiving further wounds from a hostile sword. But we also know that he had been baptised into the death of Christ and so received the promise that he would rise with Christ to new life.
The words of the Holy Gospel, then, invite our trust, not only for ourselves but for all who have departed this life with a trusting faith in God. We know that the Lord has gone to prepare a place, a home, for us. This promise of a heavenly home was made to Richard. In his day, a ruthless and violent age, especially in the upper reaches of society, a home certainly had to be a castle, strong, well-fortified and easily defended. Otherwise it provided no safety at all. But the home promised to us by the Lord is of a different nature. In it peace comes only through the victory of Jesus over the last of all enemies, death itself. Protection too is ensured by that victory which has dethroned the powers of evil once and for all, even though they are still to be found within the fashioning of every human endeavour. The entry to that heavenly home, its open gates and sweeping drive, the royal road of life, is none other than the person of Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life.
This evening we pray that this promise of the Lord is indeed fulfilled. We offer this holy Mass that even while his remains are lying in the Cathedral nearby, his soul is united with God in the glory of heaven there to await the final resurrection of all things in Christ.
This was the hope he held in his heart. This is the hope we hold for ourselves and our loved ones too. We share this one hope and the faith and love which accompany it. In this grace we pray for this dead King and we pray that the kingship in Christ, given to us all, may truly guide our lives and make us builders of that eternal Kingdom here in our world today.
 
 
Other entries during "Richard III Week":

-Today in history: Henry IV: the man whose claim to the crown started the troubles that led to the Wars of the Roses

-The first day: Richard on tour: select photos from the procession on Sunday, and the cardinal-archbishop of Westminster's Compline homily

-The Bible in Richard's day, and, was Richard a proto-Protestant?: on the king's reading habits and what to make of his Wycliffe New Testament

-A requiem for Richard: on the Requiem Mass, the king's faith, his book of hours, the cult of purgatory, and the chantry chapels of Richard's age

-Of hearses and hearse cloths: looking at Richard III's funeral pall and dressing the dead in medieval times

-Richard III's claim to the throne: sanguinity, statue, or sacrament?: Examining Richard's dynastic claims and what makes a king the king

-O God of Earth and Altar: a hymn by G.K. Chesterton, used at the reinterment on Thursday

-The poet laureate on Richard III: the poem at the reinterment. Also, Benedict Cumberbatch.