H. F. Westlake

“ The duties of the Abbot’s chaplain in these later years of the monastery of Westminster are nowhere defined. In the fourteenth-century Customary of Canterbury it is written that such chaplains should be polite, discreet and pleasant, especially to all strangers. They form as it were a link between the Abbot and his Convent and are bidden to foster the love of the Abbot to the Convent and that of the Convent to the Abbot. Their other duties relate mainly to the due performance of masses in the private chapel and the general regulation of the Abbot’s household. ”

“ But if this aspect of Islip’s public life is little calculated to attract the sympathies of more tolerant times still less perhaps is the part which he played in the matter of the King’s divorce. It was but a minor part, but there can be little doubt as to Islip’s views in the case. No sadder fate fell to any woman in English history than came to Katharine of Arragon. ”

“ The Almoner’s rolls bring into view an entirely different aspect of monastic life. For any proper understanding of his office it is necessary to remember that the distribution of alms was an inevitable accompaniment of requiem masses. Did the Abbot or other benefactor of the monastery desire to be remembered in prayer after his death, then he not only bequeathed property to endow masses but assigned that portion of its yield which was to be distributed amongst the poor. Among the poor he would rightly reckon the brethren of his own monastery as well as those who came to its gates for alms. ”

“ The connection between the monastery at Westminster and the town of Islip must have been kept alive not only by the chantry chapel and the sentiment that must needs have linked the places of the Confessor’s birth and burial, but also by the visits which from time to time were paid to his manor by the Abbot or one of his officials. Doubtless many a recruit was thus brought to the Abbey from one or other of its outlying estates. ”

“ Of the administrative officials the Sacrist is in many ways the most interesting. He was responsible not only for the general survey of the fabric of the church and the necessary repairs thereto, but also for the provision of most of the accessories of worship. The main items of the income of his office were derived from properties within easy reach of the monastery, so that business was not apt to arise which would take him far afield from what must have been rather exacting duties. ”

“ The work of rebuilding the nave was the greatest enterprise of its kind which had ever been undertaken by the Abbot and Convent, and it might well be considered a sign of common sense that the two offices which were especially ad hoc should have been allowed by the Convent to be retained by the chief director and inspirer of the task in hand. Delay and friction may have occurred in the previous years when there was divided responsibility. But when all is said it must be admitted that the true significance of the innovation has not been adequately determined. ”

“ Finally the forty-seven monks decided to remit the appointment to Wolsey who selected Richard Whiting, then Chamberlain of the Abbey, for the vacant office, doubtless on Islip’s recommendation. It was perhaps well that Islip did not live to see the tragic fate that was to overtake the new Abbot.
Another side of Islip’s later life is seen in his occasional presence at the trial of those accused of holding or promulgating heretical doctrine. It is easy to-day to enlarge upon the bigotry and intolerance of the judges at such trials, and to make much of the unreliable stories of men such as Foxe. ”

“ Of those who entered at about the same time as Islip three shewed promise enough to be sent to the University, but no one of them left any obvious mark afterwards upon the community at Westminster.
The life as a novice was one of strict discipline and considerable toil. Until the rules of the new{32} life were learnt in practice as well as theory it may well have been irksome, as indeed all strict discipline must be until it is seen as a means and not an end, as the necessary grammar before the new language can unfold its beauties. ”

“ ISLIP IN PUBLIC LIFE.
The personality of the Abbot of Westminster can seldom have been a matter of indifference to the reigning Sovereign. The mere proximity of Court and monastery would alone be sufficient to ensure some degree of friendship or provoke some measure of antagonism, and instances are not wanting of both. But when it is remembered that the Abbey church was the place of burial of many and the place of coronation of all the Kings ”

“ The story of Langham’s generosity does not belong to the present narrative and it must suffice to say that when Islip entered the monastery in 1480 a beginning was being made with the vaulting of three of the four westernmost bays, while the final bay was already raised to the triforium level. Abbot Estney’s enthusiasm for the work is obvious to any who can read between the lines in what are designed to be simple records of receipts and expenditure, and there can be little doubt that Islip caught the infection of that enthusiasm in the course of his association with the Abbot as his Chaplain. ”

“ Forty-two years previously he had taken part in Fascet’s election as Abbot, and he had been one of those who voted in 1500 for Islip. It would be small wonder if his heart yearned for the older days and misliked the new. There is a note of pathos in the request which the old man recorded in his Will that he should be buried by the south door of the church in what was sometyme the procession waye, desiring to be carried in death along the path he had trodden so many times in the more peaceful days of his profession. ”

“ To attempt some defence of Islip’s action is not necessarily to attempt the same for Henry, though the efforts of the one were enlisted in the service of the other. To a Churchman such as Islip, though not to the Statesman such as Wolsey, there was but one point at issue in the matter and that was the legality of the original dispensation for the marriage which Pope Julius II. had granted. This can hardly be too strongly emphasised if strict justice is to be done to men such as he was. ”

“ At the time of Islip’s accession the financial{70} management of the monastery must have given occasion for anxious thought. The payment of royal subsidies was shared between the incomes of the different offices and weighed heavily upon all, amounting roughly as it generally did to a five per cent. tax upon diminishing receipts. For four years tithes had decreased in value and in each of them the Sacrist’s roll had shewn a deficit which in Islip’s first year had fortunately to some extent been compensated for by an increase in the rents from Westminster property. ”

“ As long as Islip lived one might suppose from them that monastic life at Westminster eight years before the dissolu{80}tion of the monastery was pursuing the same even and profitable course that it had pursued half a century earlier when he first entered the monastery, and indeed that in some respects it was shewing even greater vigour. The enthusiasm for the internal work of the rebuilding of the nave and the external stimulus of the foundation of Henry VII. do not point to a community anticipating any breaking of its bonds. ”

“ It may be that this petition was presented in 1525 when Wolsey signified his intention of holding a visitation of the Abbey. Islip wrote a reply to the cardinal promising to be present with all his monks. He admits the need of such visitations, for abbots, abbesses, and priors have become lax in their mode of life and observance of rule, and lukewarm in their examples; while regulars who ought to be models to the laity in life, in morals and good works, lead lives little corresponding thereto, to the great scandal of many. ”

“ Those who are familiar with the course of the development of the collegiate life which Henry VIII. designed for his new foundation at Westminster in after-days will have observed the same{59} forces at work in the gradual isolation of the higher officials from the common table and a somewhat quicker immersion in outside duties. It can hardly be doubted that such forces are disruptive in tendency, not necessarily of the body itself, but of the purpose and ideal for which it was called into being. ”

“ A weekly distribution of alms was provided for and an almshouse for thirteen poor men founded. Some nineteen other monastic or collegiate foundations were to receive fees from the Abbot of Westminster for the performance of services, as well as the Chancellor, Vice-Chancellor, Masters, and scholars of both universities. It would be tedious to follow Islip’s summary of the duties in any more elaborate detail and it must suffice to add that specific forfeitures of money were prescribed for the neglect of any article contained therein. ”

“ Actual seniority of profession would then determine the occasion of the gifts. A relatively young monk such as John Islip might have sat at the high table long before some accident found him as the senior monk present in the Refectory, and the same fate might befall one many years older than himself. Moreover it seems probable from the fact that two tables were reserved for the senior monks in the Refectory in addition to the table of the President that the narrower interpretation of the phrase as used at Westminster is the more correct. ”

“ The Almoner’s income was not large, amounting in an average year to about seventy pounds. Some further account of his cares will appear in the narrative of Abbot Islip’s earlier years.
Just as the Almonry had its chapel of St. Anne so the Infirmary placed itself under the protection of St. Katharine, but while the Almonry has long disappeared the ruins still remain to hint the beauties of the Infirmary chapel, and the Infirmarer’s own refectory is still intact.
About thirty-three pounds represents the average income attached to the office. ”

“ The dangers of the road have just been hinted at and he was a wise man who kept to the King’s highway. That Islip had them in mind may be assumed from a long entry in his diary somewhat previous to his tour. It was a story which he had heard at the Abbot’s table one Sunday from Richard Dolonde the Abbot’s guest. A certain priest with three servants had wandered from the high road and come to Egerston at about eight o’clock in the evening. When the priest’s groom went into the stable of the inn to fetch straw for his horses he found beneath the straw two men lying dead. ”

“ These stones may still be seen incorporated into the east wall of the chancel of St. Margaret’s and in fact their pattern has been multiplied in the frieze of the wooden panelling.
No narrative of Islip’s work as a builder would be complete without some attempt, however slight, to indicate the debt which the world owes to the activity which he and his immediate predecessors displayed. This can only be estimated by a consideration of the Abbey church as it is with some thought as to what it might have been. ”

“ In the year 1220 a Lady Chapel had been begun at the east end of the Norman church, and when twenty-five years later the Norman apse had to make way for Henry III.’s new structure the Lady Chapel must have been incorporated into the plan.{99} When the King died the presbytery, choir, and transepts had been completed. In 1298 a disastrous fire destroyed the greater part of the Conventual buildings, and thus work and money which might have gone to the completion of the church were diverted to the rebuilding of the monastery. ”

“ Islip himself has left little record of his own tenure of the office, but if the documents which attest the story of his successor may be taken as illustrative of the Prior’s life in general, it must be assumed that his share in the common life was occasional rather than constant, while the existence of such officials as the Sub-prior and the third or fourth Priors points to a delegation of duties and a system which may have worked well in practice but was not consonant with the Benedictine ideal. ”

“ John Islip would seem not to have shewn any great ability as a scholar, at least in Latin, for he was not one of those selected to proceed to the university. He was sufficiently advanced, however, to be professed and ordained priest in his twenty-{33}second year in accordance with a special privilege of the Westminster community. Scarcely had he said his first mass when he was appointed domestic chaplain to the Abbot and probably at the same time to the office of Sub-almoner. ”

“ From the time of its first building the Abbot and Convent of Westminster had appointed the chantry priest who ministered at its altar. The little town had already been the birthplace of at least one great churchman in the person of Simon, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 1349, and had given one monk to Westminster in the same century. ”

“ Benedict, made about the year 540, contemplated only some four officials as in the main responsible for the management of the monastery. These were the Abbot, Prior, Cellarer and Porter. St. Benedict indeed makes mention of a class of officers called Deans, each of whom would be responsible for a group of ten monks engaged in the work of the field which formed an essential part of his scheme of life, but in actual practice no record exists, in England at least, of the subsequent existence of such officers. ”

“ In 1527 the Chapter House was definitely the scene of a trial. On this occasion Wolsey, attended by a long array of bishops, lawyers and others, presided there at the trial of one Thomas Bilney for heretical pronouncements. Bilney is only of interest as being, according to Foxe, “a Cambridge man and the first Framer of that University in the knowledge of Christ.” More interesting would it be to have heard the talk of the monastery upon the trial which was taking place in its very centre. ”