styled "the Lord Provost;" and considering that the Provosts were vested with the powers of spiritual and temporal lords in the provostry, and that they exercised the rights of feudal lords throughout the whole of their fee, it is not surprising that this dignity should be sought after by the aspirants to places of trust and honour. The Collegiate Society of St John may be considered at the height of its glory in the 15th century. In addition to the numerous grants that were made from time to time by piously disposed persons, which must have considerably increased the ecclesiastical revenues, the church possessed an acquisition more valuable than any number of acres or tenements could have been. This was the bones or relics of their famous founder. The monarchs who visited Beverley at different periods would all pay their devotions and make their several offerings at his shrine. Besides the fame of the miracles, said to have been performed through his intercession, had reached the furthest shore, and strangers from a distance, frequently visited the church, and enriched it with their oblations. King Henry V. and his Queen, Katherine, paid a visit to the shrine of this saint, in consequence of the miracle which was said to have been wrought at his tomb the day the battle of Agincourt was fought. The royal offerings on this occasion would, doubtless, be munificent. The feast of the translation of St. John (25th October) was ordained on account of this victory. We shall here glance briefly at the most remarkable or illustrious of the Provosts of Beverley. Thomas, the first Provost, was consecrated Archbishop of York in 1109. Thurstan, the second Provost, was a Canon of St. Paul's, chaplain to King Henry I., and was advanced to the See of York in 1114. We have seen at page 124 of vol. i., that Archbishop Thurstan signalized himself by raising forces in 1138, which fought and conquered the Scots at the conflict at Cuton Moor, called the battle of the Standard. The celebrated Thomas à Beckett was presented to the provostship by King Henry II., in 1139, and being then in high favour with his Sovereign, he was appointed to offices of the first importance in the state. He passed rapidly from one dignity to another, till he was placed at the head of the church, in the Metropolitan See of Canterbury, in 1162. The reader is aware that he died a violent death at the altar's foot in 1178. (See vol. i., p. 193.) In 1179 Geoffrey Plantagenet, a natural son of Henry II., became Provost of Beverley. He was Lord High Chancellor, and was consecrated Archbishop of York in 1191. Simon de Apulia, an Italian, Chancellor of York, was admitted to the provostship in 1196, and became Bishop of Exeter in 1214. Fulk Bassett, Provost, was Dean of York, and elected Bishop of London in 1241. John Cheshull or Cheshub, Provost, was Dean of St. Paul's, Lord Chancellor and Treasurer, and died in 1280. William of York was one of the Justices Itinerant during his provostship, and was consecrated Bishop of Salisbury in 1246. His successor, Sir John Maunsel, Chancellor of England, was chaplain to King Henry III., and that monarch loaded him with dignities and preferments, ecclesiastical and temporal. He entertained at his house in Tolehill Field, at one time, the Kings and Queens of England and Scotland, with their dependencies. There were 700 dishes served up, and the multitude of guests were such that the house could not receive them, so that tents were set up abroad. Matthew Paris says, that for all his glorious pomp and great promotions he died poor, wretched, and miserable, somewhere beyond seas, sometime before February, 1264. William Kinwolmarsh, who was elected to the provostry about the year 1419, was afterwards Lord Treasurer of England; and his successor, Robert Neville (son of Ralph, first Earl of Westmorland), was afterwards successively Bishop of Salisbury and Durham. Lawrence Boothe, Provost, was Dean of St. Paul's, Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, and Lord Chancellor of England. He was consecrated Bishop of Durham in 1457, and was translated to York in 1476. John Routh, Prebendary of St. Paul's, and afterwards Bishop of Exeter, was presented to the provostship of Beverley in 1457. Thomas Scot de Rotherham, Provost, became successively Bishop of Rochester (in 1468), and Lincoln (in 1472), and Archbishop of York in 1480. The last Provost of Beverley surrendered on having a pension of £49. per annum assigned to him by King Henry VIII. Annexed is a chronological list of the Provosts of the Collegiate Church of St. John of Beverley, from the foundation of that office in 1092, to the dissolution of the Society, with the date of their appointment: At the dissolution the Collegiate Society consisted chiefly of the Lord Provost, and nine secular Canons or Prebends, and as many Vicars. The first of these Prebends, which was that of St. Leonard's altar, was called the Episcopal Prebend, because it was held by Archbishop Thurstan, and his successors in the See of York. The other Prebends were those of the several altars of St. Mary, St. Martin, St. Stephen, St. Andrew, St. Peter, St. Katherine, St. James, and St. Michael. The Precentor, Chancellor, and Sacrist, were the principal officers. The clergy belonging to the Collegiate establishment, together with the priests of the various chantries, the Rector of St. Nicholas, and the Vicar of St. Mary, if they were not Prebendaries, it is said formed an aggregate of more than sixty priests, who were set apart for the services of religion. The clergy of the Collegiate Institution mostly resided in the Prebendal houses, and other dwellings, which were placed for that purpose within the precincts of the church, and performed the customary religious services in hebdomadal rotation, assisted by the choristers and inferior officers of the church. Chantries. The chantry priests did not form an indispensible part of the general establishment. Their duties were confined to one exclusive object— the celebration of masses for the souls of the founders and their relatives; for which service they held a life estate in the lands, and other property, with which their chantries were respectively endowed. They were bound however to pay canonical obedience to the Provost, in common with the established residentiaries. The full number of chantry priests attached to the Minster Church cannot now be ascertained; we possess records which mention fifteen Chantries, but they were probably many others of which no account remains. Nor were the chantries confined to the mother church; they abounded in chapels, monasteries, and private houses; and in the whole, the liberties of Beverley contained at the least thirty endowed altars, at which masses were daily performed. The chantries at the Minster Church, of which we have any account, are those of St. John the Baptist, St. John of Beverley, St. William, St. James, St. Katherine, St. Anne, the Annunciation, Corpus Christi, St. Michael, St. Trinities, St. Christopher, Grant's chantry, Queen's chantry, founded by Isabella, wife of Edward II., and Wilton's chantry. The chantries in St. Mary's Church were those of St. Michael, St. Kath erine, and Gervus's chantry; and the chantries distributed throughout the liberties were twelve, viz., the chantries of the Blessed Virgin in the chapels of Molescroft and Thearne, and the Church of St. Nicholas; St. James's chantry at Hull Bridge; Chapel of St. Ellen, near the Grey Friars; Kelk's chantry; Rosse's chantry; chantry of St. Trinities, founded in 1398 by John de Ake, on the Cross Bridge at Beverley; of Corpus Christi, founded in 1323 by Robert de Scorburgh, in his own house in Beverley; and those of St. Nicholas, or La Frere; St. Egidius, in the Hospital of St. Giles; and of the Blessed Virgin, "in the manor of Hall Garth." There was also in Beverley a chapel dedicated to St. Thomas, which was erected during the reign of Athelstan, but it is supposed to have been demolished long before the Reformation. Besides the chantries there were several Obits, or anniversaries of persons' death, celebrated in this church. In religious houses they had a register or calendar, wherein they entered the obits or obitual days of their founders or benefactors, which was thence called the obituary. Amongst the benefactors whose obits were kept here were King Athelstan (whose exequies were celebrated on a splendid scale), Queen Isabella, King Edward III., Queen Philippa, Lady Idonea Percy, and some of the Provosts of Beverley. It has already been observed that King Athelstan constituted Beverley one of the "Cities of Refuge," by granting to the Church of St. John the privilege of Sanctuary; and a frid stol, i. e. freed stool, or chair of peace, was placed in a conspicuous situation near the high altar, as an emblem of protection to the refugee. The limits of the Leuga, or privileged circuit of St. John, were comprehended within the circumference of a circle, of which the church was the centre, and whose radius was about a mile; consequently it included the town of Beverley within its bounds. It was defined by stone crosses, three of which still remain in a dilapidated state. These crosses were placed on the principal roads leading to the town. One stood towards North or Cherry Burton; another, called Molescroft Cross, stood towards Leckonfield Park; a third on the road leading to Walkington; a fourth towards Kinwaldgraves, on the road to Bishop Burton; and another to the south of Beverley, on the road to Skidby. There is no trace, nor have we met with any record, of a cross on the east road towards the Hull Bridge. The refugees or, as they were called, grithmen who claimed the protection afforded by the Sanctuary of St. John, were domiciliated within the town, and the Bailiff of the Archbishop administered to them an oath, which they * Dugdale's Monasticon, vol. ii., p. 128. + Lel. Coll., vol. iii., P. 103. swore, to be true and faithful to the Lord Archbishop of York, Lord of Beverley, to the Provost, Canons, and Ministers of the Church, also to be of good heart to the Bailiff, Twelve Governors, Burgesses, and Commoners of the town; also not to bear a dagger, knife, or other weapon, against the King's peace; and to be ready with all their might in case of riot or sudden fires in the town, " to help to s'cess" them; and to attend the obit, dirge, and mass, for the soul of King Athelstan. In the British Museum is preserved a curious vellum MS., containing a long list of the names of persons who sought sanctuary at Beverley, from the time of Edward IV., specifying the nature of the crimes they had committed, with the oath taken by those who sought "its peace within its mile." In the year 1385 Sir John Holland, Knt., half brother to Richard II., was concerned in the murder of Ralph, the son and heir of the royal favourite, the Earl of Stafford. The injured father laid his complaint before the King; who, although the delinquent was so nearly related to him by blood, issued orders for his apprehension. Great interest was made to conciliate the incensed monarch; and even his mother condescended to supplicate his forgiveness with tears, and on her knees. But Richard was inexorable, and this high-spirited woman was so affected by this refusal, that she died broken-hearted in a few days. Meanwhile the Knight had taken sanctuary at Beverley, where he remained in security until the King's anger was in some degree appeased; and at the intercession of his uncle Clarence, Richard ultimately yielded a reluctant consent to his pardon. The Fridstol, which still remains in the Minster, is a semi-circular chair, hewn out of a solid block of stone, with a hollow back. It has been broken, but repaired with iron clamps; and according to Camden and Leland, it once bore the following inscription:-Hæc sedes lapidea Freed Stool dicitur, i. e., Pacis Cathedra, ad quem reus fugiendo perveniens omnimodam habet securiatem.("This stone chair is called Freed Stool, i. e., the Chair of Peace, to which what criminal soever flies, hath full protection.") There being no such inscription upon it now, has occasioned a doubt to be entertained of its claim to be considered the original "Fridstol." We certainly see little cause for this doubt. Before the Reformation it would doubtless be preserved with the most scrupulous attention; and there seems no reason for thinking that after the dissolution, when the privilege of Sanctuary was abolished, the original chair, if destroyed, should be replaced by another. It is more than probable that the puritans, who made such havoc of the original beautiful screen, broke and defaced it; and that the mason who repaired it, was obliged to destroy the inscription with the chisel, so as to give the chair a VOL. II. 2 I |