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Notes
Grants from the American Philosophical Society and the Kansas State University Graduate School have made it possible for me to undertake the research for this study. I am grateful to the following institutions for permitting me to examine materials in their collections and for giving permission to quote from these materials: Lincoln Cathedral Library, the Public Record Office, the Borthwick Institute for Historical Research, the British Library, and York Minster Library. An earlier version of this paper was read at the annual conference of the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University in 1976.
DuBoulay, p. 79. DuBoulay's analysis of these anxieties is astute and compelling. That education and reading provided an opportunity to deal with such anxieties is evident not only from the existence of books of social and spiritual etiquette but from the encouragement for further reading contained in them. For example, the translator of The Book of the Knight of La Tour-Landry (ed. Thomas Wright, E.E.T.S., O.S. 33 [1868], pp. 118-119) observes: "eueri woman it is the beter that canne rede and haue knowinge of the lawe of God, and forto haue be lerned to haue vertu and science to withstonde the perilles of the sowle, and forto use and exerse the werkys of thair sauement, for that is thinge aproued and necessaire to alle women." See also Ratis Raving and Other Moral and Religious Pieces, ed. J. Rawson Lumby, E.E.T.S., O.S., 43, (1870), p. 46, lines 1572-76; p. 102, lines 3571-72.
This notice was apparently written by William Thornton, son of the scribe, to record the birth of his son Robert in 1453-54.
E. M. Thompson, et al, The New Palaeographical Society: Facsimiles of Ancient Manuscripts, Etc., Second Series, (1913-14), II, notes to plate 45.
The pedigree appears on an unnumbered page at the end of The Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, of East Newton, ed. Charles Jackson, Surtees Soc. Publ., No. 62, (1875). For a discussion of Comber and his scholarly interests, see my study "A Note on the Descent of the Thornton Manuscript," Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society, 6 (1976), 347-349.
Contemporary Yorkshiremen with the same name include Robert Thornton, pistor, of York (Register of the Freemen of the City of York, Surtees Soc. Publ., No. 96 [1897], I 152); Robert Thornton of Ingleton, yeoman (Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry V, Vol. II, 1416-1422, [1911], p. 386); Robert Thornton of Strensall, yeoman (Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Henry VI, Vol. IV, 1441-1446 [1908], p. 248; Magister Robert Thornton, citizen of York and a commissioner-general (unpublished will in York District Probate Registry, Vol. 2, f. 170r), and the two Robert Thorntons mentioned below in connection with the attack on Salisbury at Heworth.
Relevant material from the two decades prior to 1418 includes a commission of oyer and terminer formed in 1398 on a complaint by "Hugh Gascoigne, parson of Staynegreve" that a number of men of the area, "Robert Thornton of Neuton" among them, "broke his close and houses, . . . assaulted him, fished in his several fishery there and took away fish and goods and chattels" (Calendar of the Patent Rolls, Richard II, Vol. VI, 1396-99 [1909], p. 365); and two deeds, dated 1408-9 and 1414, respectively, involving grants of lands in the manor of Greater Habton (Yorkshire Deeds, Vol. VI, ed. C. T. Clay, Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series, Vol. 76 [1930], p. 77).
Inquisitions and Assessments Relating to Feudal Aids, 1284-1431, Vol. VI: York and Additions (1920), pp. 314, 316.
Selections from the will were published in Testamenta Eboracensia, Part II, ed. James Raine, Surtees Soc. Publ., No. 30 (1855), p. 82. The original appears in the York District Probate Registry, 2.26v-27r. I have silently expanded the abbreviations in this and other documents from which I have quoted in this paper. Harleian Charter 55 A.43, which I did not have opportunity to examine until after writing the present paper, is a grant of lands in Ryedale and Holderness by Richard Pikeryng to Robert Thornton ("Robert Thorneton de Newton") and three others including William Holthorp of Eddeston, who is mentioned below. This document is a further indication of the close relations of the Thornton, Pikeryng, and Holthorp families. It is interesting then to find in MS. Rawlinson A.393 an unnoticed version of Thornton's Liber de diversis medicinis, which contains not only the references to the Rector of Oswaldkirk found in Thornton's version, but also marginal comments concerning the Pikeryngs of Oswaldkirk.
Calendar of the Close Rolls, Henry VI, Vol. IV, 1441-47 (1937), pp. 159, 189; Public Record Office: C.54/293 and 294.
Yorkshire Deeds, Vol. X, ed. M. J. Stanley Price, Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Ser., Vol. 120 (1955), p. 122. This deed, formerly in the possession of the late Roger Lee, Esq., is now in the possession of the County Record Office at Northallerton, Yorks. I am very grateful to Miss M. K. Lee for the knowledge of its whereabouts and to M. Y. Ashcroft, archivist at Northallerton, for providing a microfilm copy.
Ibid., pp. 47-48. This deed is now in the possession of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society at Leeds, which kindly provided a photocopy.
Yorkshire Deeds, Vol. VII, ed. C. T. Clay, Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Ser., Vol. 83 (1932), pp. 149-150.
Calendar of the Fine Rolls, Vol. XIX, Henry VI, 1452-61 (1939), pp. 47, 83; PRO: C.60/260 and 261.
For analyses of the significance of these events, see R. L. Storey, The End of the House of Lancaster (1967), pp. 124-49; and Ralph A. Griffiths, "Local Rivalries and National Politics: The Percies, The Nevilles, and the Duke of Exeter, 1452-1455," Speculum, 48 (1968), 589-632.
PRO: King's Bench, Ancient Indictments, 9/149/6/8 and 9/149/11/16. I am grateful to Ralph Griffiths for having called my attention to these entries. Other evidence from the indictments drawn up in the aftermath of these disturbances is interesting but very puzzling. William Byngham of Brandesby, one of those discharged with Robert Thornton was among the malefactors in a minor incident described in formulaic and rather unhelpful terms in K. B., Anc. Indict., 9/149/9/6. The name of a John Capon, perhaps the John Capon of Uplethum discharged with Thornton, appears among the witnesses in K. B., Anc. Indict., 9/149/4/27. (A number of the others on this list—Ralph Fitz Randolph, John Wandesford, John Wyclyff, Ralph Rukeby, Thomas Monford—can be identified as Neville retainers: see A. J. Pollard, "The Northern Retainers of Richard Nevill, Earl of Salisbury," Northern History, 11 [1976], 52-69.) The witness list in K. B., Anc. Indict., 9/149/3, includes the name "Robert Thornton," with no geographical designation.
Thomas Rotherham, Archbishop of York (1480-1500), Statutes of Rotherham College, in Early Yorkshire Schools, Vol. II, ed. A. F. Leach, Yorks. Arch. Soc., Rec. Ser., Vol. 32 (1902), p. 110.
Nicholas Orme, English Schools in the Middle Ages (1973), pp. 305, 306, 310. Magister John Percehay of Swynton in Ryedale (whose book collection I shall discuss later) in a will dated 1391, made a bequest to "Alicae uxori Magistri Ricardi Scolesmaystri de Malton" (Testamenta Eboracensia, Part I, ed. J. Raine, Surt. Soc. Publ., No. 4 [1836] p. 164; Archbishop's Register 14 [Arundell], 27v); in this instance "Scolesmayster" may be simply a surname. Nevertheless, it is interesting to note the presence of two men with the title "magister" in rural Yorkshire. Professor Jo Ann H. Moran of George Washington University, who is engaged in a study of education in medieval Yorkshire, has kindly informed me of evidence indicating that these three schools were active in a later period: Helmsley, 1471; Hovingham, 1538; Malton, 1489-1508. Though we have no certainty, there seems a fair likelihood that one, if not all three places maintained their schools through the period under discussion. For a discussion of roads in the area of East Newton, see J. McDonnell and R. H. Hayes, "Roads and Communications, I (Pre-Conquest and Mediaeval)" in A History of Helmsley, Rievaulx and District, ed. J. McDonnell (1963), pp. 69-80.
Town Life in the Fifteenth Century (1907), p. 15. See also Orme, English Schools, pp. 167-223, and W. J. Frank Davies, Teaching Reading in Early England (1974), passim.
Register of the Freemen of the City of York, passim. The A/Y Book of Various Memoranda Relating to the City of York and Ainsty, f. 21r, at the Central Library in York indicates that the scriveners of York had formed a guild by 1425. Lucy Toulmin Smith, York Plays (1885), pp. xviii-xxvi, points out that the list of plays inscribed in this book in 1415 indicates that the parchment makers and bookbinders sponsored the Abraham play, while the scriveners and lumners (with the questors and dubbers) sponsored the doubting Thomas play.
"The Expansion and Decline of York in the Later Middle Ages," Economic History Review, 2nd ser., 12 (1959), 19.
See H. S. Bennett, "The Production and Dissemination of Vernacular Manuscripts in the Fifteenth Century," The Library, 5th ser., 1 (1946-47), 167-78; M. B. Parkes, "The Literacy of the Laity," Literature and Western Civilization: The Medieval World, ed. D. Daiches and A. Thorlby (1973), pp. 555-77; and Anne Hudson, "Some Aspects of Lollard Book Production," Studies in Church History, Vol. IX: Schism, Heresy, and Religious Protest (1972), pp. 147-57.
Pertinent comments on the use of testamentary evidence of book ownership are offered by Parkes, pp. 568-69, and K. B. MacFarlane, "The Education of the Nobility in Later Medieval England," The Nobility of Later Medieval England (1973), pp. 236-238. Of interest is the fact that when William Thornton recorded the birth of his son on f. 49v of the manuscript in 1453-54, he also wrote "William thortun armiger this boke." In what appears to be his will of 1488-9 the only book he mentions is "my newe messe buke," which he bequeathed "to the maner of Newton in Rydale to serve in Seynt Peter chapell to the world ende" (reprinted in The Autobiography of Mrs. Alice Thornton, p. 325). It would seem that both Robert and William Thornton passed the book along to another before their deaths.
That series from which I have drawn information for the following survey of book ownership is Testamenta Eboracensia, the first two parts of which are cited in notes 10 and 21 above. Also used in this survey is Vol. 3, Surtees Soc. Publ., No. 45 (1865). Hereafter, these works are cited as "TE" with the volume and page numbers following. Where I have had an opportunity to examine the original document, I provide a citation for the register in which it is found, along with the volume and folio numbers. In these citations "YD" refers to the York District Probate Registry, "A" refers to an Archbishop's Register, and "DC" refers to the Dean and Chapter of York Register of Wills. In general my quotations simply reproduce Raine's text; however, in those instances in which I have discovered misreadings, I emend silently.
E. F. Jacob, The Fifteenth Century, 1399-1485 (1961), p. 666, reports that Kempe owned books of theology and canon law valued at £ 263. 14s. 11d. In 1443 Robert Esyngwald, proctor in the court of York, bequeathed a number of theological books to his godson Robert Stillington (TE 2.91; YD 2.25or).
Although it has been assumed that Thornton's text of Liber de diversis medicinis is a unique version, I have come upon nine other manuscript versions. I hope to offer a report on their relations soon.
See the will and inventory of Thomas Grenewood, canon of York: TE 3.62-65; DC 1.203v; Borthwick Institute Inventory D/C 1421.
Though he does not discuss private chapels, M. G. A. Vale offers other valuable information concerning personal piety in Piety, Charity, and Literacy Among the Yorkshire Gentry, 1370-1480, Borthwick Papers, No. 5 (1976).
It might be noted that "Spiritus Guidonis" bears some close resemblances to the holy widow's vision of Purgatory in the Thornton MS., ff. 250r-258v.
Nicholas Love's "Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ," Analecta Cartusiana, 10 (1974), 17-18.
It is curious that we see, comparatively, so few references to the work of Richard Rolle in these wills. Most of those we find are bequests of his commentaries in the wills of important clergymen; see TE 1.366 (unspecified works in a collection of mystical writings); TE 2.78, 219; TE 3.91n, 133, 160, 199n. Two books and a quire of unspecified writings by Richard hermit are listed in a 1427 inventory of books owned by Henry Thorthorp, parson in the choir of York cathedral (unpubl. Borthwick Inst. inventory).
A survey of the distribution of service books, a matter beyond the scope of a study concerned with the Thornton MS. and analogous books, would make this point more emphatically. For example, Elizabeth de la Ryver of Brandesby, a member of a family with which the Thornton family had some acquaintance in 1408-9 (see Yorkshire Deeds, Vol. VI, p. 77), bequeathes "my Premyr and my Roulys" and "j Sawter" to relatives in 1454 (TE 2.174).
"Dialogue between a Lord and a Clerk upon Translation," An English Garner: Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse, ed. A. W. Pollard (1903; reprinted 1964), p. 205.
Another book that may be a collection of French romances is one described as "unum librum de gallico de Veteribus Historiis" and bequeathed by Sir Robert de Roos of Ingmanthorpp to his son Thomas in 1392 (TE 1.179; YD 1.51r).
The identity of "Decem Preceptis Alembe" is unknown. It should be noted that the word romance has a very wide range of meanings in medieval England. The Register of Thomas Langley, Bishop of Durham, 1406-1437, ed. R. L. Storey, (1957), II, 196, contains the 1421 will of Lady Maud Bowes of Dalton in le Dale, which mentions "j romance boke that is called The gospelles," "unam romance boke," and "j librum that is called Trystram."
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