University of Virginia Library

Lincoln Cathedral Library MS. 91: Life and Milieu of the Scribe
by
George R. Keiser [*]

The increased scholarly interest in fifteenth-century England in recent years has made us aware that with the progress of education and the consequent spread of literacy in this period came a greater reliance by the middle strata of later medieval English society upon the written word for social, moral, and spiritual guidance, as well as for entertainment and personal communication. Economic prosperity among these middle strata, which was responsible for the progress of education, made of fifteenth-century England, according to F. R. H. DuBoulay, "a land in which men felt a sharpening self-consciousness about their social status."[1] A. R. Bridbury, in an analysis of this prosperity and its effects, has called attention to the development of "higher standards of domestic comfort enjoyed by classes which had hitherto been the drudges and minions of the social system" and "the quickening of their social aspirations," which are reflected in "the books of etiquette devoured by the new middle classes as they struggled with novel and perplexing social difficulties."[2] The anxiety inevitable in such an age "of ambition and upward striving,"[3] as it is aptly described by DuBoulay, inspired the production not only of the etiquette books mentioned by Bridbury, but of an abundance of other books that must have provided social, moral, and spiritual direction, of which a fair number are preserved in manuscript forms which reveal that they were made for and often by members of these middle strata of English society.

Among the many manuscripts still extant which testify to this new importance of the book for the middle classes is Lincoln Cathedral Library MS. 91, which, like British Library Additional MS. 31042, is associated with Robert Thornton, the apparent compiler and scribe. Although there were numerous Robert Thorntons in fifteenth-century England, a birth-record on f. 49v would seem to establish that the manuscript was the work of Robert Thornton, a member of the minor gentry who in 1418 became lord of East Newton, in the wapentake of Ryedale, North Riding of Yorkshire.[4] This manuscript, to judge from watermark evidence, was copied between 1420 and 1450,[5] and was an anthology of at least 340 leaves in its original condition, containing narrative works, devotional and moral writings, and medical recipes—a veritable library, with its contents organized, more or less, according to their generic nature. Beyond the fact that it preserves, so far as we know, the unique versions of the Prose Alexander, the Alliterative Morte Arthure, and Perceval of Galles, this manuscript is of special interest as a document of literary, cultural, and intellectual history. In this paper I propose to offer a preliminary examination of its value as such a document by considering what the information concerning Thornton's life and affairs and concerning ownership of books in the area to which he would have ready access, as well as evidence from the manuscript itself, suggests about the availability and importance of books in late medieval Yorkshire, especially for those who, like Thornton, were members of the middle strata of society.

Information concerning the life of Robert Thornton is sparse and what exists is sometimes of uncertain value. No private Thornton family documents from the period are extant. A family pedigree, which seems to attest to Robert Thornton's compilation of the Lincoln MS., was put together in the seventeenth century and published with corrections in the nineteenth. The original version, so far as I can discover, is no longer available, which is most unfortunate, for its compiler was Thomas Comber, Dean of Durham, whose correspondence indicates an interest in English antiquities (as does the fact that he compiled the pedigrees of the Wandesford and Thornton families, into which he had married) and an inclination to discover documentation when working in this area.[6] It would be most interesting to have the original version, for the published version disagrees at several points with information found in public records. Another difficulty in establishing the facts of the scribe's life is that the identification in public records is sometimes uncertain because Thornton is a common English name and there were several other Robert Thorntons living in Yorkshire at the same time as the

scribe.[7] Fortunately, names in public records often include a geographical designation. Thus, in some of the documents the identity is certain because the name given is "Robert Thornton of Newton." In others, the identification is at least possible because no other geographical designation appears. Therefore, in the following discussion, even at risk of being tedious, I shall specify the form of the name appearing in each document, wherever I have had an opportunity to examine the original.

Though we have no information about the date of birth of Robert Thornton, the pedigree indicates that he became lord of East Newton in 1418 upon the death of his father, by which time he would have reached his majority. While the authority of the pedigree is dubious at other points, it seems reasonable that in the absence of conflicting evidence we accept 1418 as a convenient starting point in searching public records for information concerning Thornton and assume that materials from an earlier time probably refer to his father, also named Robert Thornton.[8]

Proceeding then to the public records, we find, first, that two entries in the Feudal Aids of 1428 for Ryedale indicate that a Robert Thornton ("Robertus Thorneton" in one instance, "Robertus de Thorneton" in the other) held lands in two areas within the wapentake, both within easy reach of East Newton.[9] Among the other names appearing with Robert Thornton's is that of Richard Pikeryng, miles. As has been noticed previously, there exists a will, dated 1 September 1441, in which Richard Pikeryng of Oswaldkirk, miles, bequeathed to a Richard Thornton "meam nigram togam furratam & vi s. viij d. argenti" and to a Robert Thornton ("Roberto Thornton"), who is an executor of the will, "meam nigram togam furratam cum foynes."[10] The

pedigree indicates that Robert Thornton of Newton had a brother named Richard, but as the original version is not extant, we have no assurance that the nineteenth-century editor did not add the name as a result of his knowledge of the will, a portion of which had been published a few years earlier. (It is puzzling to discover that the pedigree also reports, inaccurately, that a third brother, Thomas, was a recipient of a bequest in this will and gives 1444 as the date of the will.) Nevertheless, the close proximity of East Newton to Oswaldkirk and the mention of the rector of the church there—possibly William Eslake, a witness to this will—as a source for some of the medical recipes in the manuscript (ff. 288r, 291v, 292r, 292v, etc.) permit us to suppose that the legatee in the will and the landholder in the Feudal Aids are the same person, Robert Thornton of Newton.

The Close Rolls record several property transactions at three different times—1443, 1449, 1468—involving Northolm and Great Eddeston, adjoining manors north of the river Rye and within ten kilometers of East Newton. In each of three quitclaim deeds recorded in 1443 the name of Robert Thornton of Newton ("Roberto Thornetone de Newtone") appears among the witnesses.[11] In 1449 Robert Thornton ("Roberto Thornetone") is witness to still another quitclaim; this same entry reports that those to whom an accompanying release of actions, plaints, and demands was directed included Robert Thornton of Newton ("Roberto Thorntone de Newetone"), as well as William, Thomas, and Richard, sons of the aforesaid Robert ("Willelmo, Thome, & Ricardo filiis predicti Roberti").[12] Thornton's appearance as a witness in these records, and especially in the latter document, raises the possibility that he may have had some particular relationship with these manors, and that as a result he may have come into contact with various Yorkshiremen associated with these manors, some of whom held prestigious rank and some of whom must have been fairly well educated: John Kempe, archbishop of York, subsequently archbishop of Canterbury and chancellor of England; Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury; Ralph, baron of Graystock; John and Nicholas Clyffe, chaplains in the city of York; John Thryske, mayor of York; Richard Warter and Thomas Ridley, aldermen of York. The release is of still further interest, for the information that Robert Thornton had sons named Thomas and Richard disagrees with the information found in the pedigree, where we find only one son, William, who must have been the author of the birth notice of his son Robert in the manuscript.

The final entry in the Close Rolls, a charter dated 1468, to which Robert

and William Thornton ("Roberto Thorneton Willelmo Thorneton") were witnesses, also conflicts with the pedigree, which indicates that Robert Thornton was dead by 1465.[13] Assuming that these witnesses were the Thorntons of Newton, it seems likely that Robert is the scribe, for it is rather improbable that the fourteen-year-old son of William would be witness to an important transaction and that, if he were, his name would precede that of his father. If this Robert Thornton is the scribe, it is especially interesting to know that his affairs brought him into contact with Robert Stillyngton, then Bishop of Bath and Wells, who would become chancellor of England in 1467 and who would testify to his interest in Yorkshire education by founding a school at Acaster in the East Riding. As the Close Roll entry indicates that Stillyngton had attorneys working on his behalf, Robert Thornton's contact with the bishop may have been only indirect at this time. At some other time, however, their interests may have brought them into more direct contact, for Robert Stillyngton seems to have been a relative of the two William Holthorps named in the release of 1449 and perhaps also of the William Stillyngton who, like Robert Thornton, was a witness to the quitclaim of 1449.

Among the deeds published by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, we find three from the period 1418-1469 in which the name of Robert Thornton appears. One is a release and quitclaim dated 1436 and involving property in Newton-le-Willows, in the wapentake of Hang East. The first name among the witnesses to this transaction is Robert Thornton of Newton ("Roberto Thorntone de Newtone in Rydale"), who is most certainly the scribe.[14] The other deeds are a demise, dated 1450, in which a Robert Thornton ("Robertum Thornton") conveys lands and tenements in Cawton to a Thomas Crewer,[15] and an indenture, dated 1450-1, involving property in Appletonle-Street, in which a Robert Thornton is among the witnesses.[16] The identification of the Robert Thornton in each of the latter two deeds as the scribe is far less certain than in the first, but still very possible.

If all or most of the references in the documents detailed above are to Robert Thornton of Newton, it would seem clear that by mid-century, now well into his middle years, as he had to be if he had reached his majority by 1418, the scribe must have been a man of some moderate prestige and influence, probably as a result of his landholdings, which presumably allowed him to attain a respectable degree of prosperity. Such an idea accords well

with the fact that in 1453, Robert Thornton of Newton was one of six men commissioned to levy and collect taxes for the North Riding.

By far the most intriguing biographical information about Thornton concerns his service as tax collector. An entry in the Fine Rolls for 12 June 1453 records the commissioning of Robert Thornton of Newton and five others to levy and collect a fifteenth and tenth and moiety of a fifteenth and tenth in the North Riding of Yorkshire. In another entry in the Fine Rolls, dated 9 May 1454, we find these same six men once more commissioned to levy and collect the same tax. From this second commission we learn that four of the original six, including Robert Thornton of Newton ("Roberto Thorntone de Newetone"), had earlier been discharged and replaced. The explanation given for the discharge is entirely unspecific: "the king, moved by certain sinister informations [sinistris informacionibus] laid before him in chancery" had discharged the four and commissioned their replacements. The reason given for the discharge of the replacements and the second commissioning of the original tax collectors is "sure information that certain of the former commissioners had already levied and collected divers sums of money, of the said tax, by colour of the letters patent directed to them."[17]

In view of the dates of the two commissions—12 June 1453 and 9 May 1454—we can reasonably assume that Thornton and the others may have been touched by or perhaps even involved in the important events that occurred between those dates. At the time of the first commissioning, the traditional Neville-Percy rivalry was coming to a head, and very soon thereafter it erupted in several very serious and violent disturbances in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Despite the appointment of commissions by the government to deal with the problem, tensions did not subside, and the North Riding continued to be the scene of riotous incidents through the autumn.

It is important to recall the series of events precipitated by the mental breakdown of the king in August 1453, when these disturbances were in full swing. The failure of the king to recover by the time of the birth of Prince Edward in October led to an intense struggle for power between Queen Margaret and her supporters, on the one hand, and Richard, Duke of York and his sympathizers, on the other. This struggle culminated in the proclamation of York as protector on 27 March 1454. York's choice for chancellor was Richard Neville, Earl of Salisbury, whose appointment to that position on 2 April raises the interesting question of whether the "sinister informations" reported in the chancery might have concerned participation by Robert Thornton and the others in the disturbances in the North Riding, perhaps on the side of the Percy family.[18]

Interestingly, we find that among the indictments prepared in June 1454, those listing the participants in an ambush on Salisbury and his family at Heworth, near York, on 24 August 1453 contain the names of Robert Thornton, franklin, of the soke of Catton and Robert Thornton, yeoman, of Brig or Pouncebelle.[19] While the geographical identifications clearly indicate that neither of these men is Robert Thornton of Newton, the similarity of the names leads one inevitably to speculate whether in a hectic period when rumor and accusation must have been rife, the latter might not have been a victim of a case of mistaken identity.

If we must settle for mere speculation in the matter of Robert Thornton's discharge and reappointment as tax collector, we still have the larger certainty to which his original appointment and the other particles of documentary evidence lead us: that is, Robert Thornton was no bookish recluse in the period 1420-1450, during which he apparently copied the Lincoln manuscript. Rather, it seems that he had a fairly ordinary life as an active, though by no means a leading citizen of Ryedale and the North Riding. The fact that such a man had sufficient education and sufficient interest to copy a book of the size and range of the Lincoln MS., not to mention Additional MS. 31042 as well, seems remarkable, as does the fact that he was able to obtain access to such a large and diverse body of materials. And it is to an explanation of these matters that we shall now turn our attention.

There are two possible explanations for Robert Thornton's education. Perhaps for Thornton, as for Thomas Rotherham, "gracia Dei, vir in gramatica doctus supervenerit, a quo ut a fonte primo instructi."[20] Or, Thornton may have had a more formal education at a school. Information concerning educational institutions in rural Yorkshire is very slight at present, but we do know that there were schools at Helmesley in the thirteenth century, at Hovingham in 1310, and at Malton in 1245—all three of which are within a short distance from East Newton, along the road known as Ampleforth High Street.[21] It is certainly possible that schools may still have been in existence

in the early fifteenth century at one or all of these places, for the more we discover about literacy and education in this period, the more reason we find for giving credence to that seemingly bold assertion set forth by Alice Stopford Green in 1907: "Not only in the busy centres of commerce, but in forest or waste or clung to the slopes of the northern moors, the children of the later middle ages were gathered into schools."[22]

Concerning the question of how Thornton obtained texts for copying, information from Yorkshire wills certainly suggests that a man in Thornton's circumstances, wishing to put together such a book as the Lincoln MS., would have found it possible, especially over a period of several years, to gain access to texts without serious difficulty. Testamentary evidence indicates that several people with whom Thornton was acquainted did own books, though we have no evidence that their books contained the particular items that Thornton copied. However, an examination of other wills makes clear that books similar to those from which Robert Thornton copied were in the possession of Yorkshire citizens of the sort with whom he might have had some social contact.

Most of these books, as we shall see, were held by citizens of York, a fact that is not remarkable when we consider that in this period York was an important center of education in northern England. The cathedral of St. Peter, in addition to offering a distinguished program of lectures on theology, maintained both a song school and a grammar school, the latter having an enrollment of well over 60 students in 1369.[23] In such a place, the atmosphere must have been conducive to the growth of literacy and to a steady interest in books, a supposition borne out by the evidence of the Freeman's Register of York, which attests to the fact that the book trade was a steady and prosperous one in York in this period. Among those who specified their trades in entries in the Freeman's Register between 1327 and 1473, we find 38 parchmentmakers, 1 stationer, 35 scriveners, 13 limners, (1339, 1349, 1391, 1406, 1418, 1419, 1424, 1434, 1436, 1439, 1460, 1462, 1472), and 6 bookbinders (1343, 1362, 1410, 1425, 1450, 1451).[24]

The educational opportunities and the interest in books in York must inevitably have had an effect on the intellectual life of rural Yorkshire. As J. N. Bartlett has observed in his study of the economy of York in the later Middle Ages:

There is little cause to wonder then that, where evidence is available, it points to a lively interest in books even in rural Yorkshire.

One final matter before turning to a survey of testamentary evidence is the need to say a few words about the limitations on the use of wills for evidence of book-ownership. Margaret Deanesly, in the early years of this century, found 338 bequests of books in 7,568 late medieval English wills (as printed in nineteenth-century editions) and concluded that wills showed "the extreme booklessness of the population as a whole."[26] While we can hardly declare the reverse of this conclusion to be true, more recent studies of the subject provide some reason to believe that, at least from the last years of the fourteenth century, the book was becoming an increasingly important part of the cultural life of those in the middle strata of English society.[27] As has been pointed out, Deanesly founded her argument on the unfortunate assumption that testators offered full accounts of books that they owned. Comparisons of inventories, where available, and wills reveal that testators often do not provide such accounts. Unhappily, it appears that they frequently gave attention only to service books, which have special value for their particular nature, obviously of special importance to a person approaching death, or for sentimental reasons, if the books had been in the family, or sometimes for luxurious bindings or illuminations. Many wills contain references to "all my books" or "libri non legati"; others contain bequests of chests

that may have contained books or simply bequests of "all my goods," among which there may well have been books. And we have no way of knowing how many books may have been given away or sold by a testator, afflicted perhaps with failing eyesight in later years, before the approach of the final illness.[28]

In the case of Yorkshire, we have a further problem. The most readily accessible wills are those appearing in the several series published by the Surtees Society, which are cullings of the wills transcribed in various Northern registries. Many of the relevant volumes in these series were prepared by Canon James Raine, a nineteenth-century antiquarian, who has recently received some severe criticism for the shortcomings in his work. From the great numbers of wills available, Raine did choose many for the purpose of showing the distribution of books in late medieval Yorkshire. However, because he wished his work to have wide appeal and usefulness, he ignored many others containing brief notices of books in order to accommodate other interests, particularly genealogical studies, a subject to which Raine is at times obsequiously attentive. Nevertheless, until we have a census of books in all the wills contained in Yorkshire registries, we must depend primarily on Raine's editions for what evidence they offer. And as I hope to show, even that limited evidence is of considerable value.[29]

Turning now to the evidence that Robert Thornton could have found texts for copying without serious difficulty, we find, first, that among the Yorkshiremen with whom those activities reported in public records brought him into contact several either owned books themselves or would have been able to provide access to books for Thornton. Both Archbishops Kempe and Stillyngton, the latter a benefactor of education in Yorkshire, had libraries,[30]

although it may be a bit farfetched to suppose that a man of Robert Thornton's station could have gained direct access to an archbishop's private library. Still, we may suppose that Thornton could have had contact with other clerics who would have had easier access to the libraries of greater churchmen and who may at least have had books of their own. We can be certain that two, John and Nicholas Clyffe, who are named in the Close Roll entry for 1443, did own books. In 1456 John bequeathed to his brother Nicholas a missal and breviary for the remainder of his life. In addition to these and other service books, John must have owned still other books, for he made provision for the sale of "libri mei non legati" (TE 2.21n). Nicholas, who died later that same year, had not only the service books he received from his brother, but at least one other, an antiphonal (TE 2.202; YD 2.333v). Closer to hand for Robert Thornton would be the various rectors of Ryedale parishes; William Eslake, the rector of Oswaldkirk mentioned above as a witness to the Pickeryng will, could have been the source of the several recipes Thornton seems to have added to his copy-text of the Liber de diversis medicinis and attributed to the "Rector de Oswaldkirke."[31] A somewhat earlier rector of the same parish, Thomas Brauspeth, in a will dated 1434, referred to his breviary as his best book, probably indicating thereby that he had others (YD 3.382v).

Of the laymen whose names appear with Thornton's in public records, we can be certain that some had access to books and that a few must have owned books. For example, William Gascoigne and Brian Stapleton, the members of parliament who were associated with Thornton in his service as tax collector, were men from ambitious families which had marital connections with such other families as the Scropes, the Rooses, and the Percies, whom we know did own books.[32] John Grenewood of Thresk, one of the men commissioned as tax collector in 1453, had two well educated brothers, both of whom had book collections.[33] William Overton, whose name appears in the Close Roll entry for 1449, bequeathed to his niece, a nun, "unum Primarium magnum cum coopertorio de damask coloris blodii" in his will of 1482-3 (TE 3.262).

One would like to believe that John Hedlam of Nunthorpe, knight, is the same person as John Hedlam of Staynton, gentleman, who was among those commissioned to levy and collect taxes in 1453, for it is tempting to suppose that Robert Thornton would have been acquainted with such a man. (Nunthorpe and Staynton are neighboring villages in the wapentake of Langbargh, and Hedlam's will of 1461 names the church at Staynton first in a list of bequests to parish churches.) Although it contains no mention of books (or of any of the testator's personal belongings, for that matter), this

most peculiar will reveals the importance of books and learning in the life of John Hedlam. Conforming only in superficial respects to the formulaic pattern of construction found in wills of this period, it is the personal expression of a widower facing death with the knowledge that he leaves behind several unprotected children, apparently still of a tender age. Most important for our interests, it is a work composed by a man immersed in the idiom and sentiment of vernacular devotional literature, such as that we find in the Thornton MS. Submitting to "the disposicon of God, his blissed moder Seynt Mary, and to all the Seyntes of Hevyn," Hedlam puts "the rewle and disposicion of all my gudes to the rewle" of several friends, especially "my worshipfull maistre and trusty ffrend Sir Thomas Dernton Priour of Gisburn": Unquestionably, this is the writing of a man for whom books and education are an essential need in life.

While the wills of his associates, where available, contain no accounts of books from which Robert Thornton might have copied his texts, other wills provide evidence indicating that such books were in the hands of Yorkshiremen of widely varying social position in the later Middle Ages. To judge from the information in wills, the books with the widest appeal were those containing devotional and moral writings of the sort that John Hedlam seems to have known well, and it is with these books that I shall begin my survey of testamentary evidence of book ownership. The frequent references in wills to the private chapels maintained by clergy, nobility, and gentry, presumably like that of St. Peter at East Newton, and to the service books kept in these chapels attest to the widespread practice of devotionalism and personal exercise in piety, in which the reading of inspirational works must have served an important part.[34]

For students of the Thornton MS., there is special interest in the bequest of a book described as "unum librum devocionis cum Psalterio Jeronimi" by John Hayton, vicar of Manthorp, to Henry Kettilthorp, apparently another cleric, in 1434, for the St. Jerome Psalter (in abridged form) is also part of the Thornton collection of devotional materials (TE 2.37; YD 3.388r). Other bequests of devotional books, none having so clear a connection with the Thornton collection, include the following: "unum librum Anglicanum

de Spiritu Guidon'" bequeathed by Gilmota Careek of York, to Alice, daughter of William Bows in 1408 (TE 1.352; YD 2.585v);[35] unum parvum "librum devotum cujus copiam habui de anachorita Lichfeld" bequeathed by Robert Wolveden, treasurer of York cathedral to John Appilton, apparently a cleric, in 1431-2 (TE 3.92; DC 1.235); "unum parvum Psalterium cum Ympnario et multis devotis orationibus" bequeathed by Magister John Gylby, rector of Knesale (Notts.), to his church ("praeter donata in vita mea") in 1435 (TE 2.51; YD 3.419v); "libros meos, qui sunt materiae moralis" bequeathed in 1436 by William Hayton, a York cleric, to various churches in which he held benefices (TE 2.57; A 19.16v); "unum librum Devocionum qui fuit patris mei" bequeathed by Thomas Dautree of York to his son William in 1459 (TE 2.232; YD 2.413v).

Turning now to wills naming individual works that would seem to correspond to items found in the Thornton MS., we find that as early as 1393 a York chandler, Jon of Croxton, who may have composed his own will in the vernacular, bequeathed to his nephew a "quayer of Edmund Mirrour in ynglysch," one of the works found in Thornton's book (TE 1.185; DC 1.111r). This bequest in Jon of Croxton's interesting will suggests the possibility that at a very early time there was alive in York, among members of the merchant class, that same devotional spirit that, because it led to collecting the wrong sort of books, nearly brought the inveterate Lollard and illiterate London skinner John Cleydon to the flames in 1415. Although this popular work is still extant in a fair number of manuscripts—in Latin and French, as well as English versions—I find only one other possible reference to it: an inventory, made in 1448, of books in the personal chapel of Thomas Morton, canon residentiary of York, includes, "De j libro de Tractatu Sancti Edmund x s" (TE 3.110). It seems worth noting that the social differences of these testators attest to the wide appeal of this work.

A book described as "unum librum de Sancto Spiritu" and bequeathed by Isabella Persay of York to Katherine Howme in 1401 may be a text of the popular "Abbey of the Holy Ghost," which appears in the Thornton MS. (TE 1.271; YD 3.63v). Only a small extract from the enormously popular "Prick of Conscience" appears in Thornton's collection; two Yorkshiremen who apparently owned complete versions of a work known as "Stimuli Consciencie" and "Stimuli Conscientiae in Anglica tractata"—presumably the "Prick"—were, respectively, Thomas Roos of Ingmanthorp, who bequeathed his book to William de Helagh, probably a cleric, in 1399 (TE 1.252; YD 3.23v), and William Revetour, a York chaplain, who gave his to Alice Bolton (TE 2.117; YD 2.238r). Books described as "Grace Dieu" appear with some frequency in medieval wills and are, as Miss Deanesly indicates, translations of de Deguilleville's Pèlerinage de l'Ame. However, there appears in the Thornton and three other manuscripts a moral tract entitled "Gracia Dei," and it may be that work, rather than a translation of the Pèlerinage, which

was contained in a book described as "unus liber vocatus Gracia Dei et de Vitis Patrum in Anglico scriptus in pergameno" in an inventory of books belonging to John Clerk, a chaplain in a church outside York in 1451 (TE 2.151; YD 2.227r). Tracts on the Pater Noster were abundant in late medieval England, and it would be rather foolish to propose that the treatise ascribed to Rolle in the Thornton MS. is the same work contained in the following books: "an Englissh boke of ye Pater Noster, glosid, with Matynes of ye Passion" bequeathed by John, Lord Scrope to his daughter in 1455 (TE 2.190; YD 2.323r); "j librum scriptum cum Pater Noster" bequeathed by William Downham, York chaplain, to Robert Traumer, chaplain, in 1464 (TE 2.268; YD 2.488r); "j librum Anglicum de Pater Noster et aliis" bequeathed by John Burns, York chaplain, to the prioress and convent at Monkton in 1479-80 (TE 3.199n). However, in these as in other cases where the identity of the book mentioned is uncertain, the knowledge of the distribution of books of similar nature is still of some value.

A popular subject for works intended to inspire meditative devotions in the late Middle Ages was the Life of Christ, especially that part known as the Passion. One of the more interesting works of this nature was Nicholas Love's "Myrrour of the Blessed Lyf of Jesu Christ," an early fifteenth-century English translation of the "Meditationes Vitae Christi," which was at the time ascribed to Bonaventure. Another translation of that part of the "Meditationes" concerned with the Passion, made in the fourteenth century, appears in the Thornton MS. and two others, bearing the name "The Previte off the Passioune." Elizabeth Salter, in a comprehensive study of Nicholas Love's work and other lives of Christ, has called attention to a number of wills that may contain bequests of Love's work, although in no case is Nicholas Love's name mentioned in the descriptions and the possibility seems to exist that some of these bequests may be the Latin original or "The Previte," which is ascribed to Bonaventure in the Thornton MS.[36]

Nevertheless, some of the bequests to which Salter calls attention (those associated with Yorkshire) and others she does not mention are of interest, for they show the accessibility of the sort of work that is represented in the Thornton MS. not only by "The Previte," but also by the tract ascribed to William Nassyngton and numerous short pieces concerning Jesus. Among the references to such works are the following: "librum meum Bonaventurae" bequeathed by Thomas Dautree, York clerk, to his son John in 1437 (TE 2.61; YD 3.494r), and then by John to his son William in 1459 (TE 2.232; YD 2.413v); "unum librum de Passione Domini" bequeathed by Eleanor Roos of York to her great-nephew Robert Roos of Ingmanthorp in 1438 (TE 2.65; YD 3.529r); "j librum vocatum Bonaventura in Meditat', in papiro," bequeathed by John Burns, York chaplain, to Simon Palmer, apparently another cleric, in 1479-80 (TE 3.199n).

An inventory listing several books of the sort we have been discussing is

worthy of special attention. This inventory of the possessions of Elizabeth, widow of William Sywardby (of Sewerby, in the East Riding) was, according to Raine, made in 1468; thus, the widow Sywardby was a contemporary of Robert Thornton, perhaps even close to him in age. Like Thornton, she maintained a private chapel and owned books which, as the inventory reveals, she kept in the chapel, where she must have used them for devotional exercises. She was a woman of substantial wealth, and some of her books were very valuable, probably works she commissioned, even purchased at a bookshop in York (in which city she seems to have had close associations with several citizens), rather than works produced at home by an unprofessional scribe: The similarities between the items in this list and the contents of the collection of devotional materials in the Thornton MS. are notable: the psalter recalls Thornton's abridged St. Jerome Psalter, and the works on the Life and Passion recall "The Previte," the tract ascribed to Nassyngton, and the minor works on themes from Christ's life. In addition, both Sywardby and Thornton were interested in the writings of Richard Rolle.[37] Finally, the widow Sywardby's interest in the "Revelations of St. Bridget" reminds us of the interest in revelatory material that led Thornton to include the holy widow's vision of Purgatory among his devotional materials and the Thomas of Erceldoune earlier in the manuscript. The point to be made from these similarities is that Elizabeth Sywardby and Robert Thornton, both residents of rural Yorkshire, clearly found in the book an important, perhaps even an essential means to spiritual fulfillment and that, as the evidence I have set forth in the preceding pages indicates, their interest in the book for this purpose does not make them by any means unusual members of their society.[38]

Turning to bequests of romances and romance collections such as we

find in the first 176 folios of the Thornton MS., that section of the manuscript which has received the greatest attention among modern readers, we find little evidence to suggest that Robert Thornton would have been able to obtain his romances as readily as he could have obtained devotional works. Bequests of romance books are rare in Yorkshire wills, and even those we find often are or may be in French, rather than in English. Therefore, all comments advanced on this subject must necessarily be very tentative. Proceeding cautiously then, I shall begin this discussion of the distribution of romances and romance-books and the consideration of how Thornton could have acquired the texts he copied in the first section of his manuscript by offering, for reasons that will soon be clear, a few observations on that near relative of the romance, the chronicle. Appearing with some regularity in Yorkshire wills are bequests of chronicles, such as the Brut, the Polychronicon in English and Latin, Guido delle Colonne's Historia Destructionis Troiae and other Troy-books, and unidentified chronicles,[39] which books were the ultimate source of many romances. These chronicles must have appealed not only to the sense of national identity that was developing at this time, but also to the moral concerns of those who wished "to see and beholde hem self in the mirrour of auncient stories, the which hathe been wretin bi oure aunsetters forto shewe us good ensaumples that thei dede to leue and to eschewe the euelle."[40] That, at all events, is what John Trevisa seems to have had in mind when he wrote, "all that is profitable needeth, and so for to speak, all men need to know the Chronicles."[41]

One will, from 1391, which contains a bequest of a French Brut, is worthy of notice because it is the will of an educated man and lover of books who lived in Ryedale, only a few miles from East Newton, fully a generation before Robert Thornton began to compile the Lincoln MS. Magister John Percehay of Swynton, of the parish of Appleton, owned a substantial library for the time, and described the contents with some care. In addition to a breviary, and a pair of decretals, and "unum parvum Registrum de pergameno," John Percehay owned "alium librum vocatum Trevet, nondum plene scriptum" and "unum librum vocatum Petrum Blesanz" (i.e., either Peter of Blois' De arte dictandi rhetorici or, more likely, the letter collection ascribed to him), this latter book an anthology also containing "in certis quaternis de Exposicione Officii Episcopi, ac commissione Beati Pauli, et Transfiguracione Domini, necnon de Expositione Beati Job, una cum Vita Beati Lazari." It is especially interesting to find that in 1391 a man of Ryedale should have a library of works more learned than the romances, religious tracts and saints' lives in Robert Thornton's book, but not entirely dissimilar in nature. Also of interest is the fact that Percehay bequeathed the Trivet and the anthology to John Newton, treasurer of York cathedral and a bibliophile,

and his Brut ("unum Brutum in gallico, quod est in manibus Thomae Slegill") to John de Scardeburgh, rector of a Northamptonshire village, who also owned a collection of books to which we shall give some attention presently (TE 1.164-65; A 14.27r-27v). Undoubtedly, John Percehay was not a typical resident of Ryedale. However, the existence of his book collection there in 1391 makes the existence of Robert Thornton's book 30-50 years later at least a little more understandable. Whatever combination of circumstances in Ryedale produced a man of learning with the scholarly temperament and love of books evident in John Percehay's detailed description of his library might also a generation later produce a gentleman with some learning and the enthusiasm evident in the labor Thornton devoted to compiling his manuscript. Furthermore, perhaps it is not too fanciful to assume that the presence of a man such as John Percehay can have an enduring effect on the intellectual life of an area. Finally, John Percehay's association with one of medieval York's most notable bibliophiles, John Newton, adds some force to my earlier argument that it may have been possible that men of his acquaintance—lesser clerics, in particular—might have provided Robert Thornton indirect access to the more lavish personal libraries of higher ecclesiastics.

To return to the main subject: there is sufficient reason to believe that the writers of romances, particularly those represented in the Thornton MS., intended their creations to appeal in the same manner as chronicles did to the moral sensibilities of their readers and to suppose that they succeeded in fulfilling that intention. The author of the Alliterative Morte Arthure, for example, is quite explicitly declaring this intention when, in his prologue, he asks divine aid in telling "Off elders of alde tym" in a work that is "Plesande & profitabill" (f.53r). Similarly, though less explicitly, the author of Sir Degrevante, after asking divine blessing upon his listeners, declares that it is appropriate for them to hear "Of beryns þat by fore were / þat lyffed in arethede" (f. 130r; cf. Sir Ysambrace, f. 109r: "Of eldirs þat by fore vs were / þat lyffede in are thede). In the same vein, the author of Octovyane states at the beginning of his romance: "Jhesu ffadir of heuene kynge / Gyff vs all thy dere blyssynge / And make vs glade & blythe / ffor ful sothe sawis I will ȝow synge" (f. 98v). If a bequest in the will of Joan, widow of Ralph, Lord Cromwell, is any indication of a more general attitude, there is no doubt that romances were accepted as works with serious moral concerns: in 1434 Lady Cromwell bequeathed to the parish church at Lamley "unam aulam steynid cum duobus costerys de historia de lebeus disconeus" (TE 2.40; A 19.14v).

That the romances, some of them at least, appealed to the moral sensibility of their readers seems an increasingly tenable argument, if we may judge from the direction of modern criticism. More important for the argument of this paper is the evidence of those few wills which contain bequests of what seem to be romance-books and which indicate the sort of persons from which Robert Thornton may have acquired his romances. Two particularly interesting wills in this regard are those of Thomas Dautree of York and his son John, both of whom seem to have been lawyers and also

rather avid readers with a wide range of interests. In 1437 Thomas bequeathed to his son John "librum meum de Gestis Trojanorum, meliorem librum de Gestis Alexandri, quaternam meam de Cronicis" and to John Saxton ("clerico meo") "unum librum de Bello Trojanorum." Among the other works bequeathed in this will are a book of Vices and Virtues, several registers, a psalter, a primer, Pupilla Oculi, "alium librum vocatum Francisci Petrarcae laureati," the Bonaventure mentioned above, and a book named for its former owner "Scropp"—i.e., Archbishop Richard le Scrope (TE 2.59-61; YD 3.493v-494r). John Dautree, his son, shared the tastes of his father, for on his death in 1459 his books included "unum librum de Gestis Alexandri," which he bequeathed appropriately to his son Alexander, and "unum librum de Bello Trojanorum." In addition, his will lists the book of Bishop le Scrope (now known as "librum Beatus Ricardus le Scrop), the Bonaventure, a devotional book ("qui fuit patris mei;" see above), several law books, a primer, a psalter, a Brut, and a life of St. Thomas Martyr, and a register formerly owned by Chief Justice William Gascoigne (TE 2.230-34; YD 2.413r-413v). If the Alexander- and Troy-books in these wills are books of romances (perhaps even English romances) their presence in the libraries of Thomas and John Dautree suggests that their owners found the contents fit subjects for serious contemplation. It may also suggest that at least in the case of romances, we can assume a rather sophisticated readership.

Elsewhere we find only a few other references to books that may be collections of romances. John de Scardeburgh, to whom John Percehay bequeathed his French Brut, had a substantial library at the time of his death in 1395. (Though a resident of Northamptonshire, Scardeburgh had Yorkshire connections that give his will some relevance to this discussion.) Two books appearing in his inventory may have contained romances. "Libellus rubius de Vitiis et aliis" may have been a collection of saints' lives, although one does find that Thornton's Prose Alexander concludes with the line, "Explicit vita Alexandry magni conquestoris" (f. 49r). Also, the phrase "et aliis" makes us wonder whether this little book might not have held a romance or two, especially when we consider that romances and saints' lives are often found together (see Cambridge Univ. Lib. MS. Ff. 2.38). Equally enigmatic is the listing "Quaternus cum diversis Narrationibus," which could be a collection of romances, since such works might well appeal to a reader who had a Brut and a Mandeville in his library (TE 3.6). Another intriguing bequest is that of "librum Angliae de Fabulis et Narracionibus" in 1433 by John Raventhorp, a York chaplain, to Agnes Celayne, "servienti michi per multos annos." Raventhorp's will indicates that this book was part of a library of more than ten books, mostly service-books and doctrinal treatises; it is interesting to find this book, which surely must have contained some romances, in this library and at the head of a list of bequests to a loyal servant, which concludes with "tabula depicta cum coronacione Beatae Virginis Mariae" (TE 2.29; YD 3.358). One other anthology that may have contained romances is described as "alium librum de Gestis Romanorum cum aliis Fabulis Isope et multis Narrationibus" bequeathed to the parish church of Brigsley in

Lincolnshire in 1474-5 by Robert Est, a York cleric, whose library also included "Psalterium glosatum, de propria scriptura Beati Ricardi, heremitae" (TE 3.159-60; YD 4.100v).

In a few cases, we find references to books containing specific romances; at least some of these may have been collections of romances designated, as is customary, only by the name of the first work in the book. In 1361 William Driffeld, York chaplain, owned one book "de Septem Sapientibus Romae, et Marcho filio Catonis cum caeteris contentis in eodem" and another "de Patre & Filio Tyto et Vaspasiano" (TE 1.73; DC 1.33r). In 1405 Sir John LeScrop, who also owned a Bible and a French Grace Dieu (i.e., de Deguilleville), bequeathed "unum librum de gallico vocatum Tristrem" to his daughter Joan (TE 1.339; DC 1.138v).[42] Finally, in 1432-3 Joan, widow of Sir Robert Hilton of Swyne, bequeathed "unum librum de Romanse incipientem cum Decem Preceptis Alembes" to her sister Katherine Comberworth and "unum librum de Romanse de Septem Sages" to Margaret Constable (TE 2.24; YD 3.347f-347v).[43]

As is readily apparent, information concerning distribution of romancebooks is scantier than that concerning distribution of devotional books. This fact itself would seem a significant indication that romance-books were not so readily available as devotional books appear to have been. To obtain his texts, probably from various sources, Robert Thornton may have had to take more pains than to obtain the devotional works he copied. Nevertheless, as the biographical evidence reviewed earlier shows, the activities documented in public records brought Thornton into contact with a wide range of clergy, lawyers, and gentry who might well have provided him direct or indirect access to books from the libraries of clerics and educated laymen from both York and rural Yorkshire.

The final section of Thornton's MS. is a collection of medical recipes in the vernacular, entitled Liber de diversis medicinis. As I have noted above, the references in the text to the rector of Oswaldkirk suggest the possibility that Thornton may have acquired the text of this book from the rector. This possibility would seem to be supported by the fact that of the few bequests of medical books, all are in the wills of clergymen. John de Harpham, vicar of Outthorne, bequeathed "unum librum de Phisica" to Nicholas, a Beverley apothecary in 1348 (TE 1.49; A 10.329). In 1378 Thomas de Farnylawe, chancellor of York cathedral, directed that his copy of Bernard de Gordon's Lilium Medicinae be sold and "precium ejus detur pro anima domini Willielmi Tayt, de quo habui librum illum" (TE 1.103; DC 1.69v). William Duffeld,

canon residentiary of York, Southwell, and Beverly, bequeathed a copy of John de Gaddesden's Rosa Medicinae to the library at Merton Hall, Oxford, in 1452-3 (TE 3.127; DC 1.273v). Nicholas Holme, canon at Ripon, bequeathed "unum librum de Medicinis" to Magister Oliver Blakwell in 1458-9 (TE 2.219; YD 2.399r). Finally, John Hurte, doctor of theology and a Nottingham vicar, bequeathed to King's College, Cambridge, "unum Phisicum, scilicet, Ysaac de Urinis, cum aliis in eodem" in 1476 (TE 3.221; YD 5.194v).

This survey of books in Yorkshire wills hardly gives us cause to believe that a Yorkshireman afflicted with sleeplessness would, like Chaucer, "bad oon reche me a book" (Book of the Duchess, 47) to fill his empty hours. It does, however, suggest that that range of the Yorkshire citizenry with whom Robert Thornton was associated in his public business could have provided him, directly or indirectly, with the texts of those writings which so engaged his imagination and interest that he copied them into the Lincoln MS. Furthermore, it suggests that his associations allowed if not ready access, at least such regular access to books that he must have been able not only to find texts without special pains but also to exercise some degree of choice in compiling his book.

In this regard, it is interesting to consider that Thornton has divided the contents of the manuscript (with a few exceptions) according to their general nature, with romances and other narratives in the first part and devotional and moral writings in the second. An obvious inference to be drawn from the fact that he organized his material in this way is that Thornton had in his mind a clear distinction between the two general categories of writings he expected to collect and between the emotional and intellectual responses of a reader to each. Thus, we see in Thornton a man whose response to literature may be more sophisticated than that of the fourteenth-century compiler (or compilers) of the Auchinleck MS. (National Library of Scotland, Advocates' MS. 19.2.1), in which the indiscriminate arrangement of materials attests to a more wide-eyed view of the writings available, a view appropriate to an earlier time when reading may not have been such a common experience. A second inference, and one of considerable importance to the argument of this paper, is that because Thornton envisioned such a division of materials in his book from the beginning of his work compiling it, he must have supposed that he would have regular access to a variety of materials for copying. (These inferences, of course, assume that Thornton acquired his material on a piecemeal basis, of which I shall say more in a moment.)

If my ideas concerning the genesis of this manuscript are accurate, these inferences deserve even greater emphasis. The Prose Alexander, with which the manuscript now begins, was not, I believe, the first work Thornton copied for his book. Indeed, I suggest that it was probably the last work copied and that it was copied after Thornton had, according to his original plan, completed his compilation of this book and had started work on B.L. Additional MS. 31042. The Alexander interested Thornton, but did not have a place in the Additional MS. which seems to have begun as a Spiritual History. It would, however, serve nicely as a companion piece to the Morte Arthure

which, like the Alexander, told the story of the conquests by and death of one of the Nine Worthies. This explanation would account for two unusual conditions in the first 52 leaves. First, the large areas left for illumination that was never completed in the text of the Alexander have no counterpart elsewhere in the Lincoln MS., but they do correspond in size to similar areas in the Additional MS. (see, for example, ff. 4v, 7r, 7v). Second, it would seem to explain the fact that Quire C, containing the last part of the Alexander, consists of single leaves and that Thornton left several of those leaves blank, rather than returning to add charms for toothaches and other scraps of verse and prose.[44]

If the Alliterative Morte Arthure was originally the first work in the romance collection, it is then significant that the first work in the collection of devotional writings (except for the minor pieces in ff. 176v-178v, which were added later to fill blank leaves at the end of Quire K) is "The Previte off the Passioune": From his study of dialects in both Thornton MSS., Angus McIntosh has concluded that these two works form a linguistically distinct group and that the manuscripts from which Thornton copied them "were probably the work of a single scribe."[45] I propose that these were the first works that Thornton acquired and that he acquired them at the same time and before he had any other works at hand.

The manuscript itself provides some evidence to support this idea. In Quires D, E, F, which contain the Morte Arthure and the first part of Octovyane, as in Quires L, M, N, which contain "The Previte" and several other devotional works, the scribe used pinholes at the junctures of the marginal rulings, whereas in all other quires, he used pinholes at the outer edges of the pages. Furthermore, Thornton, who was given to idiosyncrasies, made adjustments in the margin sizes so as to reduce the writing area successively in each of the three quires containing the Morte Arthure. The adjustments are minor, but the effect is to shift the written material toward the center of the page, thereby achieving a slightly more attractive appearance in each successive quire. In Quire L, which contains "The Previte," he used a writing area of the same size as that in Quire F and, in copying the text of "The Previte" he is unusually attentive to observance of the right margin so as to achieve an attractive appearance. If, as I believe, he copied the Morte Arthure first and "The Previte" next, it is interesting that he chose to begin a new quire, rather than simply using the remaining leaves of Quire F. (The fact that the margins in these remaining leaves are not wide enough to accommodate the double columns of the text of Octovyane would seem to indicate that he did not have this romance at hand when planning the margins in this quire; similarly, the poem ascribed to Nassyngton is too large for the margins in the remaining leaves of Quire L, following "The Previte.") This evidence points

to the idea that when Thornton began work for this book, he did so with a plan of organization that indicated complete confidence in his ability to acquire other materials, both narrative and devotional, for his volume.

As I conceded at the outset, this paper is a preliminary examination of the value of the Thornton MS. as a document of literary, cultural, and intellectual history. The factual information is far from complete, and the ideas based on it must therefore be tentative. Nevertheless, these ideas do permit us to conclude that what this book reveals about its scribe fits well with what we can learn about the life and society of Robert Thornton. He was an avid reader and a man of industry, enthusiasm, and ambition. His reason for compiling such a book most certainly was a desire to preserve for himself and his family works that appealed to his tastes and that would improve and uplift their spirits and, in the case of the medical receipts, heal their bodies. In this desire he seems to reflect an attitude common to a society which, except for its poorest members, must have been coming to accept the book as a natural and even necessary aspect of its domestic life.

Notes