AS SHOWN BY THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ABBOT JOHN ISLIP 1464-1532 BY H. F. WESTLAKE, M.A., F.S.A. Custodian and Minor Canon of Westminster Abbey LONDON PHILIP ALLAN & CO. QUALITY COURT, CHANCERY LANE First Published in April, 1921 Printed by Whitehead Brothers, Wolverhampton...

The story of the last forty years of the monastery of Westminster centres round two persons. In the thirty-two years of John Islip’s rule as Abbot he raised its glory to a height which it had never before attained. In the eight years that followed Abbot Boston reduced it to a level which made its dissolution easy. To plead that Boston was merely Cromwell’s tool is to offer but little excuse, for it was a position Islip would have disdained to occupy. Had Islip lived to witness an end which perha

The Rule of St. 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

In the closing years of the fifteenth century, almost certainly in the year 1492, John Islip began to keep a diary. Like many another such volume it is remarkable for the prolixity of its earlier pages, the scantier entries which succeed them, and the final omission of all but necessary business notes which had to be recorded somewhere. It is from this diary that the facts of his first years are derived. He was twenty-eight years old and it seemed a fitting occasion to put down something of the

Next in chronological sequence to the references in his diary to Islip’s earlier years is the brief entry that “on October 2, 1492 the King crossed the sea and came to the town called Le Slewse and afterwards went as far as Bulleyn , and there was killed Lord John Savage, Knight, by the French, and various others, and in the month of December the King returned.” We may note first of all a point of some small historical interest. The date of the King’s return to England is given as December 17th

On May 24th, 1498, Abbot John Estney died. He had ruled the monastery for twenty-four years and was nearly eighty years of age. There are indications that he had been for some time failing in health, and the fact that he had played no part in the action before the Privy Council in the matter of the burial of Henry VI. suggests that most of his powers had been by this time delegated to others. He had deserved well of the community and his loss must have been felt keenly by his sometime Chaplain,

Following on his installation as Abbot, Islip was the recipient of various presents in money from the obedientiaries of the Abbey as well as of many in kind from friends outside. The first month of office was spent quietly at Cheynygates and the earliest record of a visit abroad is contained in his steward’s note that “this yere my lorde Abbot, the Prior, the monk bayly, and all the Convent kepe ther Crystemasse w t. my seyd lord Abbott at his maner of Neyte.” The entertainment was of the most l

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; that it contained the saintly relics of one and owed its very structure to

When Islip died in 1532 the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, was already (with the exception of Hawkesmoor’s addition of the incongruous western towers in the eighteenth century) substantially the church that exists to-day, but in order to understand Islip’s contribution to the buildings as well as the structure erected to some extent independently of his personal initiative, it is necessary to go back to the time when Henry of Reims produced his plan for the new church which Henry III. h

“The knell that tolled at Islip’s death was really a knell for the Convent itself.” The appointment of his successor was long delayed and it is probable that intrigue was rife in the matter. John Fulwell, then Monk-Bailiff, was evidently strong enough to assume considerable authority in the monastery and it may well be that he looked to be appointed himself. On October 16th, 1532, he wrote to Cromwell reporting that “all things in the sanctuary as well within the monastery as without are in due

WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS: Rolls and Accounts of the Obedientiaries, 1480-1532. BOOKS: Bentley: Excerpta Historica , p. 404....

The Rites of Durham : Surtees Society, 1902 Vol. II. Customary of St. Augustine’s Canterbury and St. Peter’s Westminster , Henry Bradshaw Society, Vol. I., 1902; Vol. II., 1904. Islip’s Diary , Mun. 33290. Sub-Almoner’s Notebook , Mun. 33301. Domesday Chartulary. Mortuary Roll of John Islip. Infirmarer’s Rolls , 1480-84. Muns. 9462, 12790, 6631 dors. VOW ON PROFESSION. “Ego, frater N., promitto stabilitatem meam et conversionem morum meorum et obedientiam secundum regulam Sancti Benedicti, coram

BOOKS: Pollard: Henry VII. Stanley: Memorials of Westminster Abbey . Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1479. Venetian State Papers. Archæologia , 1914, Sir William Hope: The Funeral, Monument, and Chantry Chapel of King Henry the Fifth . Surtees Society, Vol. 35. Douthwaite: Gray’s Inn . WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS: Register Book , I. Rolls of the Monk-Bailiff , passim. Islip’s Diary , Mun. 33290. Depositions touching the site of the tomb of Henry VI. , Mun. 6389**. Judgment of the Privy Council , Mun.

BOOKS: Death of Abbot Estney , Mun. 5459. Domesday Chartulary , ff. 629, 633, 638, 639. Prior Mane’s Household Accounts , Mun. 33325. Sacrist’s Roll , 16-17 Henry VII. Muns. 5448, A, B, C; 5444, 5449, 5450, 5454, 6389***....

PUBLIC RECORDS: Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic , 1500-1532. Sacrist’s Rolls , 1490-1532. Articles of Complaint , Mun. 5447. Visitation Documents , Muns. 12788, 12789, 12790. Muns. 15212, 15703, 12757, 22950, 12521, 9611, 19814, 13188, 13304....

Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, 1500-32. Enrolment of Præmunire against Wolsey and Islip , Mun. 12256. Islip’s Household Accounts , Mun. 33320. Savoy Papers , Muns. 32408-24....

Subsacrist’s Rolls , Muns. 19836, 19818. Account Book of John Fulwell , Mun. 33303. Novum Opus Rolls. Abstract of Royal Indenture , Mun. 6637. PUBLIC RECORDS:...

Widmore : History of Westminster Abbey . Rackham : Nave of Westminster . Robinson: Benedictine Abbey of Westminster . Register of Consistory Court. Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, 1532-5. WESTMINSTER ABBEY MUNIMENTS: Rolls of the Novum Opus , 1532-4, and 12787. FOOTNOTES: [1] See also page 108. [2] Pollard: Henry VII., Vol. I. page 93 and note. [3] cf. Abbot Butler: Benedictine Monachism , p. 199, quoting from Cardinal Gasquet; English Monastic Life , pp. 42-50. [4] Westminster Abbey a