Habitual Piety and the Court Year

Medieval life, for court and country alike, was dictated by the Church calendar. After the gift-giving that marked New Year and the burning of the Yule log celebrations on Twelfth night came the dietary restrictions, Sunday sermons and solemnity of Lent, during which preachers, usually scholars or prominent ecclesiastics, were invited to preach on a Sunday for which they were rewarded 20s.[120] In the last years of Henry VII’s life, and the early years of Henry VIII’s reign, John Colet, the humanist dean of St. Paul’s, regularly gave the lesson.[121] Palm Sunday marked the start of Easter celebrations, which started in earnest on Maundy Thursday, known as ShireThursday in the Chamber Books, or, in modern parlance, Sheer Thursday. As Lisa Liddy points out in a blog written for this website, Sheer, meaning clean or absolved, is likely an allusion to the purification of the soul through confession and the physical act of cleaning churches, including washing altars, that was commonly undertaken on this day.[122] In a gesture of humility, on this day the king washed the feet of selected poor men and gave purses of Maundy coins to as many poor men as the king had had years of life. In 1496, for example, Maundy pence of 3s 4d per man were given to 40 ‘almoss men’, to correlate with this being the king’s 40^th year. The following payment was for ‘xl smale purses for [th]at money xx d’.[123] Good Friday was marked with further alms giving, and Easter Sunday saw the distribution of rewards or bonuses to the kitchen cooks and others within ‘thoffice of the Squillar[e]’, presumably for laying on the traditional Easter fare to mark the end of the boredom of Lenten meals, and the porters at the king’s gate.[124]

Henry VII had preferred places in which to spend the five major feasts of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, Whitsun and All Saints as well as other specific occasions. The king’s palace at Sheen, and later Richmond, after Sheen burnt down, was Henry VII’s preferred place to spend Easter and Whitsun, though Maundy Thursday was at Westminster for the ceremonial distribution of Maundy purses. Westminster was also where All Saints (1 November) was spent when possible, along with the feast of St. Edward (13 October), when, if the king was not still on his summer progress, he would wear his crown in a procession to a Mass heard by the shrine of the confessor in Westminster.[125] Christmas and Epiphany were generally spent at Westminster, partly to accommodate the secular feasting and celebrations that accompanied the feasts (see below) until the new palace at Richmond was completed in 1502 where he spent five of his eight last Christmases.[126]

Religious feasts also provided markers for what debts were due when. The law terms, four periods in which the law courts operated, were key here, created to avoid the major ecclesiastical festivals and the periods immediately preceding and succeeding them and avoiding Lent and harvest time.[127] The Exchequer mostly followed the same timetable, and the Chamber fell in line with the Exchequer. The longest, Michaelmas (or Michaelmes in the Chamber Books), began the day after the feast of St. Michael (29 September, a week later in the legal courts) until around the beginning of advent (the Sunday closest to 1 December). The week after the feast of St. Hilary (20 January) started Hilary term, which ran until the beginning of Lent, which might be as little as two, but rarely more than four, weeks long. [128] Easter term began a week after Easter Sunday (the law term started a week later) and continued past the feast of the Ascension (the fortieth day after Easter) until a week after Ascensiontide. Lastly, Trinity term was also of variable length, beginning a week and a day after Trinity Sunday, and ending three weeks after the feast of the nativity of St. John the Baptist (14 July).[129] The moveable nature of these terms led to the use of the nearest fixed point to either their beginning or their end as days of reckoning of debts payable. Hence the debts and obligations listed in the back of the Chamber Books usually refer to sums due at Michaelmas, for the beginning of Michaelmas term, Martinmes (St. Martin’s Day, 11 November) for its end, and so on.

The amount offered by the king at mass was habitually 6s 8d, varying only for the feasts of Christmas and Easter, when it usually doubled.[130] The king ordinarily attended Sunday mass in the Chapel Royal with the rest of his household, as he did at Christmas, Easter, Whitsunday and forty other feasts of the year.[131] The king’s offering would have been made for him at the high altar by one of his gentlemen ushers, whilst the king himself would have sat apart from the congregation in his own holyday closet, which probably contained its own altar and plate.[132] There is only one sustained period of absence in this practice when, for a period of 9 weeks from 2 September until 29 October 1508, no offering is made.[133] The most likely reason for this is that Sweating sickness had struck the king’s household and the king had therefore decided to take self-isolation measures, including hearing mass in his privy closet, a small chapel adjacent to his privy chamber where he usually heard his daily devotions. The sickness had not spared those close to the king – in the summer just passed, Hugh Denys, groom of the stool and the king’s closest servant in his Chamber, contracted the disease, as did Charles Somerset, Lord Herbert and vice-chamberlain of the household.[134] Richard Fox, Lord Privy Seal and bishop of Winchester and one of the king’s closest confidents, also contracted the sickness and exiled himself to his palace in Esher to recover.[135] All visitors to the court were banned, except for medical personnel.

Reflections of the king’s piety takes a variety of forms in the king’s Chamber Books, from alms and rewards to visiting friars, including those from the continent, or further, such as India, to giving money to religious fraternities and guilds.[136] Both Henry VII and Henry VIII subscribed to fraternities across the country, which benefitted from both the royal patronage and payment of fees, whilst the king would gain prayers from fellow members. London fraternities particularly benefitted: annual subscriptions were paid to the ‘brethered of seint George’, Southwark (13s 4d per annum, paid on the saint’s day), and that of St. Ursula (10s) from at least 1496.[137] Corpus Christi at St. Sepulcre Without Newgate (usually 13s 4d per occasion) and that of St Clement Without Temple Barr (6s 8d) received annual payments from 1505 until the end of Henry VII’s reign.[138] The fraternity of the Goldsmiths, a guild favoured by the early Tudor kings, based at St. Dunstan’s church received 40s annually from Henry VII, and Henry VIII maintained this payment, at least in the first decade of his reign.[139] It was not just London fraternities that benefitted, the king subscribed to the fraternity of Christ in Grantham (6s 8d)[140] and made occasional one-off payments, such as 40s he paid to the fraternity of St. Christopher at York in 1502.[141] The king also paid for a priest at Walsingham, who was paid 100s per half year, and for tapers to burn before the altar of the Virgin there, at a cost of 46s 3d for half a year.[142]