St Patrick from Pope Celestine: while for those who made the toilsome ascent of the Tor St Phagan and St Deruvian had gained thirty more.
The question of Indulgences has been investigated by Dr. H. C. Lea in his great work on Auricular Confession. The earliest grant which he can point to as indisputably genuine is that made by Urban II at the dedication of the church of St Nicholas at Angers in a. d. 1096: it gave one month's relaxation of enjoined penance for the anniversary (Lea, iii. 141). At the dedication of Cluny in 1132 Innocent II granted 40 days for the anniversary (ibid. 145). Between these two dates, as I have shown elsewhere, may be confidently placed a grant by the papal legate, Peter of Cluny, to Westminster in 1121: this gave relaxation of 40 days of criminalia and a third of enjoined penance for minora to those who visited the church on the festival of the martyrdom of SS. Peter and Paul. A more substantial grant to the same church was made much later by Innocent IV (1243-54), namely, of a year and 40 days for the festival of St Edward.[1] Turning back to Dr. Lea's list we find that in 1163 Alexander III, in dedicating S. Germain des Prés, granted a year on the actual occasion and 20 days for the anniversary. But all these grants fade into insignificance before the benefits provided by St Phagan and St Deruvian.
There is another road by which we may approach our problem. Hearne has printed in the appendix to his John of Glastonbury a list of charters existing among the abbey muniments in 1247.[2] He has on p. 378 a heading which runs thus: 'Days of Indulgence for Glastonbury, of which we have not the charters, though we once had them '. This list is just what is needed to tell us what undoubted privileges Glastonbury claimed in the middle of the thirteenth century, a hundred years after William of Malmesbury's death. Though the monks could not show the charters, they were secure in the confirmation of all these days by a covering privilege of Pope Innocent III (1198-1216). The first was a grant by St Dunstan of 100 days: this doubtless was a forgery, but it had passed muster at Rome. The next is Lanfranc's grant of 30 days, which may well have been genuine. The next twelve do not rise in any instance above 40 days. Then Bishop Reginald of Bath grants 100 days, probably when he dedicated the chapel of St Mary at its restoration after the fire of 1184. His successor, Bishop Savary, who made himself abbot of Glastonbury, also granted 100 days. The list ends with Bishop Jocelin's grant of 30 days.
- ↑ Flete, History of Westminster Abbey, Introd., p. 21.
- ↑ See below, p. 46.
