Sussex Archaeological Collections/Volume 6/On the (so called) Roll of Battle Abbey
Sussex Archaeological Collections.
ON THE (SO CALLED) ROLL OF BATTLE ABBEY.
BY THE REV. JOSEPH HUNTER, F.S.A.
READ AT THE MEETING AT BATTLE, JULY 23, 1852.
Every one, learned or unlearned, has heard of the Roll of Battle Abbey, or has read of it in books. There is a vague opinion floating in society that there exists a list of the persons who accompanied William Duke of Normandy in the expedition which ended in the subjugation of Saxon England, prepared by the persons who presided over the monastery which the duke erected at this place as a memorial of the event, and that perpetual prayers might be offered for them, and especially for those who were slain in the battle. Others have been content with the notion that it is a list of families who became settled in England at the Conquest. But though warning has from time to time been given not to trust too implicitly to any thing which is presented to us as being the roll in question, people not inattentive to gentilitial inquiry, nor without something of the spirit of critical research, are heard to speak of such a roll as a document, a record, or at least a quasi record; a certain writing of very high antiquity and authority; as a last appeal, an authoritative decider of controversies, whenever a question is raised, whether this or that family is of Saxon origin, or to be classed amongst those, who, as the phrase usually runs, "came in with the Conqueror at the conquest of England."
I propose to make this supposed Roll the subject of inquiry, and to give a little more of definiteness to the ideas entertained concerning it than at present seems to prevail. And in this it will be perceived that I have not been inattentive to the genius loci, assembled as we are within the very buildings of the monastery. At the same time I may be thought by some to owe an apology to you, gentlemen of Sussex, for anything which may be regarded as tending to the unsettling a favourite opinion, or to the disparaging testimony arising in your county to matter of great and general interest. My apology is this: that Archæology or Antiquarianism means minute and exact history; that you are an Archæological Association, intent therefore on acquiring and diffusing minute and exact knowledge in all matters of history; and that nothing can be more opposed to the spirit of such an Association, than persistence in error, or the encouragement of mere prejudices, however dear and interesting they may be.
In entering upon this subject, the first question which presents itself is, what do we mean when we speak of the Roll of Battle Abbey?
Now we know most authentically that this Abbey of Battle was founded by the Conqueror, on the actual field of the battle in which he gained the victory over Harold: that it was founded in commemoration of that battle and victory, and that the suffrages of the house should ascend for himself and family, for those persons by whose aid he had obtained the victory, and especially for those who were slain in the conflict; and nothing, it may be thought, could be more in accordance with the usages of the monastic foundations, than that the names of persons who were entitled to their suffrages should be recited in the services, or at least borne upon the hearts of those who were engaged in them. So that, antecedently to all investigation, it might be presumed that such a catalogue would be formed of the persons who composed Duke William's host, and be preserved in writing in the martyrology or some other record of the house, from whence the names might be read, if not on any other day, at least on the feast of Saint Calixtus, the anniversary day of the battle.
The foundation charter still exists. It is preserved in the British Museum, its number being 83. A. 12, of the Harleian Charters. The clause belonging to our inquiry is less specific than for our present purpose we might desire,—"et pro salute omnium quorum labore et auxilio regnum obtinui, et illorum maxime qui in ipso bello occubuerunt;" but as far as it goes it is perfectly intelligible.
It leaves no room to doubt that the whole of Duke William's army was to be remembered in the devout solemnities of the monastery; but then the question arises, whether the persons who composed this host were to be spoken of in those devotions nominatim, or only in general terms, and on the resolution of this question depends whether we have reason to believe that such a list as the Roll of Battle Abbey is by some understood to contain, was ever prepared.
This is a question, first, of general probability, and secondly, of fact and history.
It cannot be denied that the monks might so interpret the intention of their founder, that they might think it incumbent upon them, at least on the great anniversary of the battle, to make special mention of every person who had aided the Duke of Normandy in his enterprise, and in that case there must have been prepared a written catalogue of them, to be used in the services year by year. But then, to recite the name of every soldier who formed such a numerous host as that which the duke brought over with him, would seem to be so large a tax upon the patience of the monks, that it seems the more reasonable opinion that the monks gave a lax interpretation to this clause in the charter, and were content with naming the duke, his wife Matilda, and King Edward, and, then in the actual terms of the charter, all who had aided, and especially all who were slain, without descending to name every archer in the army or every captain of the several divisions of the host: and this probably was all that the founder actually intended.
So much for the general probability. We may wish that we could arrive at a different conclusion, for such a list prepared at the time of the foundation of the monastery would form a most authentic and valuable historical document, especially if, as would no doubt have been the case, there had been a distinction marked between those who were slain and those who survived the battle. It would be instructive as bearing on military antiquities; it would be of vast importance in its bearing on genealogical history. Had such a list been prepared, and had it descended to our time, we should then undoubtedly have had a Battle Abbey Roll in the highest and best sense.
Of the general probability every one may form an opinion. That opinion in most minds would I think be unfavourable; but another ground might be taken. A religious service, in which every soldier of a large army was to be named, might be thought too ponderous a duty; but the monks might, out of respect to their founder and in regard to the object of their foundation, have thought it right to prepare such a list and to enter it in the books relating to their house. This, though such a roll would be of less authority than the former, would still be a most valuable document, answering well to the idea which people form of the Roll of Battle Abbey. Have we then reason to believe that such a catalogue as this was prepared by them?
And this leads at once to what belongs both to this question and the one which preceded it,—what evidence is there, as a question of fact and history, that any such list was ever prepared?
In answer to this question it will, I believe, be universally admitted, that there is no testimony from any early chronicler, to the formation of such a list in the monastery for any purpose or on any suggestion whatever; that no such list is to be found in any of the registers, or chartularies, or chronicles of the house that have descended to our times, and there are several of them; that no separate script containing such a list exists, and yet the existing documents relating to the Abbey and its possessions are exceedingly numerous: and further, that no antiquary or other person of credit pretends to have ever seen or heard of such a list. So that we are driven to this conclusion, that no proof exists that such a list ever was prepared, and if prepared, it has not descended to our time, either in the original or in any copy.
It may be said, indeed, that we cannot tell how much of historical evidence may have perished when the monastery was broken up at the Reformation. This is true; but if such a list had existed when Leland visited Battle and noticed the historical manuscripts in the library, I think he would hardly have omitted to take notice of it, if any such document had then existed; and when so many persons prepared lists of men or families who came in with the Conqueror, as we shall soon see to have been the case, if the monks of Battle had possessed so early and authentic a list, that some of those persons would not have obtained copies of the list and formed their own collections upon it.
I fear then that we are driven to the conclusion, (1) That no Bede-Roll of the army was ever prepared, which Bede-Roll would have been the Battle Abbey Roll, in by far the highest and best sense of the word; (2) That no list of the duke's host was ever prepared for purposes less formal and important than to be used in the devout solemnities of the place; and that if such a roll ever did exist, it has long ago perished, as well as all copies of it or extracts from it.
But while I venture confidently to submit that no list of the army of the Duke of Normandy has come down to us with the authoritative stamp of the Abbey of Battle impressed upon it, I do not deny that there are several lists of persons or families who are said to have come in with the Conqueror, descended to us from times long before the Reformation, though not ascending to near the time of the Conquest: nor would I affirm that one or more of these may not have been the work of some private monk of the monastery, whose position naturally invited him to the consideration of such a question as this. At the same time, while admitting the probability that some private monk of the house may have thus amused himself in his hours of leisure, as many other persons in the middle ages did, there is no possibility of determining which of several lists is the work of a monk of Battle; and that if we could do so, we are not bound to attribute to it that kind of high authority which is yielded by popular opinion to the supposed Battle Abbey Roll. These lists, of which I shall speak in some detail, being ten in number, all differ in many respects from each other. They are evidently but conjectural lists formed according to the opportunities of information which the compilers of them possessed, and so are far from coming to us with any authority worthy of regard. Yet one or two of these lists it is supposed must be meant, when an appeal is made to the Roll of Battle Abbey.
The very diversity of these lists plainly shows that they are the works of different persons whose sources of knowledge were different. The diversity lies in the names and in the numbers. There are names of families in them which we know historically did not become settled in England till long after the Conquest. Persons are omitted of whom we have the best evidence that they were in the expedition. In fact, any critical student in that part of history might at this time form a similar list from Domesday Book and the old Norman chroniclers, and one which would be far more worthy of regard than any of these, though still depending for its authority on the credit which we gave to the skill and diligence of the individual compiler.
It was not till so late as the time of Queen Elizabeth that any claim was put forth on behalf of any of these lists to be the Roll of Battle Abbey, or to be in any way connected with the Abbey, except as having had a certain reference to the Conquest and to the influx of strangers from Normandy consequent on that event. Holinshead, in 1577, is the first writer who claims for any of them the title of the Roll of Battle Abbey, and he distinctly states that the roll which he has printed did some time belong to the Abbey. It is a list of surnames only, placed in alphabetical order, 629 in all, and all apparently names of French origin. With the testimony before us of such a writer as Holinshead, I should not pretend to say that he may not have copied the list from some manuscript which may have belonged to the House of Battle; but further than that I could not go, since the list has evident marks of being only one of the many lists of the kind which were prepared; and with Holinshead, Stowe is to be compared, who, a very few years later, published another list differing from Holinshead's, containing indeed, only 407 names, and for this he claims that it is taken "out of a table some time in Battle Abbey;" so that, at the very beginning, when our chroniclers began first to look upon these lists in connection with the Abbey, we have two different lists, the pretensions of each of which may be said to be equal. There is, however, a correspondency between them. Both begin with Aumarle and end with Wyvil, though in different orthographies. The second name in Holinshead's; Aincourt is absent from Stowe's, and yet the Deincourts would hardly defer even to a Battle table which excluded them from the distinction of having come in with the Conqueror. Neither Holinshead nor Stowe affords us any information respecting the channel through which they obtained their knowledge that their lists had any existence in the Abbey before the dissolution.
Next comes Du Chesne. He received from Camden a copy of Stowe's List, and he has printed it with the title—Cognomina Nobilium qui Gulielmum Normanniae Ducem in Angliam sequuti sunt: ex Tabula Monasterii de Bello in Anglia cum hac superscriptione—Then follow the five lines,
"Dicitur a bello Bellum locus hic, quia bello
Angligenæ victi sunt hie in morte relicti
Martyris in Christi festo cecidere Calixti.
Sexagenus erat sextus millesimus annus,
Cum pereunt Angli, stella monstrante cometa."
These lines are interesting enough; but it is extraordinary that Du Chesne did not perceive they formed no title, and no proper exordium to the list of Norman names which follows: nor is his testimony to the existence of the lists in the Abbey of Battle to be regarded as independent of the testimony of Stowe.
Camden, however, seems to have given credit to what Holinshead and Stowe have said of their lists having come from the Abbey,—"albeit, happly thay are not mentioned in those tables of Battle Abbey of such as came in at the Conquest," but in what light estimation these tables were in his opinion, appears from what he next says, "which whosoever considers well shall find always to be forged, and those names to be inserted which the time in every age favoured and were never mentioned in that authentical record." (Remains, 4to, 1629, p.130). Camden would seem to have entertained a notion that there was some primitive list made at Battle, but lost.
I must however halt at this step, to take especial notice of what is said by Browne Willis, an antiquary of a later age but of high authority. He wrote concise accounts of the abbies, which he called Mitred, and among them is Battle:—"Nor were the monks of Battle less careful about preserving a table of the Norman gentry which came into England with the Conqueror. This table also continued till the dissolution, and was seen by our admirable antiquary Mr. Leland, who hath given us the contents of it in the first tome of his 'Collectanea.'"
Willis seems to have confounded Leland with Stowe, who speaks of these tables, so designating them; for I cannot find that Leland does anywhere speak of lists or tables at Battle. It is just possible that Willis may have seen some portion of the 'Collectanea' not printed by Hearne; but in Hearne's edition of the 'Collectanea' there is nothing said of any list at Battle, the only list being that at vol. i, p. 206, an isolated fragment of history occupying pages 221-4, of Leland's manuscript, the two pages before it and the four which follow being left by him blank. It is true that it is an old list of families said to have come in with the Conqueror, but it is not said that it was found at Battle. It is, moreover, entirely different from either Holinshead's or Stowe's, being one of those sing-song lists in which the names are placed in couplets, of which more afterwards. If this is the list of which Willis speaks, we have then three lists, for all of which a Battle Abbey authority is claimed.
Holinshead was not the first person who printed one of these lists; for Grafton had printed the same list before him. Negative evidence of that kind, it may be said, does not go for much; but Grafton, when he introduces the list to the reader, says nothing of Battle, but only that he had the list of Mr. Clarencieux, meaning Cooke.
Fuller is only named here to show that he reproduces both Holinshead's list and Stowe's; following them in referring the lists to Battle Abbey.
Leland does not inform us from whence he derived the list which he has placed in his fine body of Collections for the history of English affairs. It is however one of the best. He gives the title, which he found with it, thus: "Et fait a savoir que toutes cestes gentez dount lor surnouns y sont escritz vindrent oue William le Conquerour a de primes." This is probably not later than the reign of Edward the First. It contains 498 names, beginning thus:
"Aumarill et Deyncourt,
Bertram et Buttencourt,
Biard et Biford,
Bardolf et Basset," &c.;
and thus it goes on, ending with
"Bardolf et Basset," &c.;Percehay et Pereris,
Fichent et Trivet."
We have now had three of these lists brought before us. The next I shall notice is that contained in the Chronicle of John Brompton, abbot of Gervas, a monastery in Yorkshire. It is probably one of the oldest. Of later writers Fuller and Du Chesne have both reproduced it. Du Chesne prefixed this title—Cognomina eorum qui cum Guilelmo Conquestore Angliam ingressi sunt: Ex Historia MS. Jorvalensi, authore Johanne Brampton, abbate Jorvalensi, qui floruit anno 1199. The fact, however, only is that the chronicle ends with the death of King Richard the First, in 1198. There is doubt about the exact time and the authorship of this Chronicle, not material to our present purpose.
The author of the Chronicle says of this list that he found it written, without any reference to the place where, and that the names which occur in it when he wrote were in frequent use in England. It is introduced by a piece of old French verse, in which the author of the list informs us that it was his intention to give a catalogue of the persons who accompanied the Conqueror, but finding that the names given at the font were often changed, as Edmund into Edward, Baldwin into Bernard, Godwin into Godard, and Elys into Edwine, he shall be content to give the surnames only which were not changed. Then follow 240 names in rhythmical couplets:—
"Maundevyle et Daundeville
Ounfrevyle et Downfrevyle
Bolvyle et Baskervyle
Evyle et Clevyle," &c.
The names with which it concludes are,
"Peyns et Pountlarge
Straunge et Sauvage."
The fifth of these lists contains 250 names. It much resembles the one just described, but is still materially different, as will be seen on comparison of the first four lines.
"Maundevyle et Saundevyle
Frevile Sechevile
Dumfrevile Dunstanvile
Botavile Basevile,." &c
It may be read in the Harleian MS. No. 293; where it is said to be taken from a manuscript of Matthew of Westminster in the Library of All Souls College. It has this title—Hec sunt cognomina procerum qui intraverunt Angliam cum Rege Willielmo Duce Normannorum conquestore Angliæ, et qui inheredati sunt in Angliæ in feodum militare. So that this at least is clearly a list not formed with any reference to the battle or the monastery.
In the same Harleian MS. is an English poem entitled—The names of Northmen and French that came in with King William the Conqueror, beginning thus:—
"Percye and Brown, the Malet and Bewchamp
Menile Vilers, and eke the Umfravile," &c.
and so in alternate rhyme, through seven stanzas. There are altogether about 240 names, all of which are said to be of families estated in England.
The collector of the miscellaneous matter which is bound together in the Harleian MS. No. 293, has still another list with the following title in English.—These be the surnames of the persons of reputaciounes that entred into England with William Conqueror. This list begins with
Dominus Percy, magnus Constabellarius.
Dominus Mowbray, Mariscallus.
Dominus Radulphus de Mortuo Mari, omnium strenuissimus, velut
alter Samson cum leonina ferocitate.
There are, however, no more flights such as this, and the author then proceeds with surnames only, beginning with Amarle, Ayncort, Bardolf, and ending with Percely and Perer; about 540 in all.
There is still another list in this MS. where the surnames are classed by their terminal syllables, Bastard, Baygnard, Brassard, Maignard, &c. It is headed, The Surnames of such as came into England with the Conqueror. There are about 400 names.
A list very similar to this but containing only 313 names, I have seen fairly written in a manuscript of the reign of King Edward the Third. It begins with Bastard, Baynard, and ends with Chien, Parlebien.
Another such a list is printed by Fuller (Church History), p. 165). This consists of 380 names, and is materially different from the nine of which we have spoken. The names are arranged alphabetically, beginning with Archerd, Averenges, and ending with Yvoire. The possession of the original is traced to a William Scriven, a name little known in literary history.
But although these ten lists differ so much from each other, that they may safely be asserted to be the work of different hands, yet there is a strong family resemblance; that is, there are many names which are common to all of them or nearly all. This is to be accounted for by the fact that whatever errors there may be in them, and whatever sophistications may have been committed upon any of them, there is still a large amount of truth; nor could it well be otherwise, since it is not any matter of question whether there were not some Norman families who came over with the Conqueror, and who remained in England, where large possessions had been given to them.
We see, however, that various persons must have attempted the formation of lists such as these; that they executed their task to the best of their power: but it follows, as a necessary conclusion, that their labours are something entirely different from a Bede-Roll of the monastery of Battle, or even from a list, had such been made in the Abbey at the time of its foundation, of the persons who formed the army of Duke William; and that whatsoever authority they possess, depends upon the opinion we may form of the success of the anonymous authors, which opinion must be guided by the concurrence which we perceive between the results of their labours, and the conclusion to which we ourselves may arrive by the study of the contemporary Norman chroniclers, and of our own chronicles and records, especially Domesday Book.
Authority seems to be quite out of the question in respect of any of them, not excepting those for which any claim is set up that they had been found at Battle. If we wish to know if Warren or Laci came in with the Conqueror, we should not now think of answering the question by referring to these lists; we know it on far higher evidence. But if we ask the same question respecting Mauley or Fumival, and appeal to these lists, we should find them there; but if we appeal to other authorities, we should find them absent from Domesday Book, and we should hardly find them in England at all, before the reigns of Richard the First and John. Lists of which this can be said, cannot be held to decide the question, when it is asked concerning a race, where there is no positive evidence of any other kind for or against, whether they came in with the Conqueror. Tayleur's list of the commanders of the host who embarked with the duke at Saint Valeries is essentially different from the lists above described. So is a little fragment of the followers of William de Moion, preserved by Leland, in his 'Collectenea' (vol. v, p. 202). Many names of persons in the expedition are also to be found in Ordericus, William of Poictiers, Wace, and others. A collection of the names, critically compiled, is a work yet to be performed.
What I have now ventured to offer to the consideration of the members of the Sussex Archaeological Society requires no summary: and I beg to conclude with a few more general remarks on the Abbey of Battle itself. We have an account of it of course in the great English Monasticon, but it was impossible, in a work like that, to intermix with the dry detail anything of sentiment or feeling, so as to give animation to the narrative, or so as to make prominent any peculiar or remarkable characteristic of each of these venerable foundations. Yet how much is there in the history of some of them; how much in the history of Battle in particular, to make it the subject of the study of any one in whom is united the disposition to minute research, with the ability to take comprehensive views of the events of ages past. How much also might taste, feeling, and the religious and the patriotic sentiment do with such a subject as this. I do not mean that the writer should convert his history into a romance, or should leave us in doubt where the fact ends, and the fiction begins. There was a gentleman, whom I had the pleasure of knowing, who had formed a just conception of what I mean, but who sank into the grave in quite the bloom of life, leaving only a very few specimens of what such a work in his hands would have been, among which is your own Abbey of Lewes.
The peculiar interest of Battle lies in many circumstances: the high authenticity of its history; the vast amount of manuscript relating to it; the vast extent of the building, and the magnificent appearance which it must have presented in many of the approaches to it; the large amount of ruin which still remains. But the very site inspires reverence when we remember that here was fought the last battle which Englishmen ever waged with an invading foe, and that here perished in a dreadful combat the last of an ancient line of sovereigns. But this kind of historic interest ends not here. We are presented with a hero-king "slain in war," but we are presented also with a victor destined to be the first of a long race of princes, who from this event take the beginning of the sway they have so long held in England. It is related that the duke, as he reposed after the battle, dreamed that he heard a voice which said to him—"Thou hast conquered; seize upon the crown and transmit it to a long posterity." It is now nearly eight hundred years since the voice was heard or seemed to be heard, and there is every prospect that the power then acquired by the Norman, modified as time goes on and men grow wiser, will descend in the same line for centuries yet to come.
These are among the earliest of the thoughts which spring up in the mind when in a meditative mood the holy precincts of this monastery are paced. We think also of the sacred rites which through five centuries were celebrated here: of the convent-bell; of the lighted windows; of the holy anthem; of the alms; of the sacred commemorations of the dead. Would that our reformers had felt more of the spirit of what we may call the poetry of religion. But the monastery of Battle while it shared all these with Glastonbury, St. Albans, and other early foundations of its class, has one circumstance peculiar to itself. It was not only a house of religion, it was a national monument, intended so to be, and if I say that you, people of Sussex, had in this the grandest monument of any public event which the piety, the affection, or the political wisdom of any of our princes has led them to erect, I say no more than what all England must allow to you. It was The Abbey of the Battle, the commemorative structure of that great event; and Battle we see has superseded every name by which the place might in earlier times be designated.
There are traces of that political sagacity which his contemporaries ascribe to William in the erection of so splendid a trophy. It was to some extent a support of the new power he had acquired. It awed the poor Saxon. It maintained while it exhibited the Norman supremacy in these southern parts of the kingdom. Seven hundred years ago a Saxon might have turned from it with aversion. We live in happier times. The distinction of Norman and Saxon has passed away. Look in the house of peers, how few there are who can be traced in male descent from any person who came in with the Conqueror, and in the few cases where this may be done on at least plausible evidence, how much of Saxon blood is blended with the Norman.
It has been the good fortune also of Battle Abbey to have afforded, ever since the dissolution, a place of residence to persons of distinction. One of them, Lady Montacute, was a very remarkable person, as the printed account of her life shows. The remains have been valued as a choice if I may not say as a sacred possession, and never more than now. To maintain such an edifice as the great church of the monastery was not to be thought of when its revenues were taken from it; to keep up all the buildings intended for the residence of perhaps several hundred persons was equally impossible; but observing the noble gateway and other remains I read with much surprise and some concern what Professor Lappenberg has written, knowing that his high historical reputation will cause what he says to be received throughout Europe as a true account.—"All these visible monuments of the battle of Leulac and the conquest of England are no more; crumbled and fallen are the once lofty halls of Battle Abbey, and by a few foundation stones in the midst of a swamp are we alone able to determine the spot where it once reared its towers and pinnacles." How much there is that is mere rhetoric in this, we who are now assembled within its ancient walls, can testify.