Strength and stability: Fountains in the
later Middle Ages
(1/10)
By the mid-fifteenth century Fountains had recovered
from the uproar of earlier years to enjoy a more settled period
of consolidation, stability and relatively prosperous times under
abbots John Greenwell (1442-1471), Thomas
Swinton (1471-8), John
Darnton (1478-95) and Marmaduke
Huby (1495-1526). Fountains was
once more a formidable power in the North of England whose abbots
played an active part in political and ecclesiastical affairs within
the locality and the realm.
Festivities at York
Abbot Greenwell was amongst those who attended the sumptuous celebration
to mark the installation of George Nevillle to the see of York in 1465.
Greenwell sat beside the abbot of St Mary’s, York, and was served
a sumptuous spread that included meat, soup, poultry and game, pies
jellies and custards. The diners worked their way through 300 tuns
of ale and 100 of wine, as well as 400 swans and 200 pheasants.
[Memorials of Fountains I, p. 148]
The abbots of Fountains were highly
regarded. In 1465 Abbot Greenwell attended the magnificent feast
to celebrate the installation of George Neville as archbishop of
York; fellow diners included the duke of Lancaster, who later ruled
England as later Richard III (see right). Abbot Thomas Swinton
was made a brother of the Corpus Christi Guild in 1471. John Darnton
and Marmaduke Huby were influential as commissioners for the chapter
in England and Wales, and in many ways dominated its activities
in the late fifteenth/early sixteenth centuries. Their personality,
ability and charisma was noted by contemporaries and helped establish
Fountains’ position as the pre-eminent abbey in the North
of England.(96) Fountains’ neighbours
were clearly impressed by the spirituality of the monks and made
benefactions to the abbey
in return for prayers, burial and other spiritual services. In
1472 a Ralph Snaith, who was seemingly a tenant of Fountains, bequeathed
twenty shillings to the community for a Mass and
dirge to be said for him; the following year the community received
twenty shillings
from the widow of Sir Roger Ward of Givendale (near Ripon). In
1479 the knight, Sir John Pilkington, bequeathed each monk of Fountains
six shillings and eight-pence for a requiem mass and £10
for repair work in the church.(97)
Still, life at Fountains was not
without its problems, and there were allegations of poisoning and
soothsaying at this time, and
a conspiracy to topple Marmaduke Huby. A particularly damaging
and long-drawn out affair was William Downom’s alleged poisoning
of his abbot, John
Greenwell, in 1448-9. William, a monk of Fountains,
was thought to have been provoked to this attack when the sick
abbot refused the pottage (broth) he had prepared for him. Correspondence
between the English abbots and the abbot of Cîteaux underlines
the gravity and expense of this incident.(98) A
slightly later scandal involved a William Byg, alias Lech of Wombwall,
who was sentenced
to do penance for soothsaying. His punishment was to wear a paper
scroll on his head with the words ‘Ecce sortilegus’ (‘Behold
the soothsayer’); papers inscribed with the words ‘Invocatur
spirituum’ (‘Invoker of spirits’) and ‘Sortilegus’ (‘Soothsayer’)
were fastened to his chest and back so that his guilt would be
known to all.(99)