¹ Robinson, J. A. (ed.) The History of Westminster Abbey by John Flete, Notes and Documents Relating to Westminster Abbey, 2 (Cambridge, 1909), 105, ‘Duas etiam cortinas sive dorsalia chori de historia domini salvatoris et beati regis Edwardi sumptibus propriis et expensis fieri procuravit, ac eidem ecclesiae dedit et reliquit’Google Scholar.

² Ibid., 103; Berkyng also gave three red and two green copes to the Abbey in 1238; see ibid., 108 ‘… dedit ecclesiae Westmonasteriensi duas capas virides brudatas (unde cum armis antiquis Angliae et nodis intermixtis) quas emerat sumptibus suis propriis ad Dei laudem et eccelesie’; cf. Legg, J. Wickham, ‘On an inventory of the vestry of Westminster Abbey, taken in 1388’, Archaeologia 52 (1890), 195CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 211, 259, 260. See also Westlake, H. F., Westminster Abbey, 2 vols. (London, 1923), I, 47–56Google Scholar.

³ Robinson, op. cit. (note 1), 24–30; J. Weever, Ancient Funerall Monuments (London 1631), 451. Robert Hare (d. 1611), matriculated at Caius in 1545; for his work see DNB (repr. Oxford, 1937–1938), VIII, 1257–8.Google ScholarLuard, H. R., Lives of Edward the Confessor, RS 3 (London 1858), xxvii–xxviii n. 1 notes that in 1552 Hare owned Oxford, Bodleian Library MS Selden 5, a fifteenth-century version of Aelred's life of St Edward (see below). This is of importance since it may explain why Hare was able to identify the St Edward scenes at Westminster so clearlyGoogle Scholar.

⁴ Robinson, op. cit. (note 1), 30; Brayley, E. W. and Neale, J. P., The History and Antiquities of the Abbey Church of St. Peter, Westminster, 2 vols. (London, 1818–1823), II, 272–3.Google Scholar I am unable to trace the history of this fragment of the tapestries. The hangings are not recorded in the Westminster Abbey inventories of 1388 and 1540. Dart, J., Westmonasterium, 2 vols., (London, 1723), I, 63 confuses the issue by supposing that the tapestries were hung in the sanctuary and not the choir: ‘This part of the choir within the Rails [i.e. the communion rails] was formerly hung with Cloth of Arras, which contain'd on one side the story of St. Edward, Hugolme (sic) and the Thief, with Verses … and the Story of the same King and the Pilgrim. On the other, the Coronation of our kings, with this Distich under it: Hanc Regum' (etc.) (no. 20). Little weight can be accorded to this observation given the tapestries' removal before Dart's dayGoogle Scholar.

⁵ For Bury, see James, M. R., On the Abbey of St Edmund at Bury (Cambridge Antiquarian Society, 1895), 200Google Scholar; for Peterborough, see Sandier, L. F., ‘Peterborough Abbey and the Peterborough Psalter in Brussels’, J. Brit. Archaeol. Ass. 33 (1970), 36–49.Google Scholar For Cologne, Clemen, P., Die gotischen Monumentalmalereien der Rheinlande (Düsseldorf, 1930), 179Google Scholar, 182, pls. 38–49; Schmidt, G., ‘Die Chorschrankenmalereien des Kölner Domes und die europäische Malerei’, Kölner Domblatt 44–5 (1979–1980), 293–340Google Scholar; Quednau, R., ‘Zum Programm der Chorshrankenmalereien im Kölner Dom’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 43 (1980), 244–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for J. Lestocquoy, Tournai, Deux siècles de l'histoire de la tapisserie (1300–1500), Paris, Arras, Lille, Tournai, Bruxelles, Mémoires de la Commission Départementale des Monuments Historiques du Pas-de-Calais, 19 (Arras, 1978), 45Google Scholar.

⁶ Colvin, H. M. (ed.), The History of the King's Works, (London, 1963), I, 130–57Google Scholar.

⁷ Cal. Close Rolls 1251–3, 280; Edward of Westminster was mandated to seek timber for the roof of the church and ‘ad stalla monachorum in eadem ecclesia facienda. Et, quamcito poterit, operari faciat circa factoram [sic] stallorum illorum’; Colvin, op. cit. (note 6), I,143. Payments for the stalls (their columns) were still being enrolled in 1264–6, see Colvin, H. M. (ed.), Building Accounts of King Henry III (Oxford, 1971), 194–5Google Scholar, 210–11, 418–19. In general, Bond, F., Wood Carvings in English Churches (London, 1910)Google Scholar, esp. 13–15, is still fundamental; see also Tracy, C, English Gothic Choir-Stalls 1200–1400 (Woodbridge, 1987), 1–8Google Scholar.

⁸ WAM (P) 916. See also the plan dated c. 1724, illustrated in The Wren Society 22 (1934) pl. iv and 115–16Google Scholar; Perkins, J., Westminster Abbey, its Worship and Ornaments, 3 vols. (London, 1938–1952), I, 121Google Scholar, 124. The provision of stalls was therefore generous; the community is not likely to have numbered much over 40–50 in this period, see Pearce, E. H., The Monks of Westminster, Notes and Documents Relating to Westminster Abbey 5 (Cambridge, 1916), x.Google Scholar The abbot sat in the return stalls on the south side, the prior opposite him in the north return stalls, positions occupied later by the dean and sub-dean: Dart, op. cit. (note 4), I, 61–2; Bond, F., Westminster Abbey (Oxford, 1909), 47Google Scholar.

⁹ Robinson, op. cit. (note 1), 24–7.

¹⁰ For Wells, see Hope, W. H. St John, ‘The imagery and sculptures on the west front of Wells Cathedral Church’, Archaeologia 59 (1904)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, pl. xxvi (N.k); for the Munich Psalter, see Morgan, N. J., Early Gothic Manuscripts (I) 1190–1250: A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, IV (Oxford, 1982), 70Google Scholar, no. 23; the iconography recurs in BL Arundel MS 157, ibid., 72 no. 24 and BL Royal MS I.D.X, ibid., 75–6, no. 28.

¹¹ cf. the more extended Gospel illustrations of the sort on the Anagni Cope, Christie, A. G. I., English Medieval Embroidery (Oxford, 1938) 99–101Google Scholar, no. 54, pls. li–liii, which include Mary taking the boy Christ from the Temple and Judas receiving the silver, and the Saint-Maximin cope, which includes the former, ibid., 110–12, no. 59, pls. lx–lxii.

¹² Robinson, op. cit. (note 1), 106: ‘Sepultusque erat ante medium altaris in capella beatissimae mariae virginis in tumba marmorea decenter ornata’.

¹³ See Tristram, E. W., English Medieval Wall Painting: the Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1950), 561–2Google Scholar, pls. 7–10, supp. pl. 12. The text reads: ME: QVEM: CVLPA: GRAVIS: PREMIT: ERIGE: VIRGO: SVAVIS: /FAC: MIHI: PLACATVM: CHRISTVM: DELEASQVE: REATVM. The words ‘culpa gravis’ occurred in Berkyng's tapestries in the caption to the picture illustrating Judas hanging himself, Robinson op. cit. (note 1), 26, no. 16. Compositions such as that on fol. 150 of the contemporary Missal of Henry of Chichester (John Rylands University Library, Manchester MS lat. 24) showing Henry kneeling before the Virgin, should also be borne in mind, see Morgan, N. J., English Gothic Manuscripts (II) 1250–1285: A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, IV. 2(London, 1988), 57–9, no. 100Google Scholar.

¹⁴ The occurrence of founder-figures in the dorsalia textiles, as well as Gospel and St Edward imagery, appears to anticipate the iconography of the figures painted on the sedilia in the sanctuary of Westminster Abbey, located over King Sebert's tomb and perhaps depicting on the north side the early figures in Westminster Abbey's history: Sebert, King Ethelbert, St Peter and St Mellitus, with on the south the Annunciation and St Edward and St John. See Binski, P., The Painted Chamber at Westminster, Soc. Antiq. London Occ. Pap. 9 (London, 1986), 79 and 146, n. 51Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Weever, op. cit. (note 3), 483; Dart, op. cit. (note 4), 1, 51, 63.

¹⁶ Harrison, M., ‘A life of St Edward the Confessor in early fourteenth-century stained glass at Fécamp, in Normandy’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 26 (1963), 22, 28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹⁷ Weever, op. cit. (note 3), 483; for Aelred's text, see Migne, PL 195, cols. 738–90, 740.

¹⁸ Ibid., cols. 755–7, 766–7, 760–1.

¹⁹ Aelred, ibid., col. 753, includes only the abolition of the Danegeld; James, M. R., La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (Roxburghe Club, Oxford, 1920)Google Scholar, 14 suggests that the episode of the vision of the devil on the treasure is an interpolation from Brompton's Chronicle, and for the textual tradition, see Wallace, K. Y. (ed.), La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei, Anglo-Norman Text Society 41 (London, 1983), xxvi–xxviiGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ cf. Migne, PL 195, cols. 762–5. It is conceivable that the miracles of St Edward, as opposed to his visions, were not so fully illustrated in the choir tapestries because they were represented in the vicinity of the shrine. The 1520 inventory of St Edward's Chapel makes mention of a cloth with pictures about the saint, of unknown antiquity and contents, hanging about the shrine, see Westlake, op. cit. (note 2), II, 504–5.

²¹ See James, op. cit. (note 19); Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 94–8, no. 123, with full bibliography.

²² James, op. cit. (note 19), 71–3.

²³ MS B.10.2 measures 14·5 × 10 inches and consists of 44 folios, collated thus: a(12) b(8) c(6) d(8) e(8) f?(2 remain). See James, M. R., The Western Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge: a Descriptive Catalogue, 4 vols., (Cambridge, 1900–1904), I, 283–6Google Scholar, no. 213; Simpson, A., The Connections between English and Bohemian Painting during the Second Half of the Fourteenth Century (New York and London, 1984), 137Google Scholar, 153–4; Sandier, L. F., Gothic Manuscripts 1285–1385: A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, V (Oxford, 1986), 176, no. 153Google Scholar.

²⁴ James, op. cit. (note 23), 285–6; Simpson, op. cit. (note 23), 153–4; Alexander, J. and Binski, P. (eds.), Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England 1200–1400 (London, 1987), 217, no. 40. The St Edward pictures begin in the midst of gathering e, and so seem to have been planned from the outsetGoogle Scholar.

²⁵ James, op. cit. (note 23), 286, no. 10, misidentifies the choking of Earl Godwin as Harold and Tostig fighting.

²⁶ The illustration thus accords with Aelred's account (Migne, PL 195, col. 768) in which Duke Harold sends a knight, a bishop, a clerk, an abbot and a monk to the Emperor of Constantinople with news of the vision, who in turn sends ‘some’ to Ephesus; cf. Luard, op. cit. (note 3), 121, 275 vv. 3410–25.

²⁷ Weever, op. cit. (note 3), 483 writes of Hugolin's grave and refers to his depiction in the tapestries in the story of the thief in the treasury: ‘This passage of the aforesaid pilfery is delineated, and wrought in the hangings about the Quire, with the Portraitures of the king, Hugolin, and the Theefe: under which are these verses: Ecce minus (sic)’; cf. Dart, op. cit. (note 4), I, 19.

²⁸ Dart, op. cit. (note 4), I, 63; Weever, op. cit. (note 3), 451 also quotes this verse in connection with the coronation, so lending credence to the notion that this picture bore no relation to the St Peter pictures in MS B.10.2.

²⁹ See Sandier 1986, op. cit. (note 23), 176, and Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 98–101, nos. 124, 125.

³⁰ Ibid., 101–6, no. 126.

³¹ Noppen, J. G., ‘The Westminster Apocalypse and its source’, Burlington Magazine 61 (1932), 146–59Google Scholar; Tristram, E. W., English Wall Painting of the Fourteenth Century (London, 1955), 45–8Google Scholar, 201–6; Turner, B., ‘The patronage of John of Northampton’, J. Brit. Archaeol. Ass. 138 (1985), 89–100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for Ricardian taste, see for example Harvey, J. H., ‘The Wilton Diptych—a reexamination’, Archaeologia 98 (1961), 1–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³² We may also note that the image of the cherub on fol. 48^V of the Lambeth Apocalypse, although fairly common, anticipates the Westminster chapter house murals, whose ‘Judgement’ mural includes a similar figure with lettered wings; see M. Evans, ‘An illustrated fragment of Peraldus's Summa of Vice: Harleian MS 3244, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 45 (1982), 14, 23; Turner, op. cit. (note 31), 90–1. I take it that the penitential imagery of the chapter-house mural in question is specifically monastic, referring to the daily capitulum culparumCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

³³ See James, op. cit. (note 19), 71–2; James, M. R., et al, RCHM (England), London 1: Westminster Abbey (London, 1924), 25Google Scholar, pls. 42–3 a–n; Tanner, L. E., ‘Some representations of St Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey and elsewhere’, J. Brit. Archaeol. Ass., 3rd ser., 15 (1952), 8–9.Google Scholar I have suggested elsewhere that the decoration of the screen in this way may be a late medieval version of the figurated beams set over high altars in earlier periods, one of which, at St Albans Abbey, was similarly carved in the early thirteenth century with the life of St Alban: P. Binski, ‘What was the Westminster Retable?’, J. Brit. Archaeol. Ass. 140 (1987), 169Google Scholar.

³⁴ James, op. cit. (note 19), 71 gives scene 6 on the screen as ‘Edward at Mass’, while the caption to RCHM, op. cit. (note 33), 25 and pl. 42f identifies it as ‘The apparition of Christ’ (i.e. at the Eucharist). Given its position in the sequence this is plainly wrong: Edward is at mass, but on the occasion when he had the vision of the King of Denmark drowning.

³⁵ Again, James, op. cit. (note 19), 72 (and cf. note 25 above) says that this scene is ‘apparently the quarrel of Harold and Tostig’, a view repeated by him in RCHM, op. cit. (note 33), 25 and pl. 43h, but the two figures before the table are not fighting, corresponding rather to the two kneeling servants in the illustration on fol. 41 of MS B.10.2; cf. also Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), 26, n. 30.

³⁷ Simpson, op. cit. (note 23), 153, n.3, is sceptical about the relationship: ‘Although M. R. James considered these drawings to have provided the model for the screen in the Confessor's Chapel in Westminster Abbey, the parallel choice of scenes was presumably dictated by the noted incidents in the Saint's life, and scene for scene the differences between the two series are more marked than the similarities’. This observation may hold true for many of the details, but the overall correspondence in the programmes is still striking when seen in the light of all the evidence for the iconography of St Edward.

³⁷ Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 91–2, no. 121, who proposes a later date (c. 1250–60) than that of Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), 28.

³⁸ See Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), 28–9, pls. 7, 8a; Barlow, F., Edward the Confessor (Berkeley, 1970), pls. 14–16. The first two scenes in this sequence (fol. 1^V) are troublesome, since they both show St Edward seated amidst his courtiers at table, and are not clearly differentiated. In the first Edward gestures across his breast to his left, to one of his companions, while in the second he indicates in the same direction with a more emphatic gesture. These episodes might pertain to the story of Earl Godwin's choking at table before Edward in ‘trial by morsel’, as suggested by Harrison, but it remains unclear why this scene should have been accorded two separate pictures. None of the figures with Edward appears to be in extremis; in MS B.10.2 and in Aedward Godwin is palpably discomfited and is dragged down and away by the legsGoogle Scholar.

³⁹ Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 92 rightly notes the proximity of these episodes to the tapestries and not to the French verse Aedward. For the Laws of St Edward, see for example Holt, J. C., Magna Carta (Cambridge, 1976), 96–7Google Scholar.

⁴⁰ Borenius, T., ‘The cycle of images in the palaces and castles of Henry III’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 6 (1943), 43; Tristram, op. cit. (note 13), 148–52, 459–61, 528, 566; Colvin, op. cit. (note 6), 148CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁴¹ RCHM, op. cit. (note 33), pl. 93; Tanner, op. cit. (note 33), pl. iv (a); Tristram, op. cit. (note 31), 198–9; Binski 1986, op. cit. (note 14), 40, 114–15, nos. 1, 3, 4; pls. i, ii, iv, v.

⁴² See Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 94–8, no. 123. According to Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), 33 this cycle was preferred by the Benedictines of Fécamp for their Lady Chapel glass, including St Edward (eleven scenes) and St Louis. The stained-glass panels about the saint at Amiens Cathedral seem also to have had French texts: Tanner, op. cit. (note 33), 8; Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), 25–6.

⁴³ Luard, op. cit. (note 3), x–xi.

⁴⁴ Fritz, R., Über Verfasser und Quellen der altfranzösische Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (Heidelberg, 1910)Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ James, op. cit. (note 19).

⁴⁶ Ibid., 17–34.

⁴⁷ Vaughan, R., Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), 168–81Google Scholar.

⁴⁸ Freyhan, R., ‘Joachism and the English Apocalypse’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 18 (1955),238–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Henderson, G., ‘Studies in English manuscript illumination’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 30 (1967), 71–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar, 111–12; idem, ‘Studies in English manuscript illumination, part III: the English Apocalypse; II’, J. Warburg Courtauld Inst. 31 (1968), 103–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 92–100, nos. 122–4.

⁴⁹ Ibid., 69–70, no. 107. Morgan, ibid., 95 suggests that two hands worked on Aedward, but I presume the number to be at least three, including the Morgan Apocalypse hand (e.g. fols. 3^V–5), the Tanner Apocalypse-related hand (fols. 5^V–6), and a third or fourth, the most progressive. Aedward is stylistically much more heterogeneous than its relatives.

⁵⁰ Wallace, op. cit. (note 19).

⁵¹ James, op. cit. (note 19), 17–34; Lowe, W. R. L., Jacob, E. F. and James, M. R., ed. and intro., Illustrations to the Life of St Alban in Trinity College, Dublin (Oxford, 1924); Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 159–81; Henderson, op. cit. (note 48, 1967), 71–85Google Scholar.

⁵² Lowe et al, op. cit. (note 51), 14–15 for a description of the contents of the MS; Morgan, op. cit. (note 10), 130–3, no. 85, with full bibliography; McCulloch, F., ‘Saints Alban and Amphibalus in the works of Matthew Paris: Dublin, Trinity College MS 177’, Speculum 56/4 (1981), 761–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵³ Baker, A. T., ‘La vie d e Saint Edmond Archevêque de Cantorbéry’, Romania 55 (1929), 332–81; Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 161–8. Walsingham of course makes mention of the ‘Vitae Sanctorum Albani, Amphibali, Thomae, et Edmundi Archiepiscoporum Cantuariae’ (my italics) which Matthew is held to have ‘conscripsit et depinxit elegantissime’. The Edmund life was unknown to James, op. cit. (note 19), 17–18. A life of Stephen Langton is also attributed to Matthew, although apparently not provably: Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 159–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

⁵⁴ Here I follow James, op. cit. (note 19), 21–2; cf. Lowe el al., op. cit. (note 51), pl. after 39. According to him the note reads: ‘mittatis si placet ad dominam comitissam harundell’ Isabellam ut mittat vobis librum de sancto thoma martire et sancto (ed) wardo quern transtuli et protraxi que(mque po)terit domina comitissa cornub(ie retinere) usque ad pentecosten …’.

⁵⁵ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 176.

⁵⁶ James, op. cit. (note 19), 26; Vaughan, op. cit. (note 4 7), 171–2; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xvii–xxi.

⁵⁷ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 175; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xxviii–xxix.

⁵⁸ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 174–5; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xix.

⁵⁹ Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), 112: ‘Or vus pri, gentilz rois Aedward,/ K'a moi pecchur eiez regard/ Ki ai translate du latin/Sulum mun sen e mun engin/ En franceis la vostre estoire,/ Ke se espande ta memoire,/ E pur lais ki de lettrure/ Ne sevent, en purtraiture/ Figuree apertement/ L'ai en cest livret present … (etc.)’ (cf. Luard, op. cit. (note 3), 290); Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 175–6; Henderson, 1967, op. cit. (note 48), 81, n. 38 considered these verses to clinch the case for Matthew's authorship of the text and pictures.

⁶⁰ Morgan, N. J., ‘Matthew Paris, St Albans, London, and the leaves of the “Life of St Thomas Becket”’, Burlington Magazine 130 (1988), 85–96Google Scholar, and also Christopher de Hamel's account in Sotheby's Sale, 24 June 1986, lot 40. Most recently, see Backhouse, J. and Hamel, C. de, The Becket Leaves (London, 1988)Google Scholar.

⁶¹ Morgan, op. cit. (note 60), 95.

⁶² Ibid., 85, n. 4; Walsingham's observation that Matthew ‘conscripsit et depinxit’ the lives of Alban, Amphibalus, Thomas and Edmund, although late, is however less ambiguous.

⁶³ Ibid., 94–5. If these considerations are to be excluded, then so must the matter of the metre used in Aedward. If Matthew were copying out someone else's French (itself unlikely given his authorship of the French Alban) then the consideration of metre would not relate to his authorship but to that of his source.

⁶⁴ Ibid., 95.

⁶⁵ Ibid.

⁶⁶ Aelred, in Migne, PL 195, col. 749; cf. Aedward vv. 1331–6 (Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), p. 38).

⁶⁷ The representation of the same scene on fol. 2^V of PRO MS E36/284 (Harrison, op. cit. (note 16), pl. 8a) differs in showing a bust-length figure within the host and in showing St Edward and Leofric both standing. In general, see Browe, P., Die eucharistischen Wunder des Mittelalters, Breslau Studien zur historischen Theologie NF 4 (Breslau, 1938), 100–11Google Scholar, and cf. also Wilckens, L. von, ‘Maasländische Stickerei um 1300’, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 49 (1986), 472–3 for other occurrencesGoogle Scholar.

⁶⁸ PRO E36/284 fol. 2 agrees with MS B.10.2 in showing the sleepers in a row neatly tucked into bed. See also Massignon, L., ‘Les Sept Dormants d'Ephèse en Islam et en Chrétienté”, Revue des études islamiques (Paris, 1945), 59–119; (1955), 93–106; (1957), 1–11; (1958), 1–10; (1959), 1–8. Discrepancies such as this rule out the suggestion of Tanner, op. cit. (note 33), 8 that Aedward was the model for MS B.10.2Google Scholar.

⁶⁹ At this point a leaf is missing in Aedward: James, op. cit. (note 19), 16.

⁷⁰ Barlow, op. cit. (note 38), 262–3.

⁷¹ Migne, PL 195 cols. 779–80.

⁷² Ibid., col. 781.

⁷³ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 164.

⁷⁴ Riley, H. T. (ed.), Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, RS 28 (London, 1867), I, 159; James, op. cit. (note 19), 13Google Scholar.

⁷⁵ Henderson, op. cit. (note 48), 80–3.

⁷⁶ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 175; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xix, xxvii–xxix.

⁷⁷ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 175.

⁷⁸ Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 50–2, no. 96.

⁷⁹ Vaughan, op. cit. (note 47), 167 makes the critically important observation that material in Matthew's life of St Edmund (which he dates shortly after 1247) impinges on the Flores Historiarum.

⁸⁰ Lewis, S., The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora (Berkeley, 1987) 381–94.Google Scholar Lewis rightly disputes McCulloch's improbable notion that MS 177 was not executed until after 1257, ibid. 511, n. 22; cf. also James, op. cit. (note 19), 27.

⁸¹ James, op. cit. (note 19), 20–25. Isabel, Countess of Arundel, is Isabel (Warenne) (d. 1282) who married Hugh, Earl of Arundel in 1234. Hugh died in 1243 without an heir, and Isabel continued to use the title Countess of Arundel after his death (G. E. C., Complete Peerage, I, 238–9; James, op. cit. (note 19), 24–5). Isabel was evidently a patron of Matthew's, being mentioned in connection with his Thomas-Edward as well as in his Edmund, and was anyway a patroness of Wymondham, a dependent of St Albans, Baker, op. cit. (note 53), 338–9. Between 1240 and 1243 there was no Countess of Cornwall. Richard Earl of Cornwall's first wife died in 1240, and he did not marry Sanchia (d. 1261), the sister of Eleanor of Provence, until 1243 (G.E.C., Complete Peerage, III, 430–1; Denholme-Young, N., Richard of Cornwall (Oxford, 1947), 18, 49)Google Scholar.

⁸² James, op. cit. (note 19), 23–4: ‘In libro comitisse Wint/ bine imagines in singulis/ paginis fiant sic’.

⁸³ G.E.C., Complete Peerage, XII (2), 751, 753.

⁸⁴ James, op. cit. (note 19), 23–4: namely James, John, Andrew, Thomas, Martin, Nicholas, Alban, Amphibalus, Leonard, Giles, Joachim, Anna, Batholomew.

⁸⁵ Morgan, op. cit. (note 13), 102: Christopher, John the Evangelist, Mercurius, Lawrence, Catherine, Margaret, Edmund, St Thomas?, and above all the Virgin Mary, before whom Eleanor is shown as donatrix on fol. 48.

⁸⁶ Luard, H. R. (ed.), Chronica Majora, RS 57, V (London, 1880), 341; James, op. cit. (note 19), 25 appears to opt for MaudGoogle Scholar.

⁸⁷ Interpreting the evidence of this flyleaf is not without difficulties, and I am grateful to Professor Walter Cahn for discussing it with me. James and Vaughan both agree that the writing on it is Matthew's, and James, op. cit. (note 19), 20, 23 observes that the script beneath the drawing on fol. 2^V ‘may very well be that which in the body of the manuscript has written the French descriptions of the pictures at the top of each’. This indicates his belief that the flyleaf and the contents of MS 177 were somehow connected. The drawing of the Virgin and Child on its verso is proportioned in such a way as to suggest that it was at some point radically trimmed at the top, and accordingly that the leaf was larger than the manuscript's present overall format. The order of work on the verso was probably (1) the drawing of the Virgin (presumably before 1252), (2) the inscription next to it of the prayers transcribed in James, ibid., 22, (3) the addition beneath of the least formal script pertaining to the Countess of Winchester, here held to be Maud. The order of work on the recto may be, as James, ibid., 20 suggests, with the left-hand column post-dating the right, the latter including the reference to Thomas-Edward. The script of this note is somewhat more cursive than that of the more formal script on the verso, but its date relationship to it seems to me to be unascertainable. At some point after its use in this way (assuming that the fine drawing of the Virgin would not have been done on a damaged folio) the whole folio appears to have been folded across its middle and stitched, evidence which implies that it once had a separate existence from the manuscript with which it is presently bound. Accordingly it is by no means certain that its contents determine anything definite about MS 177 as a whole.

⁸⁸ i.e. Aedward vv. 49–88; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), 2–3; cf Luard, op. cit. (note 3), 180–1. It is of course also the case that the earliest life of St Edward includes a corresponding dedication to Queen Edith, see Barlow, op. cit. (note 38), 291.

⁸⁹ Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xxii catches the sense of this passage exactly, in describing it as ‘about as close to an epithalamium as anything this author could conceivably have written’. The even more precise suggestion that ‘the wording of the dedication to the queen suggests that the poem may have been written before the birth of the Lord Edward in 1239’ (see D. A. Carpenter, ‘King, magnates, and society; the personal rule of King Henry III, 1234–1258’, Speculum 60/1 (1985), 61, n. 115) may be borne in mind, although it is not conclusive. Lines 71–2 of the poem suggest no more than that the consummation of the marriage (but not necessarily the birth of Edward) was a product of the common interests of Eleanor and Henry; lines 83–4 could however be taken to imply that Edward was not yet born.

⁹⁰ Baker, op. cit. (note 53), 335, 380, esp. vv. 211–16; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), xxii; M. E. Roberts, ‘The relic of the Holy Blood and the iconography of the thirteenth-century north transept portal of Westminster Abbey’, in W. M. Ormrod (ed.), England in the Thirteenth Century, Proceedings of the 1984 Harlaxton Symposium (repr. Woodbridge, 1986), 129–42; Lewis, op. cit. (note 80), 225–7, pl. X.

⁹¹ Aedward vv. 3844–58, Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), 108–9, cf. Luard, op. cit. (note 3), 287.

⁹² Aedward vv. 4675–80: ‘A l'iglise ne deit faillir/ Ki rois est, einz deit meintenir/ E quant k'apent a la meisun’; Wallace, op. cit. (note 19), 131, cf. Luard, op. cit. (note 3), 311.

⁹³ Colvin, op. cit. (note 6), 1, 131–2. I am inclined to suggest that Aedward therefore predates the lives of St Edward and St George composed by Master Henry of Avranches in 1244–5, see J. C. Russell, ‘Master Henry of Avranches as an international poet’, Speculum 3 (1928), 47–8, 56, no. 2. Russell went so far as to identify Aedward with one of these lives, but it must be said that Henry is associated primarily with Latin versification; cf. Morgan, op. cit. (note 60), 95–6. The Avranches version does however serve to indicate the court's patronage of this type of material in the early-to-mid 1240s.

⁹⁴ Luard, op. cit. (note 3), xi–xii.

⁹⁵ James, op. cit. (note 19), 17.