When the Sarum story opens, there were around 20 dioceses in England and Wales, mostly set up in the 600s (yes! things did happen in Britain between the Romans leaving and William the Conqueror arriving!) and the bishops’ seats (called cathedras) were in a fairly even mix of monastic and secular cathedrals.

As part of William’s re-organisation of the British church, the dioceses of Sherborne and Ramsey were merged to form the new diocese of Salisbury and in 1078 his Chancellor Osmund took a sideways move from working on the Domesday project to become its bishop. Previously the cathedra had been in Sherborne Abbey, which was monastic.  Osmund was learned and chaste and very keen on order but he was not a monk. His cathedra was going to be based at (Old) Sarum, and so he led the project to build a fine new secular church for it.

One of the things that he did do, which is very important to our story, is that he developed the Rite of Sarum which spelled out the various processions required in different services.  And some of those – yes! – required going out into the cloisters, so the cathedral churches at Old Sarum and then at New Sarum were built with cloisters.

Here is a reconstruction of the original layout of the current cathedral, done by Christopher Wordsworth in his book “Salisbury Ceremonies and Processions”.

Another point about Osmund is that he was very keen on books, and built up a large library at the cathedral, reputedly even writing, illuminating and binding some of them himself.  In “The Medieval Scriptorium”, Sara Charles develops the theory that the cloisters contained carrels or study rooms – still observable in Gloucester Cathedral – offering a perfect combination of shade and light for writing and illuminating.  So although Osmund’s priests didn’t live the monkish “life in common” they may still have enjoyed having a quiet place to work on their manuscripts between services, or to study books too.

PS It is entirely coincidental that the cloisters are the perfect shape for pancake day races.

Questions arising from this might include:

• Were our cloisters ever used for other things?
• What has changed in the cathedral from the original layout?
• What happened to Osmund’s library?

The post Why do you have cloisters if you didn’t have monks? appeared first on 332 Steps.

The standard guides’ answer is “We never had monks because our cathedral was secular, not monastic” although this just generates the very reasonable question “What is the difference between a secular and a monastic cathedral? And why did they have both types?”

The answer lies back in the earlier days of the Christian Church.  Christianity came to England by three routes – through the Roman Empire, then from monks arriving from Ireland and then from missionaries arriving from Gaul.

Originally followers of the Christian Church were encouraged to live a life “in common”, that is, with only shared possessions and spaces.  The Rules laid down by Augustine for his community in Hippo (Algeria) in the late 4^th century defined a precise and very austere daily timetable, with activities focused inwards into the community and celibacy required.  As the church expanded into the developing economic areas of Gaul and then England, the Benedictine monks established a way of living in common which could fit more easily into a feudal society.

Going into the time of the Conquest (mid-late 11^th century) the need to provide canons to fit in with the growth of towns and the expansion of education and to provide trained clerks for court administration meant that a more independent way of life would be needed for some of the clergy.  The full “secular” system allowed individual possessions and incomes and allocated individual estates or prebends to individual canons, and the requirement for celibacy was increasingly ignored.

A cathedral could decide to move between different systems, including moving back to being run by monks. In the early English cathedrals of Canterbury, Exeter, Wells and Hereford the “common life” with a refectory and a dormitory was re-introduced for the lower clergy although more senior clergy could still have their own houses and incomes.

William the Conqueror appointed his counsellor Lanfranc as Archbishop of Canterbury after the Conquest and instigated a major reorganisation of the English church (referred to as the Council of London).  Perhaps partly due to Lanfranc’s own background as a Benedictine monk – and in the face of opposition from some of William’s bishops – he encouraged more cathedrals to keep or return to the monastic method, ending up with ten monastic cathedrals and nine secular ones (see lists at the bottom of this post).

The knotty problem of clerical celibacy remained unresolved, by the way.

So to answer the question: In a monastic cathedral, the cathedral is run by the head monk, the prior or abbot, taking on the additional job of Dean. In a secular cathedral, the Dean is the most senior priest.  “Secular” nowadays means not-religious, but back then (when everything was religious) it meant not-choosing-to-be-a-monk, so the Dean is a proper priest who has chosen not to join one of the monastic orders.

Which inevitably leads to some more questions:

• Why do you have cloisters if you didn’t have monks?
• Were there any monks in Salisbury?
• Can you tell me more about the different orders of monks?

Finally, a couple of lists, for people who like lists:

1. The secular cathedrals:

• Chichester
• Exeter
• Hereford
• Lichfield
• Lincoln
• London
• Salisbury
• Wells
• York

2. The monastic cathedrals:

• Bath
• Canterbury
• Carlisle
• Coventry
• Durham
• Ely
• Norwich
• Rochester
• Winchester
• Worcester

And for a bonus extra point in a rather specialist pub quiz, the monastic cathedrals were all Benedictine except for Carlisle which was Augustinian.

The post Where are the monks? appeared first on 332 Steps.

Oak Apple day or Royal Oak Day is the 29th of May. On this day all English citizens used to celebrate the restoration of Charles II to the throne in 1660. They HAD to celebrate it, because it was a public holiday with a special service required in the Book of Common Prayer.  It was only removed in 1859 by the Anniversary Days Observance Act (which also removed the 5th November, Guy Fawkes Night). It is called Oak Apple Day because Charles II successfully evaded his pursuers by hiding up an oak tree, not a feat of courage that everyone would want to have commemorated publicly, but there you go.

Coincidentally, or maybe not, the villagers of Great Wishford celebrate on Oak Apple Day their ongoing right from a Charter of 1603 to gather green wood from the local Grovely Woods. They get up early – waking the whole village in the process – gather wood up to the prescribed maximum size, and march with sprigs of oak to Salisbury Cathedral where they perform a (slightly embarrassed) commemorative dance, are blessed by a (somewhat surprised) Vicar of the Close, and have their rights read out and affirmed with a shout of “Grovely! Grovely! Grovely! And all Grovely” inside the cathedral.

The 50p bookstall in Salisbury Market often has a box of local history booklets which are well worth leafing through.  One has the entire charter printed out:

“Item the lords freeholders Tennants and Inhabitance of the Mannor of greate Wisheford or soe many of them as would in auntient tyme have used to goe in a daunce to the Cathedrall Church of our blessed Ladie in the Cittie of newe Sarum… and theire made theire clayme to theire custome in the Forrest of Grovely in theis words: Groveley Groveley and all Groveley.”

It is much more restrained than rolling a cheese down a hill, and the commercial opportunities remain unexploited.

The book “Old Church Lore” by William Andrews mysteriously doesn’t mention this particular ceremony in its chapter on Royal Oak Day although the requirement in Yorkshire to pelt with eggs anyone not wearing oak leaves does stick in the memory.

PS What is the link between Oak Apples and the Magna Carta and Jane Austen?

The post Why is Oak Apple Day being celebrated? appeared first on 332 Steps.

And even if there was, where would it have come from?

Certainly not from the Calendario Romano, which takes itself very seriously as a purveyor of useful and accurate information about the Vatian City.

The fact that all the illustrations are of, er, well, young men in clerical attire is, I am assured, entirely coincidental.

The calendar costs €24.90 and I believe it can be dispatched in a plain paper wrapping if you wish to purchase it discreetly.

PS There are two versions of the calendar this year, and the second includes a picture of a cat. I suspect they are trying to broaden its appeal to Childless Cat Ladies just in case the offer of non-stop historical notes about the Vatican wasn’t sufficient.

The post Hot Priests! appeared first on 332 Steps.