The Tarnished Chalice (53 page)

Hamo acquiesced. ‘You seem sad and preoccupied. Why?’

‘I cannot stop thinking about Spayne, and how he was about to tell me Matilde’s secret when Cynric shot him. It makes me wonder whether I should abandon my duties in Cambridge and continue my search. There is still more to be learned about her.’

‘Spayne had no answers,’ said Hamo. He shrugged when the physician showed surprise at the confidence of his words. ‘He knew nothing that would help you, and your book-bearer was right to shoot him before he could harm you with his dagger.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Because I am good at hearing conversations not intended
for my ears, as you know.’ Hamo patted his arm ruefully. ‘And I happened to chance upon a discussion between him and Langar once. He was telling the lawyer all the places he had looked for Matilde, but said there was one he would never search, because it was where he had been an oblate and it held too many unhappy memories. I imagine that is where he was going to send you – if indeed he was ready to confide. I am inclined to believe Cynric: he was trying to make sure you died with him.’

‘Where was he an oblate?’ asked Bartholomew eagerly.

‘I asked around, but no one seemed to know, so I spent all day yesterday trawling through the cathedral’s records. I found the answer late last night. It was Stamford, but that is on Christiana’s list, and you just said you have visited everyone on that. Ergo, I do not think you would have learned anything useful from Spayne.’

Bartholomew sighed. He was disappointed, but at the same time relieved. ‘Thank you. At least now I will not spend the rest of my life wondering.’

That morning, he had been surprised to wake up and find himself looking forward to returning to Cambridge and his teaching. There was a desperate shortage of University-trained physicians, and Suttone had been talking about the imminent return of the plague only at breakfast. Reinforcements might be needed soon, and in Cambridge he could do some good. He would see his patients, teach his students and write his treatise on fevers, and in time the wound Matilde had left would heal.

He was about to ask Hamo whether he had heard any rumours regarding the pestilence, when there was a sudden, ear-shattering blare on a trumpet that had all the Gilbertines grinning in delight. The procession began to pass through the great west door. At the front was Hugh, struggling under a massive cross, and following him was the choir. Then came
the Vicars Choral, dissolute and slovenly, and the canons. Michael winked at Bartholomew, de Wetherset nodded, and Suttone gave him a self-satisfied smile. Then came the relic-bearers, which included John toting the Hugh Chalice, men carrying St Hugh’s head, a fat canon with Joseph’s teeth, and the dean with the gospels. Gynewell, hopping impatiently from foot to foot, brought up the rear, his mitre sitting incongruously atop his curly head and his heavy cope dragging the ground behind him.

The ceremony was as grand and impressive as any Bartholomew had witnessed. Gynewell had a good voice, and his careful Latin was a pleasure to hear. The physician began to lose himself in the beauty of the place and the occasion, closing his eyes to listen to the music soaring through the nave. When he opened them, he noticed some of the choristers were becoming restless. Two seemed to be playing a game with pebbles, studiously ignoring Bautre’s warning glares, while Hugh had abandoned his place altogether. Bartholomew hoped his absence would not herald the beginning of some piece of mischief that would spoil Michael’s day.

In the South Choir Aisle, unseen by prying eyes, Hugh shrugged out of his choir robes and hid them behind the tomb of Little Hugh, recovering his cloak at the same time. Then he inserted his new sword – the one Christiana had been going to give him for his birthday – between two stones at the base of the shrine and levered, making sure to do it when the dean was reaching a crescendo to mask the noise. The stone popped out, and Hugh dropped to his knees, to rummage in the recess it revealed.

First out was the Hugh Chalice – the real one, which Eleanor had acquired from Herl after he had made his copies. She had immediately brought it to the cathedral, where Hugh had adapted the plinth so she could keep it
safe from wicked men. They were the only two who knew about the hiding place, and it had proved useful for concealing one or two other items, too – such as the white pearls Hugh had stolen from Bartholomew’s medical bag during the confusion following the collapse of the Spayne house. These went quickly into the purse at his belt.

Finally, he extracted two flasks. One contained the wine-and-water mixture Dame Eleanor had swallowed to fill herself with holy strength, and the other held the poison she had used to kill Herl, Flaxfleete and countless others; she had asked Hugh to secrete it inside the plinth when a smattering of dust had told her someone had discovered its usual hiding place. The two cheap pots looked identical, and Hugh wondered how she had known them apart. He sniffed them gingerly, but they both smelled foul, as far as he was concerned.

He unwrapped the Hugh Chalice and stared at it for some time, trying to decide what to do. Eventually, he put it back inside the tomb. It would be safe there until he had secured a wealthy buyer. Perhaps he would try the Old Temple in London, where St Hugh had died. Then he placed the two flasks in his hat and slipped out of the nearest door. He skipped down the hill to the Bishop’s Palace, and let himself into the kitchens, where food and a large keg of wine stood, waiting to be served to the newly installed canons and their guests. He sniffed the flasks a second time, taking his time to decide which was which, although it was not easy.

Looking around quickly, to make sure no one was watching, he emptied the contents of one pot into the bishop’s wine. Then he took a long draught from the second, to fortify himself for the long journey he was about to make. He grimaced at the flavour, but he was not afraid. Dame Eleanor would watch over him, as she had promised. And she was a saint, after all.

John Gynewell, Bishop of Lincoln from 1346 to 1362, had a terrible time with his cathedral officers. As early as 1347, he records trouble with the Vicars Choral and Poor Clerks: they neglected to attend their offices, they talked and wandered off during the ones they did keep, and they skulked about at night bearing arms. Worse was to come. In January 1359, the episcopal register indicates that Gynewell had twice issued orders asking for women – who ran taverns and encouraged licentious behaviour – to be ejected from the Cathedral Close; three months later, it was discovered that prostitutes had even been admitted to the dean’s house. The dean at this time was Simon de Bresley, who died around 1360.

The records are full of clerics charged with insolence, irregular behaviour, ‘evil lives’, negligence, debt and immorality, and in 1350, a clergyman called John Tetford was found guilty of brawling and keeping a tavern. No doubt part of the problem lay in the papal and archiepiscopal power of provision, which meant popes and archbishops were free to appoint canons and other officials as favours, and as a consequence many were foreigners and cardinals who never had any intention of visiting the minster. Vicars Choral were appointed to manage the religious side of things, but the dean needed canons in residence to help with discipline, and too many were absent.

Michael de Causton and Thomas Suttone, both of whom were associated with Michaelhouse in the 1350s,
were made canons of Lincoln, and were almost certainly non-residentiary. Michael was elected to the Stall of South Scarle, valued at £11 in a tax survey of 1292, while Suttone’s Stall of Decem Librarum was worth £6 18s 7d. Both were busy men with careers to further, and would have hired deputies to fulfil their religious duties, paying them a pittance and pocketing the rest. There is no record of Richard de Wetherset holding office as a canon, although he was Chancellor of the University at Cambridge during the Black Death, and probably again in 1359.

The Suttone, or Sutton, family was one of the great dynasties in fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Lincoln. One John Sutton (died 1391) represented Lincoln at Parliament in 1369, and he and his father were generous to the parish church of Holy Trinity, Wigford (demolished due to neglect in 1551, but holding a good many Sutton tombs) and St Katherine-without-Lincoln, the Gilbertines’ chapel. Oliver Sutton was Bishop of Lincoln (1280–1299).

Other fourteenth-century cathedral officers were Archdeacon Richard de Ravenser and Nicholas Bautre, who was Master of Choristers after 1354. John Claypole held the office before Bautre. The Shrine of St Hugh in the chancel, the Head Shrine in the Angel Choir, and the tomb of Little Hugh would have been important sites for pilgrims, although contemporary Vicars Choral were un impressed: they complained that draughts blew the Host about the altar top. They were also in the habit of stealing sacramental candles from each other.

The Gilbertines owned a site about a mile and a half south of the cathedral, which incorporated the Hospital of St Sepulchre, and was known as the Priory of St Katherine-without-Lincoln. They enjoyed royal favour, and the first of the Eleanor Crosses – the monuments raised by Edward I to honour his dead wife – was built outside
their gates. The Gilbertine Priory was wealthy in its early years, but a combination of the Black Death and some bad business investments had reduced them to poverty by the end of the fourteenth century. The prior in 1351 was Roger de Bankesfeld; John (de) Whatton occurs in the clerical poll taxes in the 1370s, and Hamo of Sutton was prior by 1388.

A woman called Christiana de Hauville came to stay with the Gilbertines in 1319, on the orders of the King, while she recovered her senses and finances after losing her husband and three sons in the wars against the Scots. Five years before, one Eleanor Darcy had been appointed a canoness for life.

In Lincoln itself, there was a dispute as to who should be mayor in 1354. Walter de Kelby, a merchant-bailiff wealthy enough to lend money to the Exchequer in 1359, was elected, but he was displaced by William de Spayne. Spayne held office until Robert Dalderby overthrew him in 1359, then returned for two years until he was succeeded by Kelby. Other powerful men were Robert de Hodelston, who died in the plague, Thomas de Flaxfleete and Robert Quarrel. In the 1350s, John de Thoresby was accused of trying to extort money from Dalderby – by threatening to burn down his home and chop off his head. Thoresby was pardoned in 1353.

Lincoln had been a powerful and prosperous city until the end of the thirteenth century, when it began to decline. The causes were various, but the silting up of the Fossedike (Fossdyke) and the collapse of the weaving industry were certainly significant. By 1356, the city would have been suffering from the general decay and poverty that afflicted it until its fortunes began to rise during the agricultural revolution in Georgian times.

The medieval chronicler Henry Knighton records that
in the summer of 1355 people ran mad all across the country. He describes a sickness that made people deranged, some shunning other human contact to live in remote woodlands, and others harming themselves with knives or teeth. Many were taken to churches for relief. It is possible the outbreak of ‘summer madness’ was hysterical in origin, although the symptoms described are similar to ergotism. Ergot is a fungus parasite that infests grasses such as rye, and was known as Holy Fire (
Ignis sacer
) or St Anthony’s Fire.

Meanwhile, back in Cambridge in the 1330s, a series of cases was heard by Justice Sir John de Cantebrig. All were faithfully recorded by his clerk William Langar, and are now in the archives of the Public Record Office. Several trials revolved around one John Shirlok, who was accused of theft. Shirlok turned approver, and named eight men and two women, probably in an attempt to avoid hanging. He appeared in front of one jury, but seems to have objected to some of its members, and was returned to prison until another could be summoned.

Shirlok would not have been pleased with the outcome of his second court appearance. Although the evidence suggests a well-organised criminal gang was operating, he was the only one found guilty. The others were acquitted, with the exception of two (including Simon Miller) who had died in prison. The remaining eight – Nicholas Herl, John Aylmer, Adam Miller (Molendinarius), Lora Boyner, Walter Chapman, Walter Bunoun, John le Taillour and Sabina Godeknave – were allowed to go free with no questions asked. Sabina Godeknave’s first husband was hanged for a theft in which she was implicated, and Chapman was detained on another charge after the others had been released.

The items listed stolen by Shirlok at his trial included a chalice from Geddynge (Gidding), valued at twenty shillings
and white pearls valued at one hundred shillings. It is a curious case, and no reasons are recorded as to why these people were set free. Shirlok’s attempts to save himself lay in tatters, and he was hanged a few days later.