Chapter 1
Beauchamp the Builder
I
will that when it liketh to God, that my Soule depart out of this
World, my Body be interred within the Church Collegiate of our Lady in
Warwick, where I will that in such Place as I
have desired, (which is known well) there be made a Chappell of our
Lady, well, faire and goodly built; within the
middel of which Chappell I will that my Tombe be made…Also, I wish that
there be said every Day, dureing the Worlde, in
the aforesaid Chappell that (with the Grace of God) shall be thus new
made, three masses…
The extract above is part of the Last Will and Testament of one of the
most important men in the early years of the 15th century. Richard
Beauchamp was born on 28th January, 1382, at
Salwarpe, near Droitwich in Worcestershire. His father Thomas, a
soldier and politician of considerable influence,
was also tutor and Guardian to King Richard II.
On Thomas’s death in 1401 the nineteen-year-old Beauchamp became 13th
Earl of Warwick and soon began to carve out a considerable reputation
for himself. For the part he played
in defeating the Welsh rebel Owen Glendower, Beauchamp was made a
Knight of the Garter, the height of
medieval chivalrous honour. His other exploits included a two-year
pilgrimage to the Holy Land. A late
fifteenth-century document, The Pageant of the Birth, Life and Death of
Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, which
details his travels in depth, is now in the British Museum, although
David Brindley warns against assuming that this
document consistently relates reliable historical detail.
In 1410, Beauchamp became a member of the council charged with
governing the country during the indisposition of King Henry IV, and
remained involved in politics at the highest
level as a senior member of the royal household for the rest of his
life. This included playing a key role in the
dispute with France. Following the King’s death, Henry’s son came to
the throne as Henry V and in 1420 Beauchamp arranged
Henry’s marriage to Katherine, daughter of Charles VI of France.
Tradition has it that in 1422 Henry V, on his
deathbed, gave his son Henry VI into the care of his close friend and
companion Beauchamp. As Henry VI was still very
young, it fell to the Council to ensure the security of the Kingdom and
this included dealing with the French
problem. Beauchamp returned to France where he was appointed to the
command of Rouen and was the authority
presiding over the trial and martyrdom of Joan of Arc.
Beauchamp returned to England in 1427, to become ‘head of a financial
and land holding which was, by the 1430’s, among the richest in
Europe’. This he had achieved through a
combination of shrewd management, inherited estates, two advantageous
marriages as well as from ransoms and the
spoils of war However, some five years later he was appointed by the
young King to the post of Lieutenant of the
English Dominions in France. Having made his Last Will and Testament,
written just prior to his final departure for
France, Beauchamp died in the castle at Rouen on 30th April 1439 aged
fifty-eight.
It would appear from his Will that Beauchamp had given some
considerable thought to his final resting place, and the wealth he had
accrued enabled him to insist that his memorial would
be one that reflected his position in society. However Brindley
maintains that it is unlikely that it is
possible to deduce anything of Beauchamp’s personal faith in the
magnificent edifice that his wealth enabled him
to plan, claiming that ‘the concept of personally chosen faith would
have been incomprehensible to someone of Beauchamp’s
time’. Similarly Doreen Rosman sees the Christian faith as ‘not
something individuals chose but something
they were born into, an integral part of the texture of society’. Eamon
Duffy, while accepting that ‘among the
higher gentry at least there were signs of a privatising tendency’,
such as the growing proclivity to secure for
themselves private chaplains and devotional treaties, nevertheless
maintains that:
the
overwhelming impression left by the sources for late medieval
religion in England is that of a Christianity resolutely and
enthusiastically orientated towards the public and the
corporate, and of a continuing sense of the value of co-operation and
mutuality in seeking salvation.
Nevertheless, there was evidence of a burgeoning belief in the need for
personal repentance. Manuals that aided personal devotion, such as the
Meditations Vitae Christi circulated
widely, and the influence of the preaching order of Dominican friars
had spread throughout the country. Beauchamp did
own a volume, now known as the Trevisa Manuscript, which included
debates on the nature of spiritual and
temporal power, but the tone of the writing was staunchly defensive of
the established Church, denigrating the impact
of such innovations as the preaching friars.
This conservative outlook is reflected in the fact that, although
Beauchamp’s Lady Chapel was certainly a private Chapel, elements such
as the space itself, the windows, the statuary,
the paintings, the tomb itself and the provisions Beauchamp made for
masses to be said within it, are pointers
which reveal much about the piety of the time which emphasised the
acquisition of virtues for the salvation of
souls, and it is these components that will be explored in this chapter.
Architectural Space
The footprint of the Chapel is large compared to most existing chantry
chapels attached to churches in England. Its size and architectural
grandeur not only reflects the status of
Beauchamp as ‘among the greatest English nobles of the Middle Ages’,
but also echoes the 13th century belief that
religious buildings were considered to be, ‘representation[s] of the
heavenly Jerusalem, the ideal city according
to the Apocalypse’.
For Lawrence Lee, ecclesiastical buildings of the medieval time were
also spaces in which those who entered, ‘embarked on a spiritual
journey akin to pilgrimage, a journey dictated
by the symbolic structure of the journey.’ Since earliest Christian
times, the priest and congregation faced east
in the direction of the rising sun, awaiting the Second Coming of
Christ. On the north side, associated with darkness,
cold, and evil, were placed elements from the Old Testament, whereas
New Testament narratives were placed on the
light south side. Decorative elements on the west side, associated with
humanity, typically featured
iconography designed to remind the faithful that, just as they entered
this Church, the time would come when they would face
judgement on entering the next world.
he Beauchamp Chapel also appears to have followed these principles.
The inner east façade was adorned with elements portraying
Christ, the heavenly hierarchy and some chosen
saints – a view that Beauchamp, who with his family were also portrayed
in the east window, would hope to see at the
Second Coming. On the west wall of the Chapel the large ‘doom’ painting
executed by John Brentwood in 1449,
illustrated the final judgement which would see the Godly going to
Heaven, and the Godless being consigned to Hell.
This sombre painting served as a constant reminder of the cosmic
context of life on earth and a warning
of the possible fates that awaited each individual in the afterlife.
Because of subsequent damage it is difficult to know with certainty
whether the device of placing Old Testament iconography on the north
wall and that depicting New Testament material
on the South wall was followed. However Elsie Kibble maintains that the
quotations in the middle window on the
north side suggests that the figures on the North wall are likely to
have been the Old Testament prophets Hosea,
Joel, Amos, Obediah, Micah, Habbakuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and
Malachi. She also speculates that the
South windows would have contained material from the New Testament,
such as an Annunciation Scene with
images of the Virgin Mary and St. Elizabeth.
Although specific parallels between the Church’s teaching and the
stories that appeared on the walls are hard to track down, painted
frescoes were not only to teach Christian truth as
it was understood, but also to improve people’s behaviour through moral
instruction and example. Besides the
popular depiction of the Last Judgement, other subjects such as ‘The
Seven Works of Mercy’, Saints and angels
also found favour. By contrast, paintings of Christ’s earthly ministry
appear to have been less widespread and
surviving examples are very rare. The Church may have permitted
painting as a means of instruction and edification but
this was hedged around with certain conventions. To confuse the piety
of the simple by innovations and
individual impulses was considered a serious matter.
The Iconography of
the
Chapel
Besides the positioning of religious artefacts around the chapel,
the
painted stone figures, the images depicted in the stained glass and the
wall paintings were all seen as fulfilling a
function according to medieval symbolic theological beliefs.
Unfortunately the wall paintings have not
survived, with the exception of one faint rendering of an angel. The
stained glass also sustained considerable damage but
almost half of the East widow survived to give an insight into the
spiritual mindset of the late medieval world.
For instance, the figures in the East window depicting the saints had
huge significance. Indeed, Emile Mâle considers ‘it may well be
that the saints were never better loved than
during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries’. From carvings on the
gable-ends of houses, to lavish colourful images
that filled the churches, they were a constant reminder of an unseen
but very potent world. Not only were saints’ days
times of feasting in the Christian calendar, saints per se also
fulfilled other functions. They were seen first and
foremost as ‘friends and helpers’ In return for devotion, not to be
confused with the worship afforded to Christ, the
saint would pray for the client during life, continuing to pray for the
soul of their patron after death thus
reducing time in purgatory and interceding for them at the Last
Judgement.
This devotion also included a veneration of items associated with their
heavenly protector. For medieval Christians, contact with tangible
relics of Christ and the saints provided a unique
bridge between earth and heaven. Such relics were seen as a way to come
closer to the saints and thus form a closer
bond with God. Some relics were body parts, such as a bone, but more
often they were everyday items such as
a small piece of cloth that had been used by the venerated one or even
a fragment of a item with which they had
been in contact. The relics housed in St. Mary’s, probably in a small
vestry behind the Chapel altar, included:
Part
of the chair of the patriarch Abraham, the burning bush of Moses
and the manger in which Jesus was laid; of the pillar to which he was
bound when he was scourged; a thorn from His
crown, a piece of the cross; part of the towel in which His body was
wrapped by Nicodemus; some hair of the
Virgin Mary, bones of the Innocents and part of the penitential garment
of St. Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury.
Such was the veneration of relics that individuals often
undertook
pilgrimages to shrines of holy people where they could view objects
associated with the saints, often purchasing a badge
or memento as a means of acquiring something of the spiritual
protection of the saint.
Medieval spiritual and secular life was closely interwoven, and both
incorporated a rigid hierarchical system. On earth ‘In principle there
were two kinds of authority…the spiritual
authority of which the pope was head, and the temporal authority of
emperors and kings and lesser potentates’. In the
spiritual realm the order of precedence was Pope, archbishops, abbots,
archdeacons and canons; then at the bottom
of the pile the parish clergy and the clerical rank and file. There was
a corresponding division throughout
society leading down from emperors to kings, princes, great lords,
knights and, a great way below, peasants.
Therefore it is hardly surprising that this concept of class-system was
also seen as applying to the heavenly realm, with the
idea of having intermediaries to approach God being not only
appropriate but essential.
The saints Beauchamp
chose to include in the East window of his Chapel
were all British Saints being the Royal Saint Thomas of Canterbury,
Saint Alban, Saint Winifrid of Wales and
Saint John of Bridlington. The reasons for all of these choices are not
recorded but Brindley believes that they all
held some significance for Beauchamp. St. Thomas was a Saint of
international reputation who upheld the notion of
chivalry in that he was martyred for resisting the King’s attempts to
curtail the power of the Church.. St.
John of Bridlington was closely associated with Henry V’s court of
which Beauchamp was a member and indeed the King’s
victory at Agincourt was attributed to the aid given by that particular
saint. Richard himself had recovered
from an illness at the town of St. Albans, and St. Winifid of Wales was
the Patron Saint of the church in Shrewsbury
where he had received his Garter. Such was his devotion to these saints
that Beauchamp bequeathed a gold statue of
himself to each Monastic house patronised by these four saints, all of
which survive in their original
form.
Returning to the composition of the East Window; it is not possible to
ascertain with any certainty the configuration of the lower panels.
However, it is likely that the figure of the
Virgin Mary, to whom the chapel was dedicated, and who inspired the
deepest devotion in late medieval England, took pride
of place in the middle of the window in the original glazing scheme.
The cult of Mary came second only to that of Christ himself and
‘towered above that of all the other saints’ ‘The Five Joys of Mary’
formed the subject matter for many prayers and
meditations. There were many statues of Mary with the most common
portrayal being that which was displayed in the
rood screen of most churches showing Mary with St. John standing one at
each side of the cross. This scene served
as a reminder of the Sorrows of Mary, the ‘Mater Dolorosa’, which could
act as a bridge between her and any of
her devotees who themselves were experiencing the sorrows of the death
of their loved ones through such
calamities as the plagues. This also enabled them to metaphorically
stand beside Mary and share in her sorrows at
the death of their Saviour.
The manifestation
of this link can be seen in the words of the ‘Obsecro
Te’, a lengthy prayer to the Virgin contained within the Horea, which
Duffy maintains ‘quickly found favour with the
laity’. The final section of the prayer speaks of the benefits that
could be accrued through the intercessions of Mary.
Some of these could be enjoyed during earthly life but by far the
greatest was ‘the spiritual gifts a
Christian requires to get to Heaven’. For, if Christ is really judge
and arbiter at the end of time, who better than his Mother to
intercede for a human sinner. Therefore it is hardly surprising that
the effigy of Beauchamp lies with his hands
slightly apart so that he can clearly see the figure of Mary looking
down from a boss in the ceiling above his head.
Many of the painted stone figures surrounding the East window also
remain almost as they were when they were placed there. They include
God, at the apex of the window seated upon a
throne, with the ‘thrones’ – one of the nine orders of angels – on each
side of him. These figures are a
remarkably complete survival of the careful iconography of the chapel
and are considered as an extension of the
window glass. This heavenly hierarchy continues down the borders and
mullions featuring the other eight
orders, seraphim, cherubim, virtues, powers, dominations, angels,
including the Angel of the Expulsion the
archangels Michael and Gabriel, and principalities, along with the
shields of the Beauchamps and their connections.
The larger stone saints surrounding the window are, on the north side,
St. Barbara who has the tower in which she was imprisoned in one hand
and a book in the other, and St. Catherine,
not with a wheel but with the sword used to behead her. On the south
side, St. Mary Magdalene holds the pot of
ointment with which tradition suggests she anointed Christ and St.
Margaret of Antioch stands on Satan in the
shape of a dragon who, according to legend, swallowed her. Again we
have no indication as to the reasons for their
inclusion, but one interesting idea put forward by Brindley is that
there may be something significant in the
inclusion of St. Barbara and St. Catherine – the two voices heard by
Joan of Arc! Whether this might have been due to
guilt, recompense or as ‘insurance’ against the anger of the Saints is
open to speculation.
Yet it was not just
the spiritual realm that was featured in the
window. The traceries, still in their original form, contain not only
seraphims and the Gloria, but also scrolls or pennants
with the words ‘Louez Spencer – tant que vyray’. In addition Kibble
believes that the subject matter in the
lowest portion of the window was Beauchamp himself, flanked by his two
wives Isabella Despencer and Elizabeth
Berkeley, his son Henry, and his daughters Anne, Margaret, Elizabeth
and Eleanor. While pointing out that the
religious imagery should not be viewed as mere decoration but ‘visible
proof of the presence of saints and their
intercessory powers’, Roffey also acknowledges that the fabric of
chantry chapels was also intended to ‘create potent
symbols of personal and corporate prestige, piety and influence’.
Kenneth Hyson-Smith sees the Church in England in 1384 as being ‘firmly
established as the second power in the land after the Crown, and
arguably without equal in the
comprehensiveness and complexity of its institutional organisation’.
There were some rising signs of anti-clericalism and
anti-papalism, with Gayk seeing this period as marking a significant
shift: ‘In England for the first time arguments
against images were being put forth by lay men and women in the
vernacular’. Nevertheless, despite these signs of
disaffection, this was still a time of relative secular and
ecclesiastical order so it would have seemed appropriate
that ecclesiastic elements such as the saints should be portrayed side
by side with Beauchamp and his family in the
window. Indeed, it was an example of the connection that still existed
between piety and power; God was King
over all, but on earth the King was still God’s chosen one and his
representative on earth.
Not only were the subjects in the windows symbols of magnificence, but
so was the high quality of the material and workmanship of the stained
glass. All of the windows were commissioned
from John Prudde of Westminster, Henry VI’s own Royal Glazier. The
covenant states that;
John
Prudde doth covenant to glass all the windows in the new Chapel in
Warwick with glass beyond the seas, and with no glass of England. It is
to be the strongest glass and of the
finest colours of blue, yellow, red, sanguine, purpure and violet, so
to make rich and embellish the matters, images
and stories…
These were to be
newly traced and pictured by another painter employed
by Prudde, and from these the stained glass was to be executed. As
little as possible of green, white and
black were to be used as these were considered inferior. Prudde himself
was to take charge of the glass when wrought
and set it up in the chapel windows. For this he was paid two shillings
a square foot – a very considerable sum
considering that the usual charge for glass was between 7d. and 1
shilling even for prestigious buildings. Indeed, the
elaborate windows given by Henry VI to Eton College only cost 1s 4d per
square foot. The final cost of the windows
was about £100.
However the windows have more to reveal than just the status of the
Earl. For example the Tracery Lights on the side windows hold clues
regarding worship in the Chapel. The two pairs
situated closest to the altar show angels playing fifteenth century
instruments, which are of great interest to
students of early music, while the other four windows depict angel
musicians with scrolls some of which contain
music. One work is ‘Gaudeam omnes in domina, diem festum celebrantes’,
referring to the Festival of the Assumption
of the Virgin Mary. This was sung in antiphonal form as an introit at
the beginning of Mass and Kibble
speculates that it was also sung as Beauchamp was lowered into his
tomb. What is sure is that music, under the
patronage of Beauchamp, was very important within his household.
Two composers were employed by him, Robert Chirbury and John Soursby
both of whom had also served in the Royal Household Chapel in Rouen.
Alexandra Buckle argues that the
polyphonic music played in the Chapel may well have been written by one
of these two late medieval composers.
According to Buckle:
Beauchamp’s
specification of Lady Mass ‘with note’ is a reminder that
he had been an avid patron of music…His executors thus designed a space
for him that celebrated music…They went
further by including substantial musical iconography in his final
resting place.
The Tomb
The quality of all
of the ornamentation in the Chapel indicates the
wealth and power of Beauchamp. The total cost for the Chapel was
£2,400 but the structure that dominated the
Chapel, the Tomb, added an extra £720 to that sum. Elements in
the construction of the tomb including its position,
composition, iconography and motto can be seen as echoing the piety of
the age.
The tomb was placed,
in accordance with the tradition of the time,
close to, and immediately in front of the focus of power – the altar.
Roffey maintains that ‘Burial close to the altar
forged a connection with the mass and its implicit intercessory
efficacy and highlighted one’s tomb or memorial to those
participating in the mass’.
The materials chosen for the tomb were of the highest quality as
befitted one whose status in the earthly hierarchy was in the highest
echelons. The step and the top of the elaborately
carved chest was a slab of Purbeck marble, a material Linda Monckton
claims was:
a
prestigious one and was selected for the great reredos screen of
contemporary date in Westminster Abbey and was used for the chests of
Edward III and Richard II in their
Westminster tombs, the latter precedent for the design of Beauchamp’s
own tomb chest.
It is John Essex who is usually recorded as having carved the tomb, but
other sources indicate that it was a collaboration between Essex, who
worked from St. Paul’s Churchyard in
London, and John Bourde of Corfe who is also mentioned in the original
contract for the tomb.
On the top of the tomb lies Beauchamp’s life-size effigy, believed to
be the only cast-metal effigy of a non-royal figure before the
sixteenth century. This was cast by William Austen of
London in latten, an alloy similar to bronze, and covered in gold by
Bartholomew Lambspring assisted by Roger Webbe,
a barber whom Brindley speculates may have been included due to his
surgeon’s knowledge of anatomy, and
John Massingham, ‘a kerver’ [carver].
Brindley posits
that
is it unlikely that the effigy is an accurate
portrait, and that ‘The armour is of a style first made in Milan more
than a decade after Beauchamp’s death, and so could not have
been his own.’ This may very well be so, yet the intricate details,
such as the raised veining on the hands
indicate a desire for a high level of accuracy. Perhaps the effigy was
based on a lost portrait of Beauchamp as a young
man, for it does seem to be a likeness of someone and a desire for
exactitude would resonate with the growing
desire at that period to represent accurate physical features. Whereas
in the Romanesque Art of the early Middle
Ages faces lacked individualism and were even interchangeable, late
Medieval artists, sculptors and painters
began to embrace the Gothic style which was beginning to portray
individual features. This gave rise to the
flowering of Renaissance Art. This puzzle is one to which a solution is
unlikely to be found.
During the medieval period the link between the earthly kingdom and the
heavenly kingdom also found expression in myths and legends of the
fight between good and evil. The heavenly
war, as portrayed in the Scriptures, was also to be fought on earth.
This not only involved participation in the
Crusades, but also encouraged warriors to imitate the heroes who
engaged in holy quests such as that involving the Holy
Grail. Brindley maintains that the illustrations in the Pageants are
meant ‘to portray Beauchamp as a knight in the
chivalrous tradition’. This may be the reason that Beauchamp’s head
rests on a swan, part of the Beauchamp crest,
which Brindley maintains implies descent from the legendary hero
Lohengrin who appears in much medieval folklore
and literature. Although such a claim on the part of Beauchamp appears
to have been based on no known fact, it
was a common one associated with more than one noble family, and
represented in English literary tradition by
the late fourteenth-century verse romance Chevelere Assigne. Perhaps
the notion of claiming some connection with
such a noble Knight was irresistible to one considered by Brindley, to
be ‘one of the last great figures of
chivalry’.
Another possibility is that Beauchamp was claiming kinship with the
family of Godfrey of Bouillon, a medieval Frankish knight who was one
of the leaders of the First Crusade. After
the successful siege of Jerusalem in 1099, Godfrey became the first
ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, although he
refused the title ‘King of Jerusalem’ as he said that title belonged to
God. Idealised in later accounts, Godfrey
was included among the ideal knights known as the Nine Worthies. In
fictional literature, Godfrey became the hero of
numerous French ‘chansons de geste’ dealing with the crusade. By the
12th century, Godfrey was already a legend
among the descendants of the original crusaders. This may be no nearer
the truth than the story connecting
Beauchamp directly with Lohengrin, yet if there was no bloodline
relationship with these heroes of old, Beauchamp
certainly claimed descent from Guy of Warwick.
Guy, now also known to be a legendary character, was a hero of the
Romance genre. The story goes that Guy fell in love with the lady
Felice who was of much higher social standing. In
order to wed her he had to become a knight and to achieve this he
needed to prove his valour in chivalric
adventures which included battling fantastic monsters such as dragons,
giants, a great boar and the Dun Cow. He succeeded
and, on his return, wed his lady. However, full of remorse for his
violent past, he embarked on a pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. Eventually he returned privately and lived out the rest
of his life as a hermit in a cave overlooking
the River Avon at a location still called Guy’s Cliffe.
‘Guy’s sword’ remains on show in Warwick Castle but Beauchamp’s effigy
in the Chapel also bears a sword appropriate to his status. Another
feature of the effigy which bears
witness to Beauchamp’s status in the temporal hierarchy is that, while
under his right foot is the Beauchamp bear,
under his left foot is the Despenser griffin of his second wife Isabel
Despenser. This denoted his position of importance
within both prominent aristocratic families.
Nevertheless, despite all these knightly attributes, the fact that the
position of Beauchamp’s hands allow him to gaze upwards to the figure
of the crowned Queen of Heaven emphasises
that, although the Chapel may have become known as the Beauchamp
Chapel, for Beauchamp it was also
dedicated to the most powerful Saint available to intercede for him in
the afterlife and he wished to keep
his eyes firmly fixed on her. The whole effigy is surrounded by a
cage-like construction built to support a fabric cover,
tapestry or velvet, called a ‘hearse’, which would have been removed to
reveal the effigy only when mass was said
for his soul.
Around the sides of
the tomb were set niches containing fourteen
figures or ‘weepers’ interspersed with angels and miniature bears and
ragged staffs. The figures were cast by William
Austen of London in latten, an alloy similar to bronze and covered in
gold. Weepers were living people who would mourn
the death of the person in the tomb and whose intercessions could add
weight to those of the saints. On one
side of Beauchamp’s tomb are female weepers and on the other side are
male weepers – all of them notable
members of Beauchamp’s family and the nobility, and each identifiable
from the enamelled coats of arms around
the base.
‘Medieval society was a hierarchy, and the orders of the heavenly host
resembled the earthly society’. Therefore, just as Mary because of her
high status as Queen of Heaven, was placed
higher – and thus potentially given more power – than the apostles,
evangelists and universal saints, it is
possible that Beauchamp considered that having all those highly placed
human individuals to mourn him would reduce his
time in purgatory considerably. Nevertheless, by the time the Earl was
finally installed in his resting place, his
son Henry and Henry’s wife Cecily were themselves dead.
The inscription around the tomb is interesting in that it is in
English. Sir William Dugdale, quotes Beauchamp as requesting that ‘In
the two long plates they shall write in latine in
feine manner all such Scripture of Declairation as the said Executors
shall devise’. However, it would appear that his
executors were prepared to deviate from this instruction as Brindley
considers that the final inscription is
probably the first monumental eulogy written in the English language.
This was a reflection of the growing use of the
mother tongue in ecclesiastical and secular affairs rather than the
more conventional French. Indeed between 1360 and 1400
English replaced French in the army and Law Courts, and in 1348 English
became the medium for teaching in
the schools. The text of the inscription around the tomb reads:
Prieth
devoutly for the sowel whom God assoille of one of the moost
worshipful knightes in his dayes of manhode and conning, Richard
Beauchamp, late Eorl of Warrewik Lord Despenser of
Bergevenney and of mony other grete lordships whos body rcsteth here
under this tombe in a fulfeire vout of
stone set on the bare rooch. The which visited with longe siknes in the
castel of Roan therinne decessed ful
christenly the last day of april the yer of our Lord God A.D.
MCCCCXXXIX he being at that tyme lieutenant genal and
governor of the royalme of Fraunce and of the duchie of Normandie by
sufficient autoritie of our sovaigne lord
the king Harry VI. The which body with grete deliberacon and ful
worshipful conduit bi see and by lond was broght to
Warrewik the III day of October the yer above seide and was leide with
ful soleime exequies in a feir chest
made of stone in this churche afore the west dore of this chapel
according to his last wille and testament therin to
reste til this chaple by him devised in his lief were made. Al the
whuch chapel founded on the rooch and alle membres
therof his executors dede fully make and aparaille by the same
auctorite the dide translate fful worshipfully
the seide body into the voute aboveseide. Honorid be God therfore.
Here too we have an indication of the ties between the spiritual and
the temporal for, despite the injunction to pray for Beauchamp’s soul,
it would appear that it was his knightliness
rather than his piety that is emphasised here.
The foundation stone of the Beauchamp Chapel was laid in 1443, some
four years after Beauchamp’s death, with the building and its
decoration being completed in 1460. However
Beauchamp’s body was not moved from the position by his father into the
tomb built for him until some fifteen
years later. As his remains were placed into the tomb the presiding
Bishop offered up the prayer that, just as God had
wished the bones of Joseph, son of Israel, to be taken on the
wanderings by the Israelites until they found their
resting place in the Promised Land, so the bones of Beauchamp, could at
last have their final resting place in the
magnificent Chapel just as he had planned. Thus, once again the link
between Beauchamp’s temporal status and that of an
Old Testament hero was seen as comparable.
Provisions for the
Chantry Masses
As previously mentioned, a chantry was a service rather than a place,
based on an unquestioning belief in the intercessory role of the
saints, the need to offset the perils of
purgatory by good works and the duty to provide for the spiritual
well-being of this family. Having engaged with the first
by the placing of saints in the Chapel, the second by the funding of
the Chapel, it was necessary to ensure that the
spiritual welfare of Beauchamp and his family did not go astray.
St. Mary’s had been a Collegiate Church, served by a Dean and canons
since 1123 when Henry, 1st Earl of Warwick, had begun the foundation of
the college by the establishment
of one prebend, which was an endowment providing income for one canon.
Henry’s son Roger had given sufficient
property for the maintenance of six other prebends. The small community
came together daily to celebrate Mass and
the seven canonical offices.
Beauchamp’s will specified four daily masses to be celebrated in his
chapel to secure his soul and the souls of his family, two to be Masses
of the Dead, and the third a Mass following
the weekly votive cycle. However, the fourth was the Lady Mass that
Beauchamp especially asked to be ‘with note’.
Provision was thus made for three chantry priests to sing the masses
‘for ever’. Rather than just an act of
religious individualism, this indicated a piety that acknowledged
communal responsibility. Roffey maintains that, not only
the individual benefited from the quantity of prayers as they ‘more
powerfully enhanced the intercessory element of
the ritual’, but that ‘the laity, in turn, benefited from even more
elaborate and plentiful ceremonies and the
spiritual efficacy of the mass itself.’ This he maintained was due to
the fact that the laity ‘sustained an inherent
feeling of spiritual and psychological security from it’.
However the desire of Beauchamp for chantry masses to be celebrated in
perpetuity was not fulfilled, for the world-order Beauchamp had served
was quickly passing and the power once
assumed by such magnates was in decline. Within two or three
generations of his death, the medieval
order came to an end. Politics, the Royal succession, the unwillingness
of some sections of the population to
unquestioningly obey the edicts of Papal authority, and the
proliferation of printed literature, all made a
contribution to the chaos that was to herald the Reformation. These
forces were to make a significant impact on the
system Beauchamp had put in place for the good of his soul for, within
seventy-five years of his being ensconced
in his magnificent tomb, the voices had ceased by order of the King.
All text and illustrations on this
site are
©
Doreen Mills - 2012
This page was last updated on 9th February 2013
If you have any comments or queries please contact
Doreen