Order of Brothelyngham – Wikipedia

Fake religious order from 1348

The Order of Brothelyngham was a group of men, who, in the mid-14th century, formed themselves into a fake religious order in the city of Exeter, Devon. They may well have been satirising the church, which by then was commonly perceived as corrupt. Tales of priests and nuns not living according to their vows—indeed, actively breaking them—were common. The group appears to have named itself after a non-existent place, Brothelyngham. Such a name would have suggested chaos, wretchedness or some similar context to contemporaries. The men of this fake order dressed as monks and, supposedly, elected a madman as their abbot, who ruled them, possibly from a theatrical stage or throne.

The Brothelynghamite Order caused much trouble in Exeter and its environs, regularly emerging from their base—which may have been some form of medieval theatre—and terrorising the local populace. Bearing their “Abbot” aloft before them, on a mockery of a cathedra, they kidnapped locals whom they held for ransom. They also practised extortion. It is possible that, notwithstanding these activities, they saw themselves as theatrical players rather than criminals. The Bishop of Exeter, John Grandisson, in nearby Chudleigh, issued instructions to his agents to investigate and if they deemed it necessary, to condemn and excommunicate the Order, although the end result remains unknown. The bishop clearly expected to find evidence of disobedience and debauchery.

As one of the few such gangs known to modern historians, the Order of Brothelyngham is considered historiographically significant for what it implicitly suggests of anticlerical activities and attitudes in England during the period. The name is generally considered a play on the Order of Sempringham, which was the target of contemporary gossip and rumour on account of its policy of enclosing both monks and nuns on the same premises.

Background[edit]

French image of the Feast of Fools taken place at some point in the 14th century, from a contemporary manuscript

Socio-religious[edit]

The Church had waged a campaign against theatrical ludi—or popular games^{[note 1]}—ever since Pope Innocent III’s condemnation of “ludi theatrales” in 1207, in which he described them as encouraging ludibria, insania, debacctiationes obscoenas (“games, madness [and] obscene debauchery”). The Church was by far the most common target for popular satire; the historian Martha Bayless has calculated that 90 per cent of popular theatrical parodies attacked the Church somehow. The Order of Brothelyngham is considered by historians to have been a pseudo-religious order created in Exeter in 1348 for the purpose of satirising the clergy. It was treated by both locals and the establishment with no less antipathy for the fact that it was said to have begun life in non-violence. Such “fool societies”, while relatively common in France, were rare in England, argues the scholar E. K. Chambers, and that of Brothelyngham is one of the few known to modern historians.^{[note 2]} The medievalist, G. G. Coulton, has noted that “medieval buffoons often parodied ecclesiastical titles”. A similar example is the boy bishop, whereby a young man—”in a deliberate challenge to the social order”—was dressed in the robes of a bishop and gave quasi-ecclesiastic sermons, on various feast days such as the Feasts of Fools and of Asses. Feast days such as these were specifically intended to mock the church—in the case of the Feast of Fools, over a period of four days—both by its practices and rituals and its hierarchy, and by doing so, celebrate the disfranchised. Ecclesiastical parodies were favoured for their societies (such as the Abbey of Cokaygne) which overturned—albeit temporarily—social norms. They were an early expression of what became known later, in France, as Sociétés Joyeuses.^{[note 3]} They were also known as “abbeys of misrule”—particularly, comments the historian Katja Gvozdeva, with their emphasis on popular “carnivalesque rituals”. The comparison between the Church representing officialdom, and the carnivalesque representing the streets and the poorer classes, as expressed through popular parody, was a Continental phenomenon.

Such groups and their activities were already known of in Exeter in 1333, when John Grandisson, the Bishop of Exeter, had warned his own vicars against making what he termed debacaciones obscenas (“obscene remarks”) while wearing masque costumes and hiding their identities in games. He considered their Holy Innocents’ Day plays to be scandalous. Although little is known of the groups, the medievalist Lawrence M. Clopper suggests that while often these may have constituted innocent May games, “there seems to have been another game, shared by the young clerici and lay people, that involved tormentors in tattered garments”—again, emulating ecclesiastical robes—or dressed as monks, playing “‘somergames’ within sacred precincts”. One of these summer games, for example, seems to have involved dressing up as the devil, capturing and tormenting those playing the roles of Christ, Peter and Andrew, following which their tormentors received rewards. The spirit behind these activities has been suggested by scholar Bridget Anne Henisch as “limited, licensed anarchy” during which the Church was often “embarrassed by its minor clergy”. Grandisson had already mandated against acting and theatres in 1339; from this, Young argues that, by 1348, there was

A lively tradition of popular entertainment in Exeter which only surfaced in the bishops’ registers when it spilled over into sacred time or sacred space or made fun of sacred people or things.

Nationally[edit]

On a national scale, the Black Death had recently arrived in England, probably through Weymouth, Dorset. In response, in a letter known as Terribilis, King Edward III instructed prayers to be said in churches around the country. His letter is dated 28 September 1348, and Grandisson promulgated the royal instruction via the Dean of Exeter, attaching his own thoughts on what was necessary.^[29] According to the medievalist Rosemary Horrox, who translated and transcribed the material, he called upon his priests and vicars, “exhorting them with salutary admonitions that those in priests’ orders should celebrate mass devoutly”. He also “beseech[ed] and order[ed]” them to “arrange solemn public processions through the said city”, and requested that he be informed that this had been done by 1 January 1349.

Source material[edit]

The Order of Brothelyngham has been known to historians since the 19th-century antiquarian, and prebendary of Exeter Cathedral, Francis Charles Hingeston-Randolph, at his bishop’s suggestion, edited Grandisson’s registers in 1885, which were published over several years. The paucity of evidence regarding the activities of the Order is made worse by its one-sidedness. Nothing survives from the Order’s creators or members, and our sole source of information stems from a single letter of the Bishop—the Order’s avowed opponent—to his staff, filed in the registers. The letter was called Litera pro Iniqua Fraternitate de Brothelyngham, and was promulgated on 11 July 1348. Not only is Grandisson’s letter a partisan source, but he would only record events that in his eyes breached canon law, so not necessarily the whole of the Order’s activities might be recorded.Richard Pearse Chope translated Hingeston-Randolph’s transcription of the Bishop’s full letter and published it in Devon & Cornwall Notes and Queries in 1921 due to, he wrote, “several points [that] have not yet received any adequate explanation”, often because of translation or interpretative differences.^{[note 4]} Most recently, portions of Grandisson’s registers—including his 1348 letter of complaint—were edited by John M. Wasson as part of REED’s cultural history of Devon; the scholar David Grantley, in a review, described the Bishop’s “extensive extracts” as being of “enormous significance”. Abigail Young provided the translation for Wasson’s Latin sources.

Activities in Exeter[edit]

Name[edit]

Although the Order claimed to be “of Brothelyngham”, this was a fiction; there was no such place. However, the name was not without implication and would have had meaning to contemporaries. They would have understood the word to include the element brethelyng, brethel or brothel, meaning “good for nothing“, “chaotic” or “wretched” or “foul”,^{[note 5]} rather than a bawdy house. Hingeston-Randolph, who first edited Grandisson’s registers, suggested that it is possible that the title was bestowed upon the gang by the Bishop himself,^[42] in his indignation, transcribes Chope, that people so worthless “guiltily laughs at Holy Religion to scorn”, as he put it (Wasson translates this as their being “damnably scornful of sacred religion”). Hingeston-Randolph also understood the Brothelynghamites to be more in the manner of a dissenting sect of the Church than a criminal gang. He commented, “I must confess that I cannot understand this. There was no such Order, and I believe that there was no such place”.^[42] The name Brothelyngham was probably a satirical nod towards Sempringham Priory, suggests Chope. Sempringham contained both monks and nuns under the same roof; the scholar Ian Mortimer argues that, as a result, “sniggering in some secular quarters [was] inevitable”.

Riotousness[edit]

Henisch surmises that it was the Church’s very success against its own clergy and their games that led to the adoption of such practices by the laity, as was the case with the Brothelyngham Order. This group comprised, as were English monasteries during the period, solely of men. Although they may have been in the nature of a fanatical religious sect, it is more likely they were composed of disaffected locals, with the object of re-collecting the monies they felt was owed them by their Church. There may have been a philanthropic aspect also, as this was a major part in the traditional Feast of Fools.

On repeated occasions throughout 1348 the gang disturbed the peace of the city. On 11 July that year Grandisson wrote from Chudleigh, which was his main headquarters outside of the Cathedral. He instructed his chief agents in Exeter—the dean, the archdeacon, and the rector of the Cathedral—to investigate the Order and its members. These Grandisson referred to as “evil persons”. The Bishop instructed his men to condemn the Order the following Sunday by means of proclamations in the Cathedral and all other churches and chapels of the city. They were to emphasise that those who disobeyed, and failed to publicly withdraw from the fraternity, would not only be excommunicated but met with physical force, as the Bishop could—and stated his intention to—call upon the assistance of the city militia. Grandisson, says Young, believed that “the Order—nay, rather, the horror”—was comparable to “briars and thorns” growing in the field of religion, which needed to be cut away so as to prevent the Church being “dishonoured or disrupted”. The historian Audrey Erskine has questioned whether his violent responses to such cults and gangs might reflect something choleric in his character, while Young notes a strong Sabbatarian tendency to his approach. His particular focus on the drama as a source of social ill has long been known to historians; as the medievalist John Tydeman argues, Grandisson’s “injunctions to his clergy have long constituted a familiar element in histories of medieval drama”. He also seems to have had an antipathy to religious innovation in the diocese, opposing, for example, popular religion to the building of new chapels.

Grandisson’s instructions to his clerics did not mince words: the scholar J. Kestell Floyer describes it as “a withering blast of sarcasm and indignation”. The leader of the Order—whom the members idolised as a so-called abbot—the Bishop claimed to be a known “an insane and mad man”, who the linguist Derek Baker translated this as “a certain crazy lunatic”. Having been crowned with a Bishop’s mitre, the idiota was enthroned and carried around on a mock-episcopal chair. His followers, in a similar vein, wore monks’ habits and used horns to fanfare their abbot, who ruled them as from a theatrical stage, an imitation of the Bishop’s dais. The horn was intended to unfavourably contrast with holy bells. However, the Bishop’s use of the word theatre—theatrum—needs analysis, says the historian R. P. Chope, as Exeter possessed no such building in this period such as would be understood in the 20th century.^{[note 6]}

The Brothelyngham men, dressed as monks, paraded their abbot around the streets of Exeter on something akin to a litter, and, with their abbot enthroned above them, they proceeded to beat up and rob such citizens as they encountered. The medievalist Derek Brewer has argued that, to modern historians and commentators, “such sport is as much folklore as drama”. To the Church, though, they were a criminal gang who—expanding their operations from the city—invaded local towns and villages, where, says Chambers, they “beset in a great company the streets and places”, many of them on horse. They then extorted money from the inhabitants when they met them. They also kidnapped many people, both the religious and laity, from whom they would demand ransoms; Grandisson suggests they robbed from each others’ houses when the opportunity presented itself. The scholar Abigail Young suggests that their processions must have involved a large number of people, although it is impossible now to know whether the movement started in great numbers or attracted a crowd as it progressed over the days. Bayless agrees that “medieval parody rarely offers any sophisticated analysis of its target: even at its most critical its aim is not to direct reform but to humiliate the victim”, with violence often a first, rather than a last, resort.

Grandisson noted that, although the gang called this a ludus,^{[note 7]}—”under colour and veil of a game, or rather a farce”, he says—in his view, “it was sheer rapine”. Wasson proposes, for this passage, that “although these things appear to be tried under the colour and guise of a diversion—nay, a derision—it is nevertheless undoubtedly theft, since something is taken from those who are unwilling, and robbery”.

They were debauched in their behaviour, says Gvozdeva, and Grandisson’s letter describes them as “an abominable sect of some evil persons” in the city of Exeter and its environs. Regardless of any attempt at theatrical light-heartedness they may have tried to present, comments Grandisson, “though they seem to do this under colour and cloak of play, or rather of buffoonery, yet this is beyond doubt no other than theft and rapine, since the money is taken from the unwilling”. They were certainly disobedient, and combined with accusations of theft, either would be sufficient to ensure the Bishop’s ire. It is unknown whether they heeded the Bishop’s edicts, for despite his earlier threats to excommunicate the Order, no later letter survives suggesting he did so; his letter of 11 July merely places them “in pain of” such punishment should they not obey the ecclesiastical officials. He called the men “a threat to religion, the King and the Church”: “not least”, comments the scholar Julian Luxford, “to the monks of Cowick and St Nicholas’s and the nuns of Polsloe”.^{[note 8]} The Bishop saw the men’s actions, not merely as those of mortal men whom he could shepherd through the valley of death, but as active harbingers of the Lightbringer, who is “busy to spread the poison of his iniquity more widely in those places where he seeth most hope of mischief”. Thus, all their souls—of both the Order and those—such as the tanners and leathermen, who fought back, were equally imperilled.

Later events[edit]

In 1352, Grandisson again wrote to his officials, this time in Totnes and other churches, condemning what he called a group of “disciples of Antichrist”. A similar outbreak of anti-clerical fake monasticism in the area, this group of pseudo-monks—describing themselves as an “order of hermits”—occupied Townstal. The men “claimed power by a special papal privilege to hear confession and offer the sacraments” without Grandisson’s permission. Exeter and its theatre would seem to have been a focus for sociopathic behaviour, and in 1353 Grandisson issued an order to close down a performance called Ludum Noxium, a satire against the city’s cloth-dressing (or textile finishing) industry, which was causing disturbance. Performed by their rivals the leather sellers, Grandisson condemned their play as being composed “incontumely and [with] opprobrium”, or using insulting language and showing scornful contempt. This group was excommunicated almost immediately—”which we in this writing impose upon them”—in the course of the Bishop’s letter.

Historiography[edit]

Hingeston-Randolph first published Grandisson’s registers in 1897. He was, however, unsure what, in the Bishop’s plaint, he had encountered, and wrote in a footnote that:^[70]

I must confess that I cannot understand this. There was no such Order, and I believe that there was no such place. I have consulted several well-known experts, but in vain; all were puzzled and interested, but none could help me. The outbreak was, probably, purely local; and it is distinctly stated that these troublesome people had secured the use of the Exeter “Theatre,” under the pretence that they were performing a Play.^[71]

Hingeston-Randolph’s own view was that the Bishop had given the group its name, also out of uncertainty as to what they constituted, while ensuring his language made it clear that the group should be stigmatised by Christians.^{[70][note 9]}

The Order’s historiographical significance for modern historians, says Gvozdeva, is not that the gang wanted to be proper monks, have an abbot or be part of a mendicant order, but that they took upon themselves the appearance and, in their eyes, the attitudes of one. The historian Martin Heale has described the extent of ill-feeling felt by the general population towards the perceived “abbatial greed and luxurious living” they suspected the religious community of commonly indulging in against their Rule. Luxford, meanwhile, has argued that the significance of the Order is what their own expressed beliefs reveal of their own—and probably others’—views of the priesthood: that, for example, “monks and nuns blindly followed leaders, were idolatrous, avaricious, even luxurious (thus ‘Brothelyngham’)”. A comparison with supposed real life greedy abbots, says Heale, “is hard to mistake”. In her study of French late-medieval theatre, Gvozdeva has suggested that the Order of Brothelyngham “demonstrates particularly well the ambiguous relationship between the play, ritual and theatre”, noting the theatrical nature of the Order’s activities: the members celebrate the investiture of their abbot by sounding horns, it takes place takes place on trestles (in theatro) and his character is clearly intended to be a burlesque. One of the only known English examples of popular theatrics under the guise of religion, argues the Chaucerian Glending Olsen, it went through a multitude of forms, beginning as a version of the French Abbeys of Misrule and ending up as a fundraising exercise.

References[edit]

Bibliography[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• Mackenzie, N., The Medieval Boy Bishops (Troubador Publishing: Kibworth Beauchamp, 2021) ISBN 978-1-78088-008-2