The Book Collection of John Ostewyk, Chaplain of St Magnus the Martyr, London, 1495

Abstract

This note offers a transcription, and brief discussion, of the probate inventory of John Ostewyk, a priest in the parish of St Magnus the Martyr in London, who died in 1495. Among his belongings, the appraisers found seventeen named volumes and twenty pamphlets. These are additional to books mentioned in his will. Some of the volumes can be identified with surviving editions.

THE PARISH OF ST MAGNUS THE MARTYR lies at the north end of London Bridge on the River Thames in the heart of the City of London. Indeed, until the bridge was rebuilt in the early eighteenth century, the parish encompassed half of the bridge itself, including the chapel dedicated to St Thomas Becket that sat upon it.¹ In the later middle ages it was a comparatively wealthy parish, with many of its most prosperous parishioners earning their living as fishmongers and stockfishmongers. This relative wealth was reflected in the parish church that overlooked the river, probably dating originally from the early eleventh century, but rebuilt first from 1234 when it was enlarged, and then again at the end of the fourteenth century under the auspices of the distinguished architect, and parishioner, Henry Yevele.² In 1379/80 the church was valued at £30, and, in addition to the rector, boasted eleven chaplains.³

Part of this wealth, and the necessity for so many chaplains, stemmed from the hugely popular fraternity dedicated to the Salve Regina and to St Thomas the Martyr that operated within the church. The Fraternity of the Salve Regina had been established in the church of St Magnus c. 1343, during the rectory of John de Teversham. Its inspiration may have been the Salve Regina procession, which formed part of Dominican liturgical practice from the thirteenth century.⁴ After compline, there was a procession out of the choir and into the nave while the Salve Regina was sung. The general populace could attend, and it proved enormously popular. The major focus soon became the new friary at the western edge of the City, immediately along the Thames from St Magnus. This was being built in the late thirteenth century.⁵ The Fraternity of St Thomas the Martyr, centred on the chapel dedicated to the saint on London Bridge, had probably been established some time before, very likely in the thirteenth century.⁶ On the merger of the two fraternities in the second half of the fourteenth century, the anthem of St Thomas was sung after that of the Salve Regina. Although in 1370 the Fraternity of the Salve Regina acquired licence from Edward III to hold property in mortmain, it still took the additional precaution of obtaining letters patent from Henry VI on 26 May 1448.⁷ The fraternity was hugely popular, and bequests to it were made throughout the period by parishioners and outsiders alike.⁸

Whether the chaplain John Ostewyk directly served the fraternity is not clear, but it is perhaps more likely that he was simply a chaplain serving the church and its various chantries. But he was doubtless a fraternity member. In 1449 he joined the Fraternity of St Nicholas, another very popular London community.⁹ Ostewyk served the church of St Magnus for many years, and was evidently still involved in the parish at his death. By that point in 1495 the parish was at a low ebb. At an episcopal visitation made the previous year, it was reported that the vestments and service books were ‘broken and unhonest’, that many of the priests and clerks wore ‘foule and unclenly surplesis’, that the chaplains did not attend masses or matins for the Salve, and that in fact many of the priests and chaplains, ‘at the tyme of divine service, be at taverns and alehouses, at fishing and other trifles, whereby divine service is let’.¹⁰ Finally it was alleged that the churchwardens had admitted beneficed priests and religious ‘where they might be more convenient and expedient, and that have more need to be received in their place’, namely Robert Smyth, beneficed, a monk called John Botel, beneficed, and John Bate ‘hath a thing that we cannot understand’.

In his will composed on 4 May 1495, Ostewyk made standard bequests to the church: 6s 8d to the high altar, 26s 8d to the fabric, and 40s to the fraternity.¹¹ He requested burial alongside his colleague and friend Richard Foucher in the cloister built early in the fifteenth century on the south side of the church, between it and the river.¹² Foucher was the chaplain serving the Lady altar, supported by income from a property known as the Sunne in St Margaret Bridge Street, which had been granted to the church by the fishmonger Robert Ramsay in 1405.¹³ In 1469 Foucher also joined the Fraternity of St Nicholas. He died in 1489.¹⁴ Foucher had given Ostewyk a portable breviary, which Ostewyk in turn bequeathed to another colleague, the chaplain John Matthews, with instruction that on his death Matthews should also bequeath it to an ‘honest priest’.¹⁵ In his later years, and perhaps infirm, Ostewyk may have been cared for by John Smith, a local stockfishmonger and his wife Isabel, to whom he bequeathed £23 6s ‘for the cost, designs and labours that they and their servant have sustained and born by me’, and to this was added numerous bequests totalling £11 to eleven individually named servants of the family. Ostewyk left another liturgical book to Isabel Smith, another portable breviary ‘covered with red velvet … so that she have the occupation thereof during her life for her and her friends and before her death to deliver it to an honest priest of good name and fame’.

Ostewyk’s will on its own would therefore give little indication of bookishness, specifying as it does only two service books of a standard nature for a parish priest to own.¹⁶ However, in this instance we are in the fortunate position of also having the inventory which his executors—the stockfishmonger John Smith himself, along with a local haberdasher named Henry Somer and Thomas Broke—arranged to be drawn up following Ostewyk’s instructions that the residue of his estate should be sold and the profits distributed among the parish poor. The survival of similar inventories at this relatively early date is rare.¹⁷ This inventory begins with a section dedicated solely to Ostewyk’s collection of books, and includes seventeen volumes not mentioned in his will, along with twenty pamphlets, which the appraisers valued at a total of £3 10s 8d. The majority of this collection was formed of manuscripts, but there were three volumes specified as being printed books.

Inevitably, Ostewyk owned a number of service and liturgical books. The inventory begins with a small manuscript breviary (portas), but also contains psalters, sermons, as well as a collection of treatises offering instructions for a priest.¹⁸ Other entries are more particular. Ostewyk’s printed copy of the Vitas patrum is identified by the secundo folio, clarified as being ‘in kalendar’.¹⁹ But the word as specified, capitatonibus, does not appear in any surviving edition of this popular work. It seems more likely that this is a misreading of cogitationibus, which does begin the second folio of the edition published by Octavianus Scotus in Venice on 14 February 1484.²⁰ This edition survives in large numbers (none identifiable as Ostewyk’s) and the work itself was immensely popular. A few months before Ostewyk’s death, Wynkyn de Worde had produced an English version, using Caxton’s translation, entitled The lyff of the faders.²¹

Benedict Burgh’s English translation of Cato’s Distichs was another very popular work. It survives in a large number of copies.²² Ostewyk’s copy, judging by the appraisers’ description, was in manuscript, on parchment (rather than paper), and was accompanied by other unnamed treatises. It evidently contained the Latin verses followed by Burgh’s English translation. The valuation set on it seems low, so it was clearly not a deluxe manuscript. It is frustrating that in this one instance the appraisers chose not to record the secundo folio. One might envisage a manuscript such as Dublin, Trinity College, MS 519, although this particular manuscript, which is perhaps rather high-end, contains no evidence of early ownership.²³

The appraisers’ inclusion of the secundo folio for Ostweyk’s printed copy of John Lattebury’s commentary on St Jerome demonstrates that this was the edition printed by Theoderic Rood in Oxford in 1482. This edition survives in thirty-six copies, as listed by ISTC, but none of them displays any evidence of ownership by Ostweyk.

Where the books were stored is not made clear, but presumably some of the six small wooden chests listed among his chamber goods served as coffers or book chests. But the rather threadbare nature of much of the clothing, as well as the prominence and valuation given to the books at the head of the list, indicates their position as the most valuable part of his estate. His collection is perhaps unsurprising in its religious focus. But it was more extensive than his will on its own would have suggested, and clearly reflects a literate parish priest, who served the church of St Magnus in the City of London for many years. As such, it provides a valuable insight into the growth in personal book ownership among London clergy in the late fifteenth century.²⁴

The inventory itself (PRO, PROB 2/7) is formed of a single rolled parchment membrane. The roll has been damaged in places, especially in the top right, but also intermittently down the right-hand side, which has removed some of the title details (including most of the names of the appraisers) and some of the valuations. The lack of a summa totalis at the end of the section of ‘chamber stuff’ suggests that the inventory may be incomplete. In the transcription that follows, abbreviations have been expanded and italicized, and loss of text through damage indicated by [[…]]. Entries relating to books are numbered editorially using boldface.

This is the Inuentary [[…]] of Sir John Ostewyk late [[…]] magnus praysed bi Will[[…]] Gough citezins & praysiers [[..]] Reuerend fader in God John Card[[..]] of Caunterbury the xijth day of [[…]] and in the yere of oure lord M[[…]]xv & in the xjth year of kyng henry [[..]]

Bookes

Footnotes