The Middleton Accounts of 1526: #42

The next entry in the Middleton household accounts for Sir Henry Willoughby in 1526 was undated except for the month of August. It was described as Sir Henry’s offering to Our Lady of Worcester and St Kenelm at Winchcombe. The amount was 8 pence, which was the equivalent of about £14.71 today.

Our Lady of Worcester was a famous shrine. It contained a highly venerated statue of the Virgin Mary in the Lady Chapel of what is now Worcester Cathedral, but at that time the Cathedral was a Benedictine Cathedral Priory. The statue was heavily adorned with jewels and drapery, which had been donated by the wealthy. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1538, the shrine was despoiled and the statue was transported to London and burned alongside other statues.

Figure of St Kenelm by Denis Parsons in Our Lady and St Kenelm Roman Catholic Church, Halesowen, West Midlands, 2016. Photograph by Sjukmidlands, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The second offering referred to the shrine of St Kenelm at Winchcombe Abbey. According to legend, St Kenelm was a 9th century Anglo-Saxon King of Mercia who was murdered by his ambitious sister despite him having received a prophetic dream warning him of the danger. His body was hidden and buried in the Clent Hills. Miraculously, upon the discovery of his body there, a spring appeared at that location and gave good health to anyone who drank from it. St Kenelm’s shrine at Winchcombe contained his relics and he was widely venerated in medieval England. In fact, in the 12th century, William of Malmesbury wrote that there was no place in England to which more pilgrims travelled than to Winchcombe on Kenelm’s feast day. His feast day was the 17th July, the supposed date of his death in 821AD.

In 1539, during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, St Kenelm’s shrine was broken and dismantled and Winchcombe Abbey was completely demolished. In the 19th century, workmen digging on the site of the former abbey discovered two early stone coffins and one of these was thought to have been that of St Kenelm. It was moved to St Peter’s Church at Winchcombe and is now on display there.

Both of these shrines were significant sites of pilgrimage in the Midlands and particularly highly favoured by the local gentry. In this pre-Reformation era, making offerings to specific shrines was considered a vital act of Catholic spiritual piety. Offerings would have been made in order to try to secure the saints’ intercessions for health, prosperity and to shorten time in purgatory for the offerer and their family. However, in regard to St Kenelm’s, Sir Henry made regular donations to the shrine. This would be considered as seeking continuous spiritual favour as well as honouring a preferred saint. St Kenelm was considered the patron saint of the West Midlands, in what had once been the Kingdom of Mercia.

It is not thought that on this instance Sir Henry had travelled to Worcester or Winchcombe. Furthermore, because these offerings had been lumped together, the payment must have been made at the same time and, given their different geographical locations, that would not have been possible.

There are two possibilities for how these offerings were likely made. First, both of the aforementioned monasteries would have employed proctors. Proctors would travel the country to collect offerings, carrying small portable reliquaries or replicas from the shrine and giving out pilgrim badges in exchange for the donation. Alternatively, Sir Henry might have sent one of his servants to make the offering on his behalf at the shrines. This might have been as a specific journey or because the servant was required to go to those areas on other business. In this situation, the payment for both shrines would have been handed over to the servant at the same time and would have resulted in a single entry in the accounts, just like the one entered.

Further Reading: W. H. Stevenson, Report on the Manuscripts of Lord Middleton, Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1911. p.384.

Author - Debbie Jordan, Middleton Hall Volunteer.

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