Exeter Cathedral: The First Thousand Years 1400-1550

By Nicholas Orme

There has been a church on the site of Exeter Cathedral since Roman times. This is the story of its first thousand years, when three successive cathedrals were built, including the present one. In twelve chapters, the author takes us back to the past to see why the cathedral is like it is, and what went on there. We explore its origins; its surroundings and buildings; its wealth, clergy, and people; its workings from day to day and throughout the year; and how it changed at the time of the Reformation. This is a fascinating piece of religious and social history, written for the general reader and illustrated with maps, reconstructions, and photographs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Impress Books
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781907605543

Book preview

Non nobis, Domine

Contents

Title Page

Dedication

List of Illustrations

Foreword

1. The Beginnings

2. The Surroundings

3. The Building

4. The Inside

5. The Wealth

6. The Clergy

7. The King

8. The People

9. The Day

10. The Year

11. The Saints

12. The Reformation

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

List of Illustrations

The author and publishers are grateful to for the kind permission to reproduce the illustrations from the copyright holders, listed below.

1 St Mary Major church in the early nineteenth century. Painting by George Townsend (Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery Exeter)

2 Exeter’s city walls (Nicholas Orme)

3 St Martin’s church, Exeter (Nicholas Orme)

4 Coin of Edgar (Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery Exeter)

5 The Confessor’s charter, moving the bishop’s seat to Exeter and uniting the dioceses of Devon and Cornwall (Exeter Cathedral Archives, D&C 2072)

6 The Exeter Book (Exeter Cathedral Library, D&C 3501)

7 Plan of the cathedral Close in the Middle Ages (Nicholas Orme)

8 John Hooker’s map of the cathedral Close (Exeter Cathedral Library, D&C 3530)

9 The Broad Gate, cathedral Close (D. & S. Lysons, Magna Britannia, vol. vi: Devonshire, London, 1822)

10 Canons’ houses, cathedral Close (Nicholas Orme)

11 Reconstruction of the college of the vicars choral, Exeter (Richard Parker)

12 The college of the vicars choral, Exeter, nineteenth-century painting (Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery Exeter)

13 Plan of the Norman cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

14 The cathedral towers (Julie Swales)

15 Plan of the present cathedral, 1400–1548 (Nicholas Orme)

16 The tomb of Bishop Stapledon, Exeter Cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

17 The west front of the cathedral (Julie Swales)

18 Reconstruction of the north walk of the cloisters (Richard Parker)

19 The north walk today (Julie Swales)

20 The south-west side of the cathedral, embattled to look like a fortress (Julie Swales)

21 The north porch (Julie Swales)

22 The cathedral nave (Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral)

23 The Grandisson chapel (Nicholas Orme)

24 The Lady chapel (Julie Swales)

25 The sedilia in the cathedral choir (Julie Swales)

26 The chapter house (Julie Swales)

27 David and Goliath from a cathedral psalter (Exeter Cathedral Library, D&C 3508)

28 Map of the lands and churches of Exeter Cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

29 Altarnun parish church, Cornwall (Nicholas Orme)

30 Thorverton parish church, Devon (Julie Swales)

31 Bull, cow, and calf boss, Lady chapel (Julie Swales)

32 Mermaid boss, east end of the choir (Julie Swales)

33 The cathedral exchequer, exterior view (Julie Swales)

34 The bishop’s throne, cathedral choir (Julie Swales)

35 The tomb of Bishop Bronescombe, Exeter Cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

36 Christopher Urswick, chancellor of Exeter Cathedral (Wells Cathedral Library)

37 Plan of a canon’s house, Number 7, The Close (Dr D. Portman)

38 A reconstruction of the house of the chantry priests, as it was between the 1520s and 1540s (Piran Bishop)

39 The night stair in the north tower (Nicholas Orme)

40 The cat-hole in the tower door of the north transept (Julie Swales)

41 Carved head of a king, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

42 The royal coat of arms in the great east window (Julie Swales)

43 The tomb of Bishop Stafford, Exeter Cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

44 Boss of a bishop, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

45 Boss of Thomas Becket, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

46 The pulpitum (choir-screen) (Julie Swales)

47 The tomb of Sir Richard Stapledon, Exeter Cathedral (Julie Swales)

48 The tomb of the earl and countess of Devon, Exeter Cathedral (Julie Swales)

49 The swans from the countess’s tomb (Julie Swales)

50 Chapel of St John the Evangelist and book box (Nicholas Orme)

51 St Anne and the Virgin, chapel of St George (Speke chantry) (Julie Swales)

52 The tomb of Bishop Lacy, Exeter Cathedral (Julie Swales)

53 Members of the Guild of Kalendars, c.1300 (Exeter Cathedral Archives, D&C 3675)

54 Plan of Exeter Cathedral choir in the Middle Ages (Nicholas Orme)

55 Plan of the duty rota for Easter Sunday 1518 (Exeter Cathedral Archives, D&C 3686)

56 Exeter Cathedral obit accounts (Exeter Cathedral Archives, D&C 3673, 3764–72)

57 The cathedral clock (Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral)

58 Exeter Cathedral choir today (Julie Swales)

59 The ‘minstrels gallery’, cathedral nave (Nicholas Orme)

60 Singing area behind the ‘minstrels gallery’ (Nicholas Orme)

61 The elephant misericord, cathedral choir (Julie Swales)

62 Virgin and child on corbel, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

63 Resurrection painting, Sylke chantry (Nicholas Orme)

64 Baptism, from the ‘seven sacraments window’, Doddiscombsleigh church, Devon

65 Payments for flans (Exeter Cathedral Archives, D&C 3773)

66 Order for Rogationtide processions (C. Wordsworth, Ceremonies and Processions of the Cathedral Church of Salisbury, Cambridge, 1901)

67 Musician and tumbler on corbel, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

68 Christ and cross on corbel, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

69 Painting of the Assumption, retrochoir (Julie Swales)

70 Gabriel and the Virgin, screen of the chapel of St Gabriel (Julie Swales)

71 St Edmund, east window of choir (Julie Swales)

72 Boss of praying cleric, cathedral nave (Julie Swales)

73 Votive offerings at the tomb of Bishop Lacy (Dean and Chapter of Exeter Cathedral, deposited in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum)

74 The chapel of Holy Cross (Sylke chantry) (Nicholas Orme)

75 The tomb of Bishop Oldham, Exeter Cathedral (Nicholas Orme)

76 The chapel of St George (Speke chantry) (Nicholas Orme)

77 The burning of Thomas Benet, 1532 (John Foxe, Acts and Monuments, London, 1610)

78 Henry VIII and the Bible (The Byble in Englyshe, London, R. Grafton, 1539)

79 Reredos in the chapel of St Saviour (Oldham chantry) (Julie Swales)

80 Carew tombs in the chapel of St John the Evangelist (Julie Swales)

81 ‘Mol’s Coffee House’, the cathedral Close (Julie Swales)

Foreword

Exeter Cathedral is a great medieval building, still standing for us to visit and enjoy. But why was it built, and what went on around and inside it? This book aims to answer these questions, by showing how the cathedral began as a Roman church and Anglo-Saxon minster, and how it functioned up to the Reformation in the 1530s and 1540s. I first published a study of this subject in 1986: Exeter Cathedral: As It Was 1050–1550. It was little noticed outside Devon, but, if I may say so, it made an early contribution to what has since become a popular subject of conferences and books: the study of sacred space. The present book replaces it with a thoroughly rewritten text and new chapters on the cathedral’s origins and wealth. The illustrations have also been improved to display the visual riches of the cathedral in a more appropriate way. This has been made possible by the kindness of the dean and chapter in allowing the publication of photographs of their buildings, manuscripts, and archives, and by grants towards the cost of the book through the generosity of the Friends of Exeter Cathedral, Devon County Council, and Exeter City Council through the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery. Reproductions of images have also been kindly permitted by the dean and chapter of Wells Cathedral, the rector and churchwardens of Doddiscombleigh, Messrs. Piran Bishop and Richard Parker, and Dr David Portman. The publishers and I are deeply grateful for all their help.

I have received much encouragement and kindness while working on the cathedral’s history since the late 1960s. Successive cathedral librarians and archivists have worked nobly and uncomplainingly to find what I needed (and sometimes could not describe!), notably Angela Doughty, Audrey Erskine, Michael Howarth, and Peter Thomas. Julie Swales took most of the photographs and Sean Goddard drew most of the maps and plans to his unfailingly high standards. John Allan, Professor Julia Crick, Bob Higham, David Lepine, and Canon John Thurmer all provided me with priceless information and advice from their knowledge of the building and its context in local and religious history. My publishers, Impress Books, and my family have given me wonderful support throughout. The inspiration to work on this subject and the time to complete it came from another direction altogether.

Nicholas Orme, Oxford, 2009

CHAPTER 1

The Beginnings

Romans, Britons, and Saxons

Why Exeter Cathedral? Why a cathedral, of this shape, on this spot, in this city? Part of the answer lies with those who raised the building that we see, between the 1270s and the 1340s. But that was not the first cathedral. There was an earlier one, still partly with us in the two great towers, and a yet earlier one now underneath the ground. And that earliest cathedral, the first of the three, began its life as a monastery not a cathedral, and before the monastery there was probably a church in Roman times. The timeline from the earliest church on the site to the construction of the present cathedral is longer than it is from that construction to the present day.

To understand why the cathedral exists, then, we need to begin with the Romans, because long before there was a cathedral, the framework was created which ensured that there would be one and what it would be like. Exeter owes its origins as a city to the Romans, who created it in the first century

AD

to be the administrative centre of the South West of England. At that time the South West was the home of a people of British race who spoke a language similar to Welsh. During the period of Roman rule, Christianity came to Britain, at first unofficially, later officially. In

AD

313 the Emperor Constantine granted toleration to Christians, and in 391 the Emperor Theodosius forbade pagan worship, making Christianity the sole legitimate religion of the empire.

One would therefore expect a church to have existed with a measure of official status in Exeter by the end of the fourth century, and this expectation was supported in the 1970s by the discovery of a cemetery in the area of the forum (the civic centre of Roman Exeter), in the south-west corner of the cathedral Close. The graves appear to be Christian and to date from the end of the Roman period or soon afterwards, say 400–500.¹ They also imply the presence of a church, since Christians by this time wished to be buried near such places, unlike earlier pagan Romans who preferred to lie in cemeteries outside towns.

It is likely, then, that Exeter had a church by the time that Roman rule evaporated in England, during the early 400s. After this date the Britons of the South West formed a kingdom under local rulers and they gradually became Christians, probably through contacts with the rest of Britain and the Continent. Exeter, however, seems to have ceased to exist as a city or settlement, apart from its walls and gateways.² The Roman streets fell into disuse, and later ones were laid down in a largely different way.³ Exeter people retained no memory of a Roman church in their city.

We next learn of a church in the late 600s, from two sources. One is archaeological: the presence of a second cemetery above the first, with graves dating from the period around 700 and also pointing to a church close by and facing east, in the same vicinity as the probable late-Roman one.⁴ The other source is the Life of St Boniface by Willibald (754–68), which says that Boniface was born as Wynfrith, the son of a well-to-do father, and went as a child (allegedly at his own insistence) to become a trainee monk in a monastery at Exeter under an abbot named Wulfhard.⁵ This would have been in about the 680s. It seems likely that the church of Wulfhard’s monastery was identical with the one suggested by the cemetery.

St Mary Major church in the early nineteenth century. It stood on part of the site of the Anglo-Saxon minster.

Willibald does not tell us where Boniface came from, although his home is likely to have been in Devon. Exeter was not a famous enough monastery to have attracted recruits from far away. The claim that he was born in Crediton was not made until the 1330s when Bishop Grandisson of Exeter inserted a statement to that effect in the readings for St Boniface’s Day, 5 June, which he authorised for use in Exeter Cathedral.⁶ This was nearly 600 years after Boniface’s death, and there is no sign of any such belief in the intervening period, or of any linkage of Boniface with Crediton before Grandisson.

Perhaps the bishop was trying to solve the problem of Boniface’s origins according to the scholastic logic of his day. He may have reasoned that since Boniface was not said to have come from Exeter, he must have been born elsewhere. The most obvious other place would have seemed to be Crediton: Grandisson could not have known that it is not actually recorded by name until the 900s. Therefore Boniface came from Crediton. In truth, the only place in Devon with which we can link him is Exeter.

Nothing is said about the monastery by Willibald except that Boniface stayed there into his adolescence and studied the Holy Scriptures before receiving permission to move to a monastery at Nursling in Hampshire, where the opportunities for learning were apparently better.⁷ The fact that a monastery was established in Exeter, however, probably represents an early attempt to revive the Roman city. By the 680s there had been Christian missions in southern England for nearly a century. These missions came from Rome in the first instance, and they aimed not merely to restore Christianity but Roman civilisation. Several of the new Christian bishops established themselves and their churches in former Roman towns: Canterbury, London, Rochester, and York. For somebody planning to found a monastery in Devon in the late 600s, Exeter would have been an attractive place.

When the monastery was founded is unknown, but there may have been a later belief in Exeter that the year was 670. This date appears in some manufactured charters of the eleventh century, in which the cathedral tried to establish its rights to property in Devon.⁸ No source identifies the founder, but since Wulfhard and Wynfrith were both Anglo-Saxons, such an initiative is likely to have come from the kings of Wessex, who ruled over southern England from Dorset to Hampshire.

By the late 600s, these kings were extending their power into Devon at the expense of the British kings of the South West. English settlers were coming into Devon, and the Britons who lived there were beginning to adapt to English rule and eventually to speaking English.⁹ Wessex was officially Christian by this time, and new churches were needed to serve the English in Devon. The king of Wessex was an obvious person to provide them. In later times, Exeter was regarded as a royal church, and since it existed by the 680s, a good candidate for its foundation would be King Cenwealh (reigned 642–72).¹⁰

Wulfhard’s monastery would have been staffed by monks, governed by their abbot and probably living communally and celibately. They would have worshipped God every day in their church and would have needed lands to give them an income: lands that would have been given by their founder, although the location of these is unknown. So too is the later history of the monastery. It does not seem to have led to a significant revival of city life in Exeter, but it may well have ministered to people from the surrounding countryside by allowing them to attend its services and by providing baptisms, confessions, sermons, funerals, and burials.

Soon after 700 there were enough Christians in Devon under the control of the kings of Wessex to need the supervision of a bishop. A new diocese was created with its base at Sherborne in Dorset to look after the western end of Wessex in Dorset, Somerset, and Devon. The first bishop of Sherborne was Aldhelm (died 709), an excellent choice because, although he was English, he was willing to engage tactfully with the British king and clergy of west Devon and Cornwall. In 739 the king of Wessex gave the bishop of Sherborne an estate at ‘Creedy’ (Cridie) north-west of Exeter, beside the river of that name.¹¹ The estate was a large one, covering the area around what is now Crediton and stretching eastwards as far as the River Exe, just north of Cowley Bridge.¹² This gave the bishop a place to live and food to eat when visiting Devon and working there.

Why was the bishop not given the monastery at Exeter? Presumably because it still existed and needed its lands for itself. The choice of Creedy as his estate, however, suggests that Exeter was already regarded as the ancient and natural centre of Devon, requiring him and his successors to have a base as close to it as possible. In the course of time they probably founded a church on the estate at Crediton, although we cannot posit the existence of one until about 909.¹³

Alfred and Edward the Elder

One of the turning points of Anglo-Saxon history was the reign of King Alfred of Wessex (871–99), and this may also be true of the history of Exeter. Wessex in Alfred’s day was being attacked by the Vikings, and in 876 an army of them, mounted on horses, rode west from Wareham in Dorset towards Exeter. Alfred pursued them with his forces, but they got into the ‘fortress’, presumably the city walls, before he caught them up, and he had to allow them safe passage to the Midlands in order to get them to leave.¹⁴

The Viking threat necessitated a reorganisation of the defences of southern England. Alfred developed a system of ‘burhs’ (forts) which local people were to maintain and defend. Exeter became one of these. When the Vikings next attacked it in 894, from a fleet of Danish ships, the city walls were defended by the English, and the Danes had to besiege them. Alfred relieved the siege with his army, and forced the Danes to depart.¹⁵ From this time onwards, Exeter began to develop again as a town: the walls now offered protection.¹⁶

Exeter’s city walls. Their repair under King Alfred helped bring about the city’s revival in the tenth century.

There was still a church in Exeter in the 890s: it seems safe to say ‘still’ rather than ‘again’. We learn this from Asser, a Welsh bishop who came to Alfred’s court and wrote his biography. Asser tells us that Alfred gave him ‘Exeter with all the parochia that belonged to it in the Saxon land and in Cornwall’.¹⁷ The fact that Alfred could give ‘Exeter’, evidently the monastery, shows that he regarded it as one of his churches – a view that strengthens the likelihood that it had been a royal foundation. Some historians think that parochia means the jurisdiction or lordship that belonged with Exeter’s lands.¹⁸ The difficulty here is that the Exeter monastery and the cathedral that succeeded it are not known to have held lands in Cornwall before the twelfth century. Their recorded estates, as we shall learn, were all fairly close to Exeter.

It seems more likely that parochia refers to a wider authority that Alfred wished Asser to hold in Devon and Cornwall. As a Welshman loyal to Alfred, he was uniquely qualified to lead the Church in the two regions, with their mixture of English and Britons. Devon was still part of Sherborne diocese, but that diocese was now too large for one bishop to manage effectively. It looks as if Asser was made an assistant bishop (or even an independent one) to look after Devon and part or all of Cornwall. The bishop of Sherborne held estates in both regions, and if Asser was granted these as well, it might explain the phrase that he uses; he would certainly have needed several local bases if he were going to work as a bishop.

This interpretation gains credibility from the fact that, when the bishop of Sherborne died in the late 890s, Asser was appointed in his place, probably by Alfred. He continued to be based in the South West until he died in 909. On his death, with the approval of Alfred’s successor, King Edward the Elder, the diocese was divided into three. Dorset remained under Sherborne, Somerset got a new bishop based at Wells, and Devon one located at Crediton. Crediton, which means ‘the settlement on the Creedy estate’, is first recorded as a place around this time.¹⁹ The bishop of Crediton seems to have looked after part or all of Cornwall to begin with, but Cornwall was given a bishop of its own in about 930.

The question arises, as it does in 739, why Crediton was chosen to be the bishop’s seat in Devon rather than the monastery at Exeter. More than one possible reason springs to mind. Edward, unlike Alfred, may not have wanted a bishop in his royal monastery and his royal ‘burh’, preferring to keep them under his own control.²⁰ The Creedy estate may have been regarded as safer than Exeter, although even places inland were not necessarily secure from Vikings on horseback! It may have been chosen purely for convenience. Since the bishops of Sherborne had held estates in Devon and Cornwall, including Creedy, all that had to be done was to transfer these to the new bishop and station him at one of them.

Creedy was a country estate not a town and Crediton was at most a village, but such places were not unusual as sites for bishops and cathedrals in this period. Several other Anglo-Saxon bishops had similar bases, including Lichfield, North Elmham, Ramsbury, Selsey, and Wells. Nevertheless, it is hard to escape the conclusion that the site was again selected primarily because it was close to Exeter rather than a place of importance in its own right. The bishop was not placed in the city, for whatever reason, but he was stationed as near to it as possible.

Æthelstan and Edgar

The bishops of Devon were based at Crediton from 909 until 1050. They were relatively rich, and Ælfwold, who died in the 1010s, bequeathed money, horses, and even a warship in his will,²¹ but it does not follow that Crediton as a church overtook the monastery at Exeter in terms of importance and wealth.

In the first place, Exeter developed as a town after 900 in a way unmatched by Crediton. Its role as a defensive stronghold was soon followed by its growth as a centre of trade and of administration, the county town of Devon. It acquired a royal mint producing coins, and a range of crafts including pottery and horn-working.²² It had religious and social activities. A guild was founded during the first half of the tenth century. The members – probably prosperous landholders and their retainers – met three times a year. They paid dues to fund a priest to celebrate masses for their souls and those of their dead colleagues, and to help any of their members who suffered a house fire or went on a pilgrimage to Rome.²³

The monastery in Exeter therefore drew status and probably wealth from the prosperity of the city. Moreover, whereas Crediton was the bishop’s church, Exeter was the king’s, as we have seen from Alfred and Asser, and kings were richer and more powerful than bishops. The royal connection bore fruit for Exeter when Æthelstan ruled Wessex between 925 and 939. Æthelstan became a legendary figure in later times, to whom many deeds were ascribed, especially in the South West. The historian William of Malmesbury, who visited Exeter in about the 1120s, says that local people could tell a good deal about him, and it must have been their stories that led William to make his famous remarks that Æthelstan came to the region to attack the Cornish, evicted them from Exeter ‘where they had lived until then on an equal footing with the English’, and fortified the city with towers and a wall of squared stone.²⁴

The stories that William heard are interesting as twelfth-century folklore, but they are not safe to use as sources for Æthelstan’s time. There is no evidence that he fought with the Cornish, who had been under the rule of the kings of Wessex for a hundred years. It is unlikely that they formed a strong presence in Exeter in the 920s, and quite incredible that (as some later writers have supposed) they occupied half of the city. Nor can one easily ascribe to Æthelstan a policy of ‘ethnic cleansing’. He would have regarded the Cornish as his subjects, and he took positive steps to protect the Church in Cornwall. Even his work on the city walls can only have modified them, since the walls had resisted the Vikings in 894.

Nonetheless Æthelstan certainly had an interest in Exeter and its monastery. He came to the city at least twice, in 928 and 932, of which the second visit was probably the more significant one.²⁵ By the end of the sixteenth century there was an Exeter tradition that he refounded the monastery in 932,²⁶ and this may well be correct because we know that his visit in that year, which centred on 9 November, coincided with a meeting of the chief men of his kingdom: three Welsh princes, two archbishops, seventeen bishops, and eighteen nobility. Never before or since, perhaps, has Exeter beheld so grand a throng.²⁷

This would have been an appropriate occasion to refound the monastery, and in the second half of the eleventh