PRIOR WILLIAM GEDENEY
1382–1391.
The congé d'élire resulted in the election of William Gedeney, who
was a canon here in the year 1379, and at the time of his election
was the cellarer. (fn. 1) The king signified to Robert de Braybroke, Bishop
of London, his assent to the election on the 14th January, 1382. (fn. 2) The
announcement of his election was made to him in the chapel of the
infirmary of the priory. (fn. 3) The royal mandate to restore the temporalities was issued on the 10th March following. (fn. 4)
The few records extant concerning this prior are these:
In the year 1383 he obtained licence from the king to appropriate
in mortmain the church of St. Martin Pomeroy; (fn. 5) and in 1384 the
king nominated the prior's chaplain, William Smogger, for presentation to the vicarage of Lowestoft, then in the king's gift (fn. 6) by reason
of the temporalities of the Bishop of Norwich (Henry Despenser)
having been seized by the king the year before. There is a further
record, in the year 1389, in connexion with one Geoffrey Ashwell, who
owed £4 2s. 0d. to one Thomas Driver, called Newchapman, who had
killed some one at Idlestre (Elstree) and fled the country. The debt
was therefore due to the king, and as Geoffrey could not pay he was
committed to the Fleet prison, but why this matter should be found
'in a certain process concerning William Gedeney, prior of St. Bartholomew's, and others', (fn. 7) as stated in the record, does not appear.
In the year 1390 the king, as mentioned above, (fn. 8) granted an inspeximus and confirmation concerning the grant by Prior Thomas de
Watford, in the year 1363, of a pension and a chamber in the church.
We do not know what necessitated this confirmation. It may have
been that Gedeney was not inclined, or was unable, to continue the
pension granted by Watford, and so Mirfield obtained the inspeximus
for his own protection.
The most important record of Gedeney's priorate is that, in the
year 1383, he obtained from King Richard a charter, dated 28th January, in his sixth year. It granted no new privileges, but merely
inspected and confirmed the charter of Edward II, dated the 10th June,
1324. (fn. 9) For this inspeximus the prior paid £10. (fn. 10) The main interest
in it to us is the many men famous in history who witnessed it;
they were:
William, Bishop of Canterbury, primate of all England. (Archbishop Courtenay, who proceeded against Wycliffe for heresy
in 1377, when he was summoned to St. Paul's, and crushed
the Lollards at Oxford in 1382, and at Leicester in 1389.)
Robert, Bishop of London, our chancellor. (Robert de Braybroke,
who succeeded Courtenay as Bishop of London in 1381. He
held the Great Seal of England from September 1382 to
March 1383.)
William, Bishop of Winton. (William of Wykeham or Wickham,
Bishop of Winchester from 1367–1404; he remodelled Winchester Cathedral, and founded Winchester College and New
College, Oxford.)
John, King of Castile and Leon. (John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster,
the fourth son of Edward III and head of the house of Lancaster; he was father of Henry IV, grandfather of Henry V,
and great-grandfather of Henry VI. He assumed the title of
King of Castile and Leon after he married, as his second wife,
Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel, King of Castile and
Leon.)
Edmund, Earl of Cambridge. Described with John of Gaunt as
'our most dear uncles'. (Edmund of Langley, Duke of York,
the fifth son of Edward III. He was a founder of the House of
York. He was the great-grandfather of Edward IV and his
brother Richard III, and great-great-grandfather of Edward V.)
Richard, Earl of Arundel. (The brother of Thomas Arundel the
archbishop, whose place as archbishop was held for a time by
Roger Walden. (fn. 11) The earl conspired against the king and was
executed on Tower Hill in 1397.)
Henry, Earl of Northumberland. (Sir Henry Percy, the first earl
and father of Hotspur who was slain in the battle of Bramham Moor.)
Hugh de Segrave, our Treasurer. (Sir Hugh Segrave, the Treasurer
of England from 1381 until his death in 1385.)
John de Montacute, steward of our hospice. (The third Earl of
Salisbury, who was beheaded at Cirencester by the antiLollard mob.)
There were other witnesses not named.
In the year 1382 there was a disastrous earthquake in London
when much damage was done to its buildings. St. Paul's Cross was so
nearly ruined that Archbishop Courtenay had recourse to indulgences
to raise the funds for its repair. Among the 'Political songs and
poems relating to English History' (fn. 12) occurs the following account of
this earthquake:
'For sothe this was a Lord to drede,
So sodeynly mad mon agast;
Of gold and selver thei tok non hede,
But out of ther houses ful sone thei past.
Chaumbres, chymeneys, al to-barst,
Chirches and castelles foule gon fare;
Pinacles, steples, to grounde [h]it cast;
And al was for warnyng to be ware.
. . . . . .
The rysyng of the comnunes in londe, (fn. 13)
The pestilens, (fn. 14) and the eorthe-qwake,
Theose threo thinges, I understonde,
Beoth tokenes the grete vengaunce and wrake
That schulde falle for synnes sake,
As this clerkes conne declare.
Now may we chese to leve or take,
For warnyng have we to be ware.'
Whether it was the effect of this earthquake that rendered it
necessary, in 1405, to rebuild the bell tower of the church, or whether
it was the effect of the settlement in the north-west pier of the
crossing, we do not know.
The records several times refer to the prior in connexion with the
hospital, thus: in the fourth of the Bishop of London's letters, dated
24th January, 1386/7 (which was referred to as being entered at
the end of copy No. 644 of Simon of Sudbury's ordinance at St Paul's), (fn. 15)
the prior is commanded to induct the new master, William Wakering,
and 'to assign to him a stall in the quire as was usual', the prior
having on the 4th of the same month presented the new master to
the bishop. (fn. 16)
In the same year (1387) Gedeney and Wakering were together
witnesses to the will of John Royston. (fn. 17) He bequeathed £10 to the
fabric of the cloister, and £20 to Dom John Rankedych to be expended
round and about the high altar. These two gifts suggest that the
work of restoration was commenced, or in contemplation, earlier
than the year 1405, which is the date indicated by the pope's grant
of indulgences.
Royston also bequeathed to the prior 26s. 8d. and his 'best cloth
with the tun'; to the master of the hospital he bequeathed 13s. 4d.
and his second best cloth with the tun; the mark of the 'tun' was
probably due to the last syllable of the testator's name—'Roys-ton'.
The records of the Merchant Taylors Company show that the
prior was one of their fraternity of St. John Baptist.
In the year 1390 one John Bathe bequeathed to the prior
(mentioning him by name), and to the convent, all his lands and
houses in various streets in the city. (fn. 18)
In January the next year (1391) the prior resigned. He apparently
continued to remain a canon of the church, for as such, in the year
1393, he was appointed 'papal chaplain with the usual privileges'. (fn. 19)
Three years before, in 1390, Philip Sihalden, a canon of St. Bartholomew's, had received a similar appointment, as did John Tebbe (fn. 20) in
1392 and John Yong (fn. 21) in 1394. These last two appear as canons of
the house in the lists referred to already in the years 1379 and 1382
respectively. (fn. 22) Licence to elect a successor was granted to the subprior on January 12th 1391, but Gedeney probably lived to 1395
or 1396. On the 15th April of the latter year one John Newport
directed in his will (fn. 23) that a trental (30) of masses should be said in one
day for the soul of this prior.