19 February, 2009

Edward II's Books

Here's a list of books owned by Edward II:

- A romance (which meant any kind of fiction, not necessarily a love story) in French, which had belonged to his grandmother Eleanor of Provence and was delivered to him in 1298, when he was fourteen.

- An illuminated biography of Edward the Confessor in French, which cost 58 shillings from William, bookbinder of London, in May 1302.

- A Latin primer, which cost two pounds, made for "the use of the Lord Edward, the king's son" in 1299 by William the bookbinder. (I can't help imagining Edward as a bored, sulky adolescent, forced to sit and listen to droning Latin at Langley and staring out of the window, thinking about all the things he'd rather be doing instead, like repairing a wall or thatching a roof, but OK, that's just me.)

- A book bound in red leather described as De Regimine Regum, On the Ruling of Kings, which might mean Giles of Rome's De Regimine Principum, written c. 1280 for the future Philip IV of France.

- Edward I bought a book for his son in February 1301, maybe to commemorate his becoming prince of Wales, called De Gestis Regum Angliae, The Deeds of the Kings of England.

- In October 1326, Edward gave a manuscript of Tristan and Isolde, the famous story of doomed love, to his favourite Hugh Despenser.

- In November 1315, Edward paid five pounds to one Nicholas Percy for making a book about the life and times of Edward I for him.

In December 1320, he paid William the bookbinder of London - probably the same man who had made the Latin primer and the biography of Edward the Confessor - three shillings and four pence "for binding and newly repairing the book of Domesday, in which is contained the counties of Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk." This manuscript is now known as 'Little Domesday'. Kudos to Edward for helping to preserve an important piece of England's heritage!

Walter Stapeldon, bishop of Exeter and treasurer of England, made an inventory of the Exchequer in 1323. In a coffer painted green and fastened with iron hinges were found the following:

- a booklet written "in a language unknown to the English," which was in fact Welsh and appears to have been a collection of poetry.

- De regula Templariorum, the Rule of the Knights Templar.

- De Vita sancti Patricii, the Life of St Patrick.

- the chronicle of don Rodrigo Jimenez de Rada, archbishop of Toledo, who died in 1247. (Edward II's uncle Sancho became archbishop of Toledo in 1251 at the age of eighteen.) This presumably was Rada's De Rebus Hispaniae.

Stapeldon also found an unfastened plain iron coffer, containing many other documents in Welsh, which his baffled clerk, clueless as to what language it actually was, described as "an idiom very strange to the English." (Totally off-topic here, but English ignorance about Wales in the fourteenth century is nicely illustrated by the statement in the French Chronicle of London and the Anonimalle that Edward II was captured in November 1326 "near Snowdon," i. e. in North Wales. He was taken near Neath, 150 miles away in South Wales.)

In August 1313, Edward ordered the treasurer and the barons of the exchequer to deliver to Friar Philip Baston, who was then to deliver them to Edward at Windsor Park, the following:

"three books of the Institutes with a little volume, four sums of the Decretals, two new Digests with four old Digests, a Forsad, two apparatus of the Decretals of Innocent IV, two lectures upon the new Digest, two books of Decretals, a book of Decretals, two lectures of the Codex, a book of lectures of law, a book called Actor et Reus, a book of autentica of the constitution of the emperor Justinian, an antiphoner with two quires of the dedication of churches, a sum of Tanered, three codices, and one book of diverse lectures of the Codex and other books of the Corpus Juris."

Apparently Edward felt like a bit of light reading! Seriously, he probably gave some of them to Langley Priory, which he had founded in 1308, and certainly gave books on canon and civil law worth ten pounds to his foundation of King's Hall at Cambridge in 1317, most probably including some of the books mentioned here.

- Edward once borrowed two books - the lives of St Thomas Becket and St Anselm - from the library at Canterbury Cathedral, and failed to return them. There was a royal library in the Tower of London, containing at least 340 volumes, which Edward no doubt used on occasion.

When Edward fled from London in the autumn of 1326 after the arrival of his wife's invasion force, he left some items behind in the care of the merchant Simon Swanland (who became mayor of London in 1329 and who was the recipient of William Melton's letter of 1329 or 1330, saying that Edward was still alive). The items included:

- two 'good and fine' Bibles, one covered in red leather and the other in tanned leather.

- this entry is unfortunately damaged: "the sixth book of ...vel, well-glossed, covered with untanned leather." This probably means that the book was written in Latin and glossed into French.

- a missal with a cover of black leather.

Edward probably owned far more books that were never recorded anywhere, or the records haven't survived. Queen Isabella owned a good many books herself, including an encyclopedia, a genealogy of the French royal family, lots of religious works, and the romances The Deeds of Arthur and Percival and Gawain. (Unlike his wife, father and son, Edward II seemed to have had little interest in the exploits of King Arthur.) Isabella bequeathed her book/manuscript collection in 1358 to her two surviving children, Edward III and Joan, queen of Scotland.

Sources

- Susan Cavanaugh, 'Royal Books: King John to Richard II', The Library, 5th series, 10 (1988), pp. 305-309.
- Hilda Johnstone, Edward of Carnarvon 1284-1307 (1946), p. 18.
- Ian Mortimer, The Time-Traveller's Guide to Medieval England (2008), pp. 271-272.
- May McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307-1399 (1959), p. 2.
- J. Harvey Bloom, 'Simon de Swanland and King Edward II', Notes and Queries, 11th series, 4 (1911), pp. 1-2.
- Michael Prestwich, 'The Court of Edward II', in The Reign of Edward II: New Perspectives, ed. Gwilym Dodd and Anthony Musson (2006), p. 69.
- Calendar of Close Rolls 1313-1318, p. 10.
- Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer: Being A Collection of Payments Made Out of His Majesty’s Revenue from King Henry III to King Henry VI Inclusive (1837), p. 135.
- Constance Bullock-Davies, A Register of Royal and Baronial Domestic Minstrels 1272-1327 (1986), p. 147.

20 comments:

Susan Higginbotham said...

I wonder how Edward felt, slogging through his biography of Edward I?

I have a hard time picturing Edward conjugating Latin verbs too. Might the primer have been a Book of Hours?

Kathryn Warner said...

Oops, yes - a kind of prayer-book, apparently.

Maybe the biog was really fascinating - all about Ed I surviving an assassination attempt in the Holy Land and carving up Simon de Montfort? Or maybe not...

Clement Glen said...

Did Ed pay his fine at Canterbury Library?

Seriously though, this is fantastic research Alianore.I am now a regular visitor to your blog and enjoy the way you bring his reign to life.

Hannah Kilpatrick said...

Oh god. THAT book to Hugh Despenser - at that moment? October 1326? Edward saw it coming!

Poor Ed and Hugh. Now I think I need to make a Crusader Kings game where all the Despensers get saved and happily married off too, not just Gavestons and Mortimers.

Of course, that would make Edward simultaneously married to Despenser and Gaveston, but that could lead to some amusing arguments over morning coffee.

Anerje said...

Susan, I thought the same thing about the Edward Ist bio. I take it any references to his run-ins with his heir were omitted? hehe!

Clement - I'm sure Despencer would have found a way to pocket any fines Canterbury imposed!

LOL about the English being clueless with the Welsh language!

Alianore - do any of these books still exist?

Christy K Robinson said...

Isabella interested in royal genealogy? You GO, girl! That's my grand-mama.

And for the unrecognizable Welsh texts: Sheesh, the language is pronounced nothing like it's spelled. I do not blame that confused cleric.

Kathryn Warner said...

Clement: thank you for the kind words!

Ceirseach: the gift of Tristan and Isolde to Hugh is one of the last entries in Ed's chamber account before their capture, which seems symbolic, doesn't it? Ohhhh, please have Ed simultaneously married to Piers and Hugh - that would be such fun. ;)

Anerje: unfortunately, I'm not sure whether most of these books still exist. 'Little Domesday' certainly does, as do Rada's chronicle, Giles of Rome's text etc, but I don't know if the ones that belonged to Ed survived.

Christy: now you know where your interest in genealogy comes from - Great-Grandma Izzy. :)

Gabriele Campbell said...

Did Edward read Welsh?

Maybe Ed and Hugh were reading the Tristan together and shed a tear about those doomed lover's fate. And them comforted each other. :)

Kathryn Warner said...

Gabriele: I doubt he did, unfortunately. Although he was born in Wales, he hardly ever went there again, except for a brief period in 1301. Love the idea of the comforting. :-)

Anerje said...

Actually, Christy, Welsh is pronounced as it is spelled - the problem for the English clerics stemmed from them not realsing we have our own alphabet. If you are Welsh, of course, there is no problem :)

Anerje said...

Alianore - it would be wonderful to think that somewhere, a copy of one of Edward's books has been preserved. Edward unfortunately had to spend time in Wales when he fled from Isabella and Mortimer - at Caerphilly castle and Neath Abbey. Sadly,the ability to speak Welsh wouldn't have saved him.

Jules Frusher said...

A wonderful list to have - for the time. I wonder what Ed would have made of some of the best-sellers today. Maybe he would have his own 'celebrity' biography in the top ten! Oh.... if only.... at least we might get to clear up a few mysteries ;-)

Anerje said...

Lady D, if he ever did have a 'celeb' bio, you can bet Hugh would have negotiated a good price :) Plus serialisation rights for the local chroniclers!

Hannah Kilpatrick said...

Just a note to say: I managed to hack a pretty little three-way marriage between Hugh, Piers and Edward, and now there is a whole brood of little babies surnamed de Spencer, de Gabaston and Plantagenet.

They do have their domestics, though: in 1340, Piers asked his husband (one of them) for money to buy the latest frilly fashions, and the husband in question (Hugh) refused, which resulted in an "I hate you too, honey" event triggered for Piers, and now they are both fierce rivals.

And both Piers and Edward have managed to get themselves bastard children with anonymous women outside marriage. Isabella and Mortimer have a fine brood of healthy children, and one of Edward III's sons is called Piers.

Kathryn Warner said...

Oooh, I'd love to read a celebrity autobiography of Ed OR Hugh! And I wouldn't care how much Hugh was over-charging, I'd still pay it. ;)

Ceirseach: I laughed out loud at the thought of Hugh and Piers having a domestic over frilly fashions. ;) Brilliant! And yay for all the kids and Ed III's son Piers!

Anerje said...

you wouldn't have any choice Alianore - Hugh would be raiding your coffers :)

Carla said...

Who would you get to ghostwrite the celebrity (auto)biography? After all, Edward would rather be digging ditches and Hugh would rather be making money, so they wouldn't do it themselves....

Kathryn Warner said...

Carla: hmm, one of the contemporary chroniclers, I suppose - anyone except the author of the Flores Historiarum, because he loathed Ed! Then again, he was pretty good at writing melodrama...;)

Jesi Jessen said...

I'm just curious, but would you happen to know what year Edward borrowed those biographies of St. Anselm and Thomas Becket from Canterbury?
I just can't help but wonder if his keeping the books (or even his taking them in the first place) might not have had something to do with his relationship with his cousin Lancaster-- given, of course, St. Anselm's and Becket's respective conflicts with Henry I and Henry II. Especially given Becket's Constitutions of Clarendon and assassination (not to mention the attempts to canonize Lancaster himself) there are some interesting parallels between the three men-- and I was just wondering if, perhaps, there were some larger events to contextualize Edward's 'borrowing' of the books.
Of course, I am in all likelihood being too self-indulgent-- but Edward's conflicts with Lancaster are just so fascinating!

Kathryn Warner said...

Hi Jesi! I'm not sure offhand, I'm afraid, but will check to see if I can find a date. I love your idea of how it might relate to his relationship with Lancaster! I find their conflict endlessly fascinating, too.