Everybody Who Was Anybody and the Guild of Corpus Christi
They
were enormously popular. People flocked in from all over the county for the
pageant. The Guild had almost 17,000 members in its 150 year history, and
everybody who was anybody was a member -- including a couple of Boyntons.
It was a wonderful celebration, everyone agreed, with both prayers and carousing.
The holy day of Corpus Christi was established by Pope Urban
IV in the 13th century. It was a summer fete to celebrate the life of Christ.
Initially, it was a procession with the Pope leading the way in Rome. By the
time it got to England in the 14th century pageants had been added to the
procession; it was both procession and play (Spencer, 1911). About 25 towns
in England celebrated the holy day, and York was one of them. The first record
of the celebration of Corpus Christi in York was found in the records of the
city council for 1388, but that record suggested it was already well established
(Davies, 1843).
The Guild was established in 1408 and lasted until the dissolution or approximately
150 years.
Religion was very special in medieval life. What Corpus Christi
shows is that it was not special by being set apart from the rest of life.
It was special just by being an integral part of community life -- with no
sharply separating boundaries.
Corpus Christi was a religious holy day. In York the celebration
of the holy day was run by the mayor and city council -- the city government.
They determined that it should be a two day celebration. They got the planning
started each year or said it would not be held because of epidemic or war.
They put up some of the money and set the rules for who would produce the
rest. They said, for example, that the points for staging the pageants would
be sold to the highest bidder who would then earn money in conjunction with
the playing. They said who must participate and set the fines for people who
did not participate. The craft guilds were responsible for putting on the
plays. Davies provided a list of pageants for a single year; 57 plays and
the more than 57 guilds that organized pageant plays (Davies,
1843). The procession was held on a separate day; it was organized by
the Guild of Corpus Christi, which was an organization led by clergy from
York but with members from all over the county. Everyone participated in the
procession: clergy, city officials, Corpus Christi guild officials, and craft
guilds. Everyone got into the act -- the celebration of Corpus Christi.
The Plays: Creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah,
Abraham, Moses -- the plays zipped right through the old testament telling
only the favorite stories to get quickly to the life of Christ. The year of
57 plays forty of them were scenes from the life of Christ beginning with
Gabriel's appearance to Mary and ending with the resurrection and ascension.
Birth, escape to Egypt, baptism by John, assembling disciples, through the
mount of olives, trial, crucifixion, rising from the dead and ascension --
all of the stories are there. The plays then end with the assumption of Mary.
The texts of the plays was published in 1885 by Lucy Toulmin Smith (York
Plays); that version, from sometime between 1415 and 1430, has 48 plays
plus a fragment. Performing the plays was organized by the craft guilds. Each
guild, or in a few cases two guilds, would be responsible for a single play.
They recruited the actors, acquired the costumes, set up all the banners and
decorations, and were responsible for making sure that their play was produced
at the right time and place. The cost of putting on the play was also their
responsibility. The plays were performed at many different spots in the city.
At one time there were 12 staging points, but when the city government decided
to sell staging points the number increased to meet demand. The stages used
were large, two tier wagons. The lower tier was enclosed and was for actors
to change costumes; the upper tier was the stage on which the play was performed.
They were wagons so that they could be moved from one location to another.
The pageant was an all day celebration -- learning the stories of the life
of Christ and eating and drinking.
The procession: The day began and ended with worship
services, but the procession was the high point of the day. It was a parade
and all participants were in full regalia, according to Davies.
On the morrow of Corpus Christi day, the persons who were
to join in the procession assembled at the great gates of the Priory of the
Holy Trinity in Micklegate. The parochial clergy of the city in their surplices
walked first. The Master of the Guild, invested with a silken cope, appeared
as "presidens principalis." He was supported on either side by one of the
clergy who had previously filled the same office, and was attended by the
six keepers of the guild, with silk stoles about their necks, and white wands
in their hands. The costly shrine of silver, gilt and decorated with a profusion
of jewels, inclosing a vase or beryl in which the sacred elements were depositied,
was borne in the midst by the chaplains of the guild. It was the duty of two
of the keepers of the guild to attend diligently upon the shrine, whilst the
others took care that strict order and decorum were observed. Singers attended
to chaunt the proper services of the day, in which such of the clergy as were
able to sing, were required to join; and the procession was accompanied with
the usual display of crosses, tapers, banners, and torches. After the ecclesiastics
came the Lord Mayor, aldermen, and other members of the corporation in their
robes of ceremony, attended by the city officers and other persons bearing
their appropriate number of lighted torches, and followed by the officers
and members of the numerous crafts or trade companies of the city with their
banners and torches, taking their places according to a prescribed order of
precedence. In the streets through which the procession passed, a prodigious
crows of the populace was assembled; the fronts of the houses were decorated
with tapestry and other hangings, and their entrances strewed with rushes
and flowers. From the priory gates they took their course to the cathedral,
where a sermon was preached in the chapter house. Thence they went to the
Hospital of St. Leonard, where the Holy Sacrament was left.
The Guild of Corpus Christi was established in 1408 to
manage the procession -- apparently at about the point when the play and the
procession were separated and scheduled on different days (Skaife,
1872). The Guild was an independent entity, and Henry VI incorporated
it. It could collect membership dues and own property. The primary responsibility
was organizing and paying for the procession. However, in 1478 the Guild also
acquired a charity hospital -- St. Thomas. It seems to have been a religious-charitable
organization that everyone was doing. The membership list contains 16,850
names -- many of whom were the most distinguished citizens of the county.
When everyone is doing it, one can assume that "moving in the right circles"
has becomes part of the appeal. However, the Boyntons we know who became members
of the Guild had good piety credentials.
In 1498 Henry Boynton, of Sedbury, and his wife Isabel joined
the Guild of Corpus Christi -- as did his mother Agnes Ratcliff. Henry was
active in the church at Gilling West where he established a chantry of prayer
and where a carving of Henry and Isabel is on the wall of the church. Agnes
had been veiled by William bishop of Dromore in 1485 after the death of her
second husband, Richard Ratcliff. Veiling
involved taking a vow of chastity, and it demonstrated a concern for piety.
In addition, Agnes left a rare manuscript, Dream of the Pilgrimage of
the Soul, to Marrick Priory -- a priory not far from Sedbury.
Margaret de la See Boynton, of Barmston, joined the Guild in
1512. She had been veiled in 1495 after her husband, Robert, died. There is
an effigy of her father in the Barmston church where he was buried and where
she was also buried.
Two other Boyntons joined the Guild. Edmund and his wife joined
the Guild in 1507, and William and his wife joined in 1513. That is all we
know about these two Boynton families, however.
The Guild was dissolved in 1547. At the time of the dissolution
it owned property in York and other places that produced an annual income
of l11 : 17 : 2. The shrine was valued at l231 : 3 : 11, which
made it a pretty valuable piece (Skaife, 1872). Henry VIII and parliament
thought he could find better uses for the money than the work of the Guild.
So, they took it.
Before separation of church and state: There was a time
when holidays were holy days and holy days were holidays. In holy-holidays,
in Corpus Christi, there was both piety and merriment. In our post-puritan
age the combination of piety and merriment looks awfully suspicious. Our one
stab in that direction is Christmas, and we are likely to feel at least a
bit guilty by making the "materialism" of receiving-giving the center
of a holy day.
In Corpus Christi there was piety and merriment, and there was
economy as well. After all, the city fathers were running the pageant because
it was good for business.
an order was therefore made, that these pageants, which were
maintained by the commons and artificers of the city in honour and reverence
of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for the honour and profit of the city, should
be played in none other than these twelve places (Davies, 1843)
They did not drive the wedge between the "honour and reverence
of our Lord Jesus Christ" and the "honour and profit of the city"
that we do.
In Corpus Christi there was piety and merriment, and there was
government as well. It was a holy day. It was a holy day organized by the
city government rather than the Archbishop of York or the abbot of St. Mary's,
York or any of the many other religious institutions of the
city. And when there was a problem that continued for more than a decade it
was the king who commissioned an abbot and a knight to get it resolved, which
they did (Davies, 1843). Our separation of church and state was not theirs.
That does not mean that they could not distinguish the two, but it does mean
that their distinction was different than ours. After all, they had merriment
with their piety.
....
Davies, Robert (1843) Extracts From The Municipal Records
of the City of York, B. Nichols and Son.
Skaife, Robert H., ed. (1872) The Register of the Guild
of Corpus Christi in the City of York, Publications of the Surtees
Society.
Smith, Lucy Toulmin (1885) York Plays: The Plays Performed
by the Crafts or Mysteries of York on the day of Corpus Christi in the 14th,
15th, and 16th Centuries, Oxford.
Spencer, M. Lyle (1911) Corpus Christi Pageants in England,
Baker & Taylor Company.