Medieval queens performed two kinds of religious patronage: personal, based on their own preferences and agency, and perfunctory , based on the practice of previous queens or their husbands, to ingratiate themselves within their new kingdom, and as a way of becoming the keepers of memory within their new marital family.1 Both methods offered an opportunity for queens to ensure that they would be commemorated after death, through their reputation as pious and generous in records and chronicles, or through future queens commemorating their predecessors. Philippa of Hainault’s interference with the Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower forms an example in which her patronage was both perfunctory, in that St Katharine’s had been founded by one earlier queen and patronised by others since the twelfth century, and personal, given that she took a special interest in reforming the institution. Philippa’s actions may also have had a political motive in contradicting the choices of the previous queen, the dowager Isabella of France, and cementing her position as the new queen early in her tenure. Philippa’s patronage had the advantage of both ensuring that her immortal soul would be prayed for and that she herself would be commemorated by setting an example for succeeding queens to follow, remaining in the popular memory as a dutiful, pious queen.
As the wife of Edward III, Philippa had the longest tenure of the medieval consorts of England between her marriage to Edward in 1328 and her death in 1369, providing ample time for activities of patronage. However, her religious links have attracted little scholarship, aside from her tomb effigy and commemoration, and T. D. Atkinson’s article arguing that a gallery was built especially for Philippa at Ely Cathedral.2 This chapter will first establish Philippa’s religious donations and spending within the context of queenly religious patronage in general, with a brief analysis of the religious patronage of English queens preceding Philippa, before considering Philippa’s association with the Hospital of St Katharine’s in particular. Finally, this chapter will contrast the case of St Katharine’s with other examples of Philippa’s personal piety.
Religious patronage was already an expected duty for queens to fulfil. After the involvement of Isabella of France in the deposition of her husband Edward II, however, Isabella’s successor as queen may have been especially encouraged or felt it more prudent to channel her energies into ostensibly less dangerous areas such as religious patronage, rather than attempting to overtly channel her political influence. In contrast to Isabella’s scandalous and controversial reputation, Philippa is a relatively little-known queen, aside from her intercessory activity. A study of Philippa’s religious patronage therefore provides one area in which to trace her possible agency, through both her choice of patronage and her actions, as well as her power through influence, for example, with her husband. Philippa could form her own legacy through her choice and extent of religious patronage, creating a lasting memorial to herself and her family, and ensuring that some part of her agency would be remembered.
Queenly Religious Patronage
Medieval women were expected to ensure that the souls of their husbands and family were prayed for, and for queens this included donations to religious houses.3 In addition to the concerns of medieval contemporaries about the fate of the souls of themselves and their families after death, with prescriptions on donations that the recipients should offer prayers for the souls of the donor and her family, religious patronage could demonstrate wealth, which was an important factor and almost a duty for a queen. Spending offered the opportunity to exert agency through the choice of beneficiaries, particularly because queens were limited in power in the form of public authority in other areas. Religious patronage could also have an effect during the lifetime of the donor. In her study of the thirteenth-century countesses, Jeanne and Marguerite of Flanders, Erin L. Jordan suggests that religious patronage, despite the perception of private piety, could also be used as a form of power through spending, whilst John Carmi Parsons focuses on the effect that piety could have on the reputation of a medieval queen with regard to the thirteenth-century queens Eleanor of Provence (c. 1223–1291) and Eleanor of Castile (1241–1290), the wives of Henry III and Edward I respectively.4 Whereas praise of religious piety seems a literary convention in memorials of queens, Parsons argues that the absence of such for Eleanor of Castile emphasises her reputation for exploiting bishops.5 In the twelfth century, the Empress Matilda (1102–1167) attracted praise for her piety in later life, after participating in a civil war, through her patronage of monasteries such as Bec-Hellouin, Normandy.6 For Isabella of France, her patronage of Greyfriars, London, offered a way in which to situate herself within the bounds of acceptable queenly activity after participating in the deposition of her husband.7 A queen could also affect her husband’s choice of recipient for patronage, an important point given that the patronage of women is often obscured either through poor record-keeping by religious institutions or the assumption that a gift of the wife is a gift of the husband.8
As well as enjoying personal relationships with popes and the monastic members of their own households such as clerks, royal women also bestowed donations ranging from food or cloth to money and properties on their chosen benefices. For queens, the recipients were often already established institutions affiliated with the royal family, such as Westminster Abbey, where Philippa was the first queen buried since Eleanor of Castile in the previous century. Aside from her burial and commemoration there, little evidence survives for any connections Philippa held with the abbey. Her burial site was probably chosen by her husband, given his own plans to be buried there, and conventional, in that a number of previous queens had been buried at Westminster. In fact, rather than Philippa donating to Westminster, the king granted her all the issues and profits during the gap between the death of one abbot and the appointing of another in 1345.9 During the birth of at least two of her children, abroad in 1338 for Lionel of Antwerp and at Woodstock for Thomas in 1354–1355, she used the relic of the Virgin’s girdle, kept at Westminster Abbey. Eleanor of Provence had also used this girdle in the preceding century for the birth of her daughter Beatrice in Gascony, in 1242, as had Elizabeth, the daughter of Edward I, in 1303 for her son Humphrey. The girdle might provide an example of keeping-while-giving, because Edward the Confessor had technically given the girdle to the Abbey, but queens and some select highborn women could still use it, to the extent of transporting it overseas.10 Use of the girdle might be for a personal purpose, but had traditionally been borrowed by queens and royal women in the past, and sustained a link between Westminster and various queens, acting as a peg for memory.
Other areas of religious patronage also built on the traditions of earlier queens rather than personal piety. For example, Philippa followed the customs of her predecessors in patronising the friary of Greyfriars, London. Philippa is listed among the benefactors to Greyfriars in the Registrum Fratrum Minorum Londonie, but is not, as Laura Slater highlights, described as “illustrissima,” as in the case of the earlier queens, Margaret and Isabella of France. Queen Margaret had founded the church and Isabella may have felt a personal connection, because Margaret was her aunt, and she may have wanted to maintain a link with her birth family in her new country.11 Isabella was also continuing her family’s tradition of close links with the Franciscan order. Isabella’s support of Greyfriars included spending over seven hundred pounds to finish the church which Margaret had begun, as well as paying for the repair of the windows in the chapel.12 Isabella was later buried at Greyfriars, along with the heart of her husband, and dressed in the mantle she had worn at her wedding. F. D. Blackley argues that the keeping of the latter and the request for burial with both had been due to Isabella herself, by which Isabella could have a direct influence on her posthumous image.13 Her intention, or that of her son, may have been to perpetuate an image of marital unity between Isabella and Edward II.14 The Greyfriars house in London was the most important friary in the kingdom and already had connections with the royal family, with Margaret of France and the heart of Eleanor of Provence buried there.15 The mention of all three women in the friary’s records demonstrates how patronage, and the agency expressed through the choice of that patronage, could directly lead to queenly commemoration.
The queenly patronage of Greyfriars, London, was emblematic of their history of patronage towards other religious houses popular in London. For example, Matilda, wife of Henry I, founded a leper hospital, St Giles in the Fields at Holborn, as well as the Augustinian house of Holy Trinity at Aldgate. Matilda of Boulogne supported the same house, strengthening the support of the Londoners for herself and her husband, Stephen, and his reign, and the same Matilda founded the Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower. Philippa may therefore have simply been continuing a tradition when she donated towards the roof of Greyfriars, a way of maintaining memory in the marital family.16 As Elisabeth van Houts argues, women were expected to become the transmitters of memory in their husband’s family, which included adopting and passing on religious affiliations.17 The example of Greyfriars further emphasises how queens could begin traditions through the patronage of religious institutions, and a form of memorialising themselves and their families.
Queenly patronage of Greyfriars continued after Philippa, although no record of Philippa’s successor Anne of Bohemia donating to Greyfriars exists. However, two of her damsels (domicelle), Katherine and Margaret, were buried there, suggesting the possibility of some association between Anne and Greyfriars.18 Charles Kingsford also suggests that Philippa continued the practice of queens favouring Franciscan confessors, begun by Louis IX and continued by French queens and their daughters, including Isabella. Philippa’s confessor John Mablethorpe and Isabella’s confessor John Vye both originated from Greyfriars.19 Christian Steer suggests that the queens’ patronage of the Greyfriars formed a parallel to their husbands’ patronage of the Black Friars, from where kings took their own confessors.20 Altogether, the queenly patronage of Greyfriars for Philippa seems to have been a queenly convention rather than due to a personal connection, but one that she felt was important enough to maintain.
Philippa was associated with the patronage of Franciscan friars in other ways. In 1347, the king and queen together requested that Pope Clement VI issue a licence for a house in Little Walsingham for twelve friars.21 In 1329, Pope John XXII asked that the king and queen support his nuncio, Itherius de Concoreto, in a case of two friars arrested in Cambridge for heresy and sent to the papal court for trial.22 Philippa’s patronage of friars continued Eleanor of Castile’s preferment of supporting friars and universities over bishops and clergy. By the fourteenth century, the friars had become a popular choice of patronage for the wealthy. Eleanor of Castile and Margaret of France both patronised Franciscans, whereas Eleanor of Provence particularly supported the Dominican order.23 Philippa was once again following in the patronage choices of earlier queens of England.
Examples such as Philippa’s support of Franciscan friars, ranging from papal correspondence and taking a Franciscan friar for her confessor, demonstrate how she supported the order in addition to donating to Greyfriars. That Philippa’s donation towards the house was lesser than that of the previous queens, Margaret and Isabella of France, suggests that her patronage was inspired by them, but did not hold the same personal significance, perhaps because of the lack of a close blood link. Rather, Philippa’s perfunctory support of Greyfriars emphasises that queens were expected to become the keepers of memory within their marital families, to the extent of continuing patronage towards the same houses. Likewise, little evidence exists to suggest that Philippa maintained a relationship with her eventual burial location of Westminster Abbey, although she did take advantage of her status, perhaps as was expected, to use the holy girdle kept there in childbirth, like previous royal women. However, the very fact that Philippa continued the patronage of houses such as Greyfriars demonstrates that religious patronage was an important and expected part of queenship, for political purposes as well as to demonstrate wealth through spending. Where Philippa was commemorating previous queens through continuing their religious patronage, so she could also expect succeeding queens to maintain her own choices, as in Philippa’s support of St Katharine’s.
St Katharine’s by the Tower
The Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower of London formed another popular choice for queenly patronage. St Katharine’s was founded as a hospital for paupers by Queen Matilda of Boulogne (c. 1103–1152), the wife of Stephen, in 1148, with the intention to keep the choice of master for herself and succeeding queens. The hospital was later dissolved after a number of issues and reorganised by Eleanor of Provence, wife of Henry III, in 1273, particularly for the commemoration of her own husband. A 1332 inspeximus at the request of Queen Philippa references a previous example, dating from 16 June 1317, which in turn confirmed the charter of Eleanor of Provence dated 20 January 1291/1292 and ratified by her son. The charter gave certain rights, such as the filling of positions, to succeeding queens.24 The 1317 inspeximus suggests that the charter may have been challenged before, in the previous reign. The queen’s rights were reinforced under Philippa, who removed her predecessor Isabella of France’s choice as master of the hospital. Isabella had selected Richard de Lusteshull as master for life in 1318.25 A previous inspection of the hospital, ordered in 1327, had given permission to remove the warden and other ministers, provided they had the consent of Isabella.26 In early 1327, Philippa had not yet married Edward and so was not queen at this point. There was no queen consort, only a queen dowager, the influential Isabella. In addition, Howell notes that after Eleanor of Provence’s own re-founding of the hospital, it had become customary for queens to continue their patronage of St Katharine’s as dowagers, as Eleanor herself did.27 Jamison argues that the wording of Eleanor of Provence’s own charter was ambiguous in whether the patronage belonged to a queen for her lifetime, or until the tenure of a new queen consort, but attributes Isabella’s loss of the hospital patronage to her “forced retirement.”28 However, Philippa’s actions clearly sought a return to the former custom of the queen consort having rights over the hospital.
When the original master, Richard de Lusteshull, took his case to Parliament, the king at first ordered an investigation, before Philippa was able to prove that the right to choose the master of the hospital belonged to the queens using Eleanor’s charter. An earlier instance had occurred when Isabella had originally selected her own nominee for master over the choice of her own predecessor as queen, Margaret of France. However, Margaret’s selection died before the matter could be settled.29 In Philippa’s case, the king then turned the matter over to the queen and her council.30 Philippa also made a number of reforms to the hospital, including ordinances mandating that the brothers and sisters were to own no property without the permission of the master, instructions for their clothing and appearance, and limitations on fraternisation between the brothers and sisters.31 Power exerted through religious patronage could be directed into the confirmation of queenly influence and status, and Philippa’s reforms indicate a genuine religious concern, as well as in funding a religious house that would be associated with herself and her memory. Such concern over the details of the daily life of the hospital suggests that Philippa was creating a reputation for herself as a pious queen.
The incident over the choice of master took place in 1333, meaning that the event was probably one of the first times that the new queen asserted her higher status over the queen mother, concurrent with Philippa acting as an intercessor in higher numbers of petitionary pardons in 1330 and 1333.32 Before then, Mark Ormrod argued, Isabella infantilised Philippa through delaying her coronation for two years after her wedding, the confirmation of her dower, and even her own household for a further year.33 In 1330 Philippa became pregnant for the first time, providing her with an increased importance and necessitating that she be crowned before the birth of the future heir to the throne.34 Philippa was therefore using her religious patronage to further solidify her status as queen consort in opposition to Isabella as the dowager queen, building on the maturity provided by her own new status as the mother of a male heir. Philippa was also obfuscating the memory of Isabella as a patron of St Katharine’s.
Other examples demonstrate how queens could use religious patronage for their own motives, including asserting their identity in contrast to the previous consort. Slater suggests that Margaret of France’s religious generosity shortly after her arrival in England was a way of countering the hostile reception to a foreign queen and the unpopularity among the people of her predecessor, Eleanor of Castile. Margaret’s support of the Franciscan order also contrasted with Eleanor’s of the Dominicans, but paralleled the patronage of the previous French queen, Eleanor of Provence.35 Philippa may therefore have been using her very public religious patronage in order to counter Isabella’s reputation after her role in the deposition of her husband, particularly that of an institution founded and then reformed by previous queens. Matilda of Boulogne had herself patronised Holy Trinity Aldgate, to which she granted the hospital, as a way of identifying herself with the popular previous queen Matilda of Scotland.36 Philippa likely hoped to identify herself with prior queens who had supported the hospital, bypassing the memory of Isabella. Commemorating previous queens through continuing their patronage also meant that Philippa herself could expect to be commemorated by her successors.
As well as instilling reform, Philippa donated directly to the Hospital of St Katharine’s. A petition to the pope records that in 1342 Philippa acquired the church of St Peter in Northampton and two chapels in Kingsthorp and Upton for the hospital, which was described as poor, although this meant seeking the permission of the bishop of Lincoln and resulted in her requesting the pope to order the bishop of London to appropriate the holdings.37 Philippa also founded a chantry and funded a chaplain through the gift of further lands and property, including a tenement in London.38 Cecily de Bosenham gave Philippa a tenement which the queen in turn gifted to John de Hermerthorp, a warden of St Katharine’s.39 Edward III later gave a further ten pounds per year for Philippa’s chantry after her death, which Richard II confirmed in 1378, continuing the association of Philippa with the hospital.40 St Katharine’s produced the Liber de conservatione vitae humanae et quinta essentia, a manuscript combining alchemy and medicine. The dedication read “the more serene queen Eleanor, wife of the most serene king of the English, Edward,” which Jonathan Hughes argues was a mistake for Philippa, given the completion date of the book in 1355.41 The dedication of the book suggests that Philippa’s patronage was appreciated and acknowledged by the hospital and that her patronage continued throughout her life.
No record exists of Philippa’s successor Anne of Bohemia donating to the hospital, but Richard II gave the hospital certain rights predating his marriage in 1380 and 1381, with the first mandating that prayers be said for the souls of Richard’s royal grandparents and father.42 Richard’s actions suggest that in the absence of a queen, obligations to St Katharine’s fell to the king, further emphasising that the connection to the hospital was a part of his family’s commemoration, one usually in the charge of the queen. The reservation of the choice of master to the queen may later have protected the hospital during the dissolution. Henry VIII and his first wife Catherine of Aragon founded a guild of St Barbara there, to which many nobles belonged. Anne Boleyn may have saved the hospital from dissolution by a request to the king, and Jane Seymour later appointed a master there.43 The foundation survives to the modern day, having changed location twice. Although Philippa’s patronage of the hospital may have originated from the tradition of prior queens, Philippa’s reforms suggest a more genuine, personal patronage, in comparison to her perfunctory patronage of Greyfriars, London, which also had an established history with the queens of England.
Philippa’s reforms and expansion of St Katharine’s meant that the hospital lived on, and with it the memory of Philippa herself. The case over the choice of master between Philippa and Isabella also offered a situation for Philippa to assert her higher status as the new queen consort over the queen dowager, taking over her patronages. In perhaps a transactional relationship, Philippa received not only prayers for herself and her family but also the dedication of a literary work, offering a form of commemoration for her patronage and herself. Although Philippa’s patronage of the hospital may have initially been perfunctory in the manner of queenly support of Greyfriars, her special effort demonstrates that queens could put a personal stamp even on houses that were already accustomed recipients of past patronage, creating a legacy for themselves.
Personal Piety
Other examples of Philippa’s religious patronage suggest explicitly personal connections. For example, Philippa’s son, Lionel of Antwerp, was born in 1339 and baptised at the abbey of St Michael in Antwerp, and the king and queen gave the advowson of the church of Thyngden in Northamptonshire to the abbot and convent at Antwerp in gratitude.44 An inspeximus of 1332 also noted a special relationship between Philippa and the abbot of Chertsey, Surrey, in confirming a charter of the abbey.45 A petition to the pope from Philippa in 1331 asked Clement VI to give the church of Swaneton, Lincoln, to the monastery of Barlings, and another in 1343 the parish church of St. John Baptist in Steynton by Langwath.46 Philippa therefore used her influence on behalf of religious houses in addition to her own donations.
Another petition of 1345 listed Philippa in addition to the king and her mother-in-law, and another with the earls of Lancaster, Derby, and Warwick amongst others, asking the pope to respect an earlier papal exemption from ordinary authority for the order of Sempringham.47 Religious patronage could take the form of political protection, in the same way that queens could intervene to request pardons for individuals. But while Philippa was willing to use her influence for religious houses, she also sought to exert pressure on them. The Ledger Book of Vale Royal Abbey relates how the tenants of the abbey, in an uprising against their landlords, deceived Queen Philippa into believing that they were the men of her son, Prince Edward, attempting to use Philippa as an intercessor between themselves and the abbot. Philippa wrote to the abbot ordering him to leave the men alone. The matter was eventually settled before the king and queen in the abbot’s favour.48
Elsewhere, Philippa had spent her first Christmas after her arrival in England before her marriage with the Bishop of Ely.49 T. D. Atkinson argues that Philippa had a set of personal pews with a private entrance and a canopy in Ely Cathedral. Philippa was also a close friend of Prior Crauden and he may have built a lodging for her, Queen’s Hall, near to his own. Philippa later gave the bishop the velvet robe embroidered with gold squirrels which she had worn at her churching ceremony after the birth of her eldest son, which Stella Mary Newton called the “squirrel suit,” a valuable and personal gift, probably as thanks for the safe delivery of her son.50 Philippa also leased her manor of Soham, which she been given from the properties of Queen Isabella, to the priory from the 1340s until the 1360s.51 Religious donations could include both property and money as well as seemingly less generous gifts of objects, although embroidery was an expensive luxury. Personal gifts might even be more meaningful for the giver, especially if acting as memorial objects for key life events such as churchings, and commemorating the event itself as well as reminding the recipient of the donor.
Not all donations to religious institutions were large amounts of land or property. Gifts of cloth such as that which Philippa gave to Prior Crauden were a common gift from women to religious institutions, with the material often reused for altar coverings.52 The nature of the gift could suggest a purpose for the donation, such as clothing repurposed for vestments or altar coverings, or given on special occasions, such as thanks for the safe birth of a child.53 Philippa also offered a cloth of gold at the tomb of Hugh de Courtenay, according to the book of Philippa’s household controller, and donated several cloths of gold to Westminster Abbey and St Paul’s Cathedral on the day before and of her coronation.54 In 1341, Philippa joined her husband and eldest son in donating gifts at the shrine of Edward II, providing a gold heart and urn, and directly participating in the commemoration of her husband’s family memory.55 Gifts to religious houses were often for the sustenance of their members, whether food or money. For example, on her travels through Kent and other counties, Philippa donated the monetary equivalent of an extra meal and drink to the religious houses she passed.56 Parsons suggests that kings and queens visited shrines and pilgrimage destinations so frequently during their peripatetic lives that not all their donations were recorded.57 Minor gifts such as food or drink might therefore go unknown, but suggest a constant concern on the part of the giver, with the effect that the recipients would remember their generosity.
Other gifts resulted through personal connections with the recipients. Philippa had a particular connection to Queen’s College, Oxford, which was founded by her chaplain, Robert de Eglesfield. Eglesfield added depictions of Philippa to the college’s seal and two charter initials.58 Technically, however, the founding charter of the college from 1341 makes no reference to Philippa, although in 1342, Pope Clement VI confirmed the foundation of Queen’s College at her petition.59 Another of Philippa’s confessors, William de Polmorva, became a Fellow of the college.60 Philippa also gave multiple grants of land to support the college, beginning with the church of Burgh under Staynesmore to support six scholars, in return for prayers for the souls of the king, queen, and their offspring.61 Further grants included the churches of Bleschesdon and St Frideswide’s, Oxfordshire, St Oswald’s in Nostell, Neubold Pacy, Warwickshire, and St Mary’s in Salisbury.62 The connection to Philippa led to further grants to the college from Edward III, as well as Isabella Parvyng, Sir John de Stowford, and William Muskham.63 Philippa also intervened in the donation of John de Handlo, who had intended a donation including ten acres and a mill to St Mary’s, Salisbury, at the request of the queen to the king, and transferred his donation to the college instead.64 Religious institutions including the college therefore benefitted simply from having the queen as a patron, in addition to the gifts which the queen herself made.
The patronage of the college was to belong to the queens, which continued at least until Queen Mary, the wife of George V. Magrath suggests that the queens’ patronage of St Katharine’s hospital inspired Eglesfield to make Philippa and her successors the patrons of his college.65 After Philippa, Anne of Bohemia was also referred to as the patron of Queen’s College, in a promise of protection for the scholars and provost of the college who were claiming to be so poor that they could not maintain services, recorded in the patent rolls. Queen Anne’s treasurer was also named as one of the men appointed for the custody of the college’s possessions, and Magrath also attributes a letter recorded in the college archives to Anne in 1384, following which Richard II took over the patronage of the college.66 Philippa’s links with the college thus survived after her death and may have been inspired by her links to St Katharine’s.
Philippa’s role in the re-founding and reformation of the Hospital of St Katharine’s emphasises the effect of queenly religious patronage. Eglesfield clearly viewed Philippa in the context of her religious patronage as generous and able to generate donations by others, acting as a role model, to the extent that he memorialised Philippa as the literal symbol of the College in the shape of its seal. Personal motives in other donations included gratitude for the safe birth of her son in Antwerp, and a relationship with Prior Crauden at Ely leading to the construction of a gallery for her use there. Smaller donations also tended to be of a more personal nature, such as gifts of cloth, particularly those worn at special occasions such as coronations and churchings, for use at the altar. Gifts of food or money for sustenance were also made by the queen as she passed through religious houses, and she interceded personally, for example with the pope, exploiting her own high status and demonstrating her influential position. The memory of Philippa thus survives through the College, as well as through the range of large and small donations she made to religious houses throughout her lifetime.
Conclusion
Patronage through direct donation, such as to religious institutions, as well as indirectly through intercession, formed a key part of the queen’s influence and agency at court, and offered a way for royal women to influence their own legacy and commemoration. Religious patronage in particular built upon the precedents of earlier queens, and was perhaps especially important for acclimatising and building the reputations of foreign queens in their new culture. The choices and reasons behind examples of religious patronage offered a route for queens to establish their own preferences. Religious patronage also extended to the queen’s household, of whom many members were clerical and rewarded with prebends and other privileges. The queen could use her own relationship and status with the pope in order to intercede on behalf of others. Likewise, papal requests for queens to intercede with their husbands for various political causes shows that popes, and others, recognised the potential of the queen’s influence and relationship with her husband.
Despite the difficulties in separating the religious patronage of royal women from their husbands, two distinct trends in patronage emerge. Some religious patronage was personal, with the gift of possessions, such as Philippa donating in thanks for the safe birth of her children. Other choices for the bestowal of patronage followed preceding queens, such as Greyfriars, London, and friars in general, and the Hospital of St Katharine’s by the Tower. Philippa’s especial attention to St Katharine’s through donations and her reforms shows that personal and precedent could also combine in religious patronage. Donations to religious houses and individuals formed a major area of patronage, taking on a grander scale for queens and royal women, who nevertheless found ways to leave their personal mark through religious patronage. In the case of Philippa and St Katharine’s, her actions in confirming that she had the right to choose the master of the hospital also formed one of the first major opportunities of her tenure as queen to establish herself as a strong queen consort against the queen mother, despite her still young age. The evidence for religious patronage through her life demonstrates a continuing concern for her memory after death. Both personal and perfunctory kinds of religious patronage helped to form Philippa’s legacy through memory and commemoration , by way of both generous land grants and smaller donations.
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Footnotes
1
Parts of this chapter first appeared in Louise Tingle, Chaucer’s Queens: Royal Woman, Intercession and Patronage in England, 1328–1394 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).
2
J. G. Noppen, “A Tomb and Effigy by Hennequin of Liege,” The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs 59.342 (1931): 114–117; Veronica Sekules, “Dynasty and Patrimony in the Self-Construction of an English Queen: Philippa of Hainault and her Images,” in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Honour of Andrew Martindale, eds. John Mitchell and Michael Moran (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), 157–174; Mark Ormrod, “Queenship, Death and Agency: the Commemoration of Isabella of France and Philippa of Hainault,” in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England: Proceedings of the 2008 Harlaxton Symposium, eds. Caroline M. Barron and Clive Burgess (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2010), 87–103; Christian Steer, “Royal and Noble Commemoration in the Mendicant Houses of Medieval London, c. 1240–1540,” in Memory and Commemoration in Medieval England: Proceedings of the 2008 Harlaxton Symposium, eds. Caroline M. Barron and Clive Burgess (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2010), 117–142; T. D. Atkinson, “Queen Philippa’s Pews in Ely Cathedral,” Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 41 (1948): 60–66.
3
Patrick J. Geary, Phantoms of Remembrance: Memory and Oblivion at the End of the First Millennium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 63.
4
Erin L. Jordan, “Exploring the Limits of Female Largesse: The Power of Female Patrons in Thirteenth-Century Flanders and Hainaut,” in Women and Wealth in Late Medieval Europe, ed. Theresa Earenfight (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 149–170.
5
John Carmi Parsons, “Piety, Power and the Reputations of Two Thirteenth-Century English Queens,” in Queens, Regents and Potentates, ed. Theresa M. Vann (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1995), 115–116.
6
Marjorie Chibnall, “The Empress Matilda and Bec-Hellouin,” Anglo-Norman Studies 10 (1987): 35–48.
7
Laura Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London, c. 1300–58,” Gender & History 27.1 (2015): 65.
8
Karen Stöber, “Female Patrons of Late Medieval English Monasteries,” Medieval Prosopography 31 (2016): 117–118.
9
Calendar of Close Rolls, 1234–1396 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1896–1925), (hereafter referenced as CCR), 1343–1346, 598.
10
London, Westminster Abbey Muniments 19621 and 19623; Nicholas Vincent, The Holy Blood: King Henry III and the Westminster Blood Relic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 169–170; Katherine French, “The Material Culture of Childbirth in Late Medieval London and its Suburbs,” Journal of Women’s History 28.2 (2016): 133; Carole Rawcliffe, “Women, Childbirth, and Religion in Late Medieval England,” in Women and Religion in Medieval England, ed. Diana Wood (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2003), 107.
11
Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London,” 56, 60.
12
Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London,” 56–57.
13
F. D. Blackley, “Isabella of France, Queen of England 1308–1358, and the Late Medieval Cult of the Dead,” Canadian Journal of History 25.1 (1980): 26.
14
Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London,” 67.
15
Michael Robson, “Queen Isabella (c. 1295/1358) and the Greyfriars: An Example of Royal Patronage Based on Her Accounts for 1357/1358,” Franciscan Studies 65 (2007): 328, 340, 347.
16
Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London,” 62; C. L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London (Aberdeen: British Society of Franciscan Studies, 1915), 165.
17
Elisabeth van Houts, “Introduction: Medieval memories,” in Medieval Memories: Men, Women and the Past, 700–1300, ed. Elisabeth van Houts (Abingdon: Routledge, 2001), 7; Elisabeth van Houts, “Gender, Memories and Prophecies in Medieval Europe,” in Medieval Narrative Sources: A Gateway in the Medieval Mind, eds. Werner Verbeke, Ludo Milis, and Jean Goossens (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2005), 23.
18
Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London, 87. Margaret could refer to Margery Ludwyk or Lodewick, described as a damsel of Queen Anne’s bedchamber, Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1272–1413 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1891–1905), (hereafter known as CPR), 1391–96, 249.
19
Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London, 56; Jens Röhrkasten, The Mendicant Houses of Medieval London, 1221–1539 (Münster: Lit Verlag, 2004), 216; Robson, “Queen Isabella (c. 1295/1358) and the Greyfriars,” 335; CPR, 1367–1370, 432.
20
Steer, “Royal and Noble Commemoration,” 119.
21
William Page, ed., A History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 2 (London: Victoria County History, 1906), 435; W. H. Bliss, ed., Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, 1198–1521 (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1893–2005), (hereafter known as CPL), 1342–1362, 252.
22
CPL, 1305–1342, 492; L. F. Salzman, ed., A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 2 (London: Victoria County History, 1948), 276–282.
23
Parsons, “Piety, Power and the Reputations of Two Thirteenth-Century English Queens,” 118, 121; Janet Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 109; Jens Röhrkasten, “The English Crown and the Franciscans in the Order’s Early History,” in The English Province of the Franciscans (1224–c.1350), ed. Michael J. P. Robson (Leiden: Brill, 2017), 80.
24
CPR, 1330–1334, 314.
25
CPR, 1317–1321, 164.
26
CPR, 1327–1330, 60.
27
Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England (Oxford: Blackwell, 1998), 285.
28
Catherine Jamison, The History of the Royal Hospital of St. Katharine by the Tower of London (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1952), 20–23.
29
Jamison, The History of the Royal Hospital, 22.
30
CCR, 1333–1337, 47, 48, 63 and 171; William Page, ed., A History of the County of London: Volume 1, London Within the Bars, Westminster and Southwark (London: Victoria County History, 1909), 525–530.
31
J. B. Nichols, Account of the Royal Hospital and Collegiate Church of Saint Katharine near the Tower of London (London: J. B. Nichols, 1824), 4.
32
Helen Lacey, The Royal Pardon: Access to Mercy in Fourteenth-Century England (Woodbridge: York Medieval Press, 2009), 207; Lisa Benz St John, Three Medieval Queens: Queenship and the Crown in Fourteenth-Century England (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), 106.
33
W. Mark Ormrod, Edward III (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 71.
34
St John, Three Medieval Queens, 106.
35
Slater, “Defining Queenship at Greyfriars London,” 61.
36
Patricia A. Dark, “The Career of Matilda of Boulogne as Countess and Queen in England, 1135–1152” (PhD diss., University of Oxford, 2005), 59.
37
W. H. Bliss, ed., Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896), 236–237; CPL, 1305–1342, 88.
38
CPR, 1367–1370, 338.
39
Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and Other Analogous Documents Preserved in the Public Record Office, ed. J. E. E. S. Sharp et al (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1904–2004), XV, 81; CPR, 1367–1370, 338.
40
CPR, 1377–1381, 151.
41
Jonathan Hughes, The Rise of Alchemy in Fourteenth-Century England: Plantagenet Kings and the Search for the Philosopher’s Stone (London: Continuum, 2012), 11, 61, 92.
42
CPR, 1377–1381, 559, 613.
43
Jamison, The History of the Royal Hospital, 54.
44
CPR, 1338–1340, 313.
45
H. C. Maxwell Lyte and Charles G. Crump, eds., Calendar of the Charter Rolls Preserved in the Public Record Office, 1226–1516, Vol. V (London: H. M. Stationery Office, 1916), 261.
46
CPL, 1305–1342, 367; Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419, 29.
47
Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419, 89, 103.
48
John Brownbill, ed., The Ledger Book of Vale Royal Abbey (Manchester: Manchester Record Society, 1914), 39–40; Richard Firth Green, A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1999), 165–169.
49
Caroline Shenton, “Philippa of Hainault’s Churchings: The Politics of Motherhood at the Court of Edward III,” in Family and Dynasty in Late Medieval England: Proceedings of the 1997 Harlaxton Symposium, eds. Richard Eales and Shaun Tyas (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2003), 115.
50
Atkinson, “Queen Philippa’s Pews,” 62–63; R. B. Pugh, ed., A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 4, City of Ely; Ely, N. and S. Witchford and Wisbech Hundreds (London: Victoria County History, 2002), 80; Stella Mary Newton, “Queen Philippa’s Squirrel Suit,” in Documenta Textilia: Festschrift für Sigrid Müller-Christensen, eds. M. Flury-Lemberg and K. Stolleis (Munich: Deutscher Kunstverlag, 1981), 342–348.
51
A. F. Wareham and A. P. M. Wright, eds., A History of the County of Cambridge and the Isle of Ely: Volume 10, Cheveley, Flendish, Staine and Staploe Hundreds (North-Eastern Cambridgeshire) (London: Victoria County History, 2002), 2–3; The National Archives, Kew (TNA), SC 6/1091/5; Calendar of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library (Oxford), eds. William H. Turner and H. O. Coxe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1878), 39.
52
Frédérique Lachaud, “Vêtement et pouvoir à la cour d’Angleterre sous Philippa de Hainaut,” in Au cloître et dans le monde: Femmes, hommes et sociétés, eds. Patrick Henriet and Anne-Marie Legras (Paris: Presses de l’Université de Paris, 2000), 217–233; Chris Woolgar, “Queens and Crowns: Philippa of Hainault, Possessions and the Queen’s Chamber in Mid XIVth-Century England,” Micrologus 22 (2014): 226.
53
Katherine L. French, The Good Women of the Parish: Gender and Religion After the Black Death (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 41–42.
54
TNA E 35/203; George Frederick Beltz, Memorials of the Most Noble Order of the Garter (London: William Pickering, 1841), 393; Juliet Vale, Edward III and Chivalry: Chivalric Society and its Context, 1270–1350 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1983), 84; TNA, E 101/383/13, m. 3 and E 101/385/12, m. 1; Shenton, “Philippa of Hainault’s Churchings,” 117–118.
55
W. H. Hart, ed., Historia et cartularium monasterii Sancti Petri Gloucestriae, Volume 1 (London: Rolls Series, 1863), 47–48; D. M. Palliser, “Royal Mausolea in the Long Fourteenth Century (1272–1422),” in Fourteenth Century III, ed. W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 2004), 9.
56
John Rylands University Library, Manchester, Latin MS 235, fols. 7v–8v; C. M. Woolgar, “Gifts of food in late medieval England,” Journal of Medieval History 37.1 (2011): 14.
57
Parsons, “Piety, Power and the Reputations of Two Thirteenth-Century English Queens,” 110.
58
John Richard Magrath, The Queen’s College, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 1: pl. VI; Elizabeth Danbury, “Queens and Powerful Women: Image and Authority,” in Good Impressions: Image and Authority in Medieval Seals, eds. Noël Adams, John Cherry and James Robinson (London: British Museum, 2008), 19.
59
Magrath, The Queen’s College, 1: 15–16.
60
Magrath, The Queen’s College, 1: 95.
61
CPR, 1340–1343, 249.
62
CPR, 1343–1345, 103, 239, 457; CPR, 1348–1350, 254; CPR, 1354–1358, 45; Petitions to the Pope 1342–1419, 120.
63
Magrath, The Queen’s College, 1: 10.
64
William Page, ed., A History of the County of Hampshire: Volume 4 (London: Victoria County History, 1911), 377–379; CPR, 1340–1343, 194; CPR, 1343–1345, 457.
65
Magrath, The Queen’s College, 1: 25, n. 5.
66
CPR, 1381–1385, 401; Magrath, The Queen’s College, 1: 118–120.