Richard Scrope: Archbishop, Rebel, Martyr (review)

Richard Scrope, third son of Henry Scrope, first Baron Scrope of Masham (d. 1392), and archbishop of York, was executed for treason outside the walls of that city on June 8, 1405, following an armed rising against King Henry IV. Subsequently considered a “martyr” and compared to another archbishop who had died as a victim of royal injustice, Thomas Becket, Scrope’s grave in St. Stephen’s chapel at the east end of York Minster became a site of devotion and pilgrimage, and the following half-century witnessed various unsuccessful attempts to have him canonized formally. This volume contains nine papers, mostly presented at a conference organized in York in September 2005 to mark the 600th anniversary of his death, prefaced by an introduction from the event organizer.

Each essay examines a different aspect of Scrope’s life and posthumous cult, and as in any such collection these vary in length and interest. R. N. Swanson examines Richard Scrope’s early career, concluding that it contains no clues to predict the tumultuous subsequent events. Mark Ormond analyzes the causes of the 1405 Yorkshire rising, based on the text of the manifesto, written unusually in the vernacular, which outlined the grievances against the king. Melanie Devine wonders why Richmondshire, the heartland of the Scrope clan, did not support the insurrection. Christian Liddy attempts to explain why the city of York did rise to arms, focusing on the roles of both the clergy and political factions in the city. P.H. Cullum muses on the role of archbishops in late-medieval society and in particular the importance of their “virginity.” Danna Piroyansky traces the development of the subsequent cult, linking it to the civic identity of the city of York and suggesting that it may have been the impetus for the foundation of the very important Guild of Corpus Christi, first documented in 1408. Stephen Wright explores the literary afterlife of the execution, with a focus on the treatment of Scrope in three very different texts: Clement Maidstone’s Martyrium Ricardi Archiepiscopi (written after 1413); an anonymous fifteenth-century carol, “The Bishop Scrope That Was So Wise”; and Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part Two. Additionally he argues for an “intertextual presence” of the cult in the famous York Corpus Christi cycle of biblical pageants.

In by far the most substantial contribution, Christopher Norton documents the close relationship between the archbishop and the construction of the east end of York Minster. During his tenancy of the see of York (1398–1405), Scrope was directly involved in planning and financing the final phase of the building and glazing campaigns, and this was reflected subsequently in heraldic additions, as well as the glass program. The new “martyr” shared his feast date with the city’s principal patron, St. William of York, and the two cults were closely linked within the space of the Minster. One of the principal manifestations of local devotion to “Saint Richard” is provided by a contemporary book of hours, the Bolton Hours (York Minster MS Add. 2), and analysis of this manuscript’s profuse illuminations prompts Sarah Rees Jones to propose a particular association of the cult with the district of Micklegate on the west bank of the Ouse, and its upper-middle-class inhabitants. Significantly, this area of the city also was the home of the Corpus Christi Guild.

The volume will be of considerable interest to scholars engaged in the study of England in the first half of the fifteenth century, but more broadly to those interested in the construction of the cults of contemporary saints, or would-be saints, and their political, social, and religious overtones.