A History of The Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds 1257–1301: Simon of Luton and John of Northwold by Antonia Gransden (review)

With this volume, Antonia Gransden completes her two-volume history of the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds, one of the wealthiest monasteries in medieval England and one linked closely with both the central, royal government of England and the papacy. Here Gransden continues the history begun in A History of The Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds 1182–1256: Simon of Tottington to Edmund of Walpole (Woodbridge, 2007).

The abbacies of Simon and John provide the “backbone” (xiii) of the present book. Gransden’s division of St. Edmunds’ history according to individual abbacies reflects the importance of relationships to the community and illuminates the complex web of connections between the Abbey, the town, local nobility, the English crown, and the papacy—as well as between the abbot and the convent. The abbots played a crucial role in forging and managing these relationships. Throughout the volume Gransden demonstrates the ways in which Abbots Simon and John dealt with stakeholders in order to protect and extend the life and work of the Abbey. Gransden addresses each abbacy thematically, which allows her to highlight both the continuity of monastic tradition and the changes implemented by each abbot at St. Edmunds.

Following Part I, an introductory chapter that provides biographical information for Simon and John, Gransden divides her study into four thematic sections and two appendices. The first two themes, “Abbatial Governance” and “The Abbey’s Economy,” contextualize the Abbey’s relationships with its royal patrons and with the surrounding town. With the second two themes, “Religious Life and Reform” and “Intellectual and Cultural Life,” Gransden focuses on the internal life and work of the monks.

Part II, “Abbatial Governance,” looks at the particular challenges faced by each abbot. Gransden argues that the tenures of both Abbot Simon and Abbot John were defined by the complexity of the Abbey’s relationships. Simon’s abbacy, covered in chapters 2–5, was marked by conflicts with the Friars Minor and Richard, Earl of Gloucester, and, most acutely, by the Baron’s War and its repercussions. In elaborating each conflict, Gransden lists, and then plumbs, the available sources in order to show the balancing act required by Simon in negotiating between the Abbey’s network of relationships.

Gransden turns to Abbot John’s tenure in chapters 6–12. She notes that one of the immediate demands placed on him was the mending of the relationship between the abbatial office and the convent—damaged as a result of Simon’s stricter policies. The sacrist under John, William of Hoo, was crucial to John’s administration, and Gransden devotes the entirety of chapter 12 to his identity and power. In part, Gransden elaborates on William of Hoo because information for his life and administration comprises an extensive and important part of the overall source base for St. Edmunds. Indeed, Gransden’s work is marked by her meticulous attention to sources—locating, examining, and piecing together documents to reconstruct the Abbey’s history.

Even agreements resolving the most local of conflicts, that between abbot and convent, however, required royal confirmation. Gransden argues that John’s abbacy was shaped by the Abbey’s relationship with and the priorities of King Edward I. The effect on the Abbey of those priorities, to raise money and to increase governmental efficiency, is spelled out in chapters covering St. Edmunds’ mint, Edward’s close and personal relationship with the Abbey, and his Quo Warranto campaign to clarify and define liberties. Chapter 11 completes the picture of the Abbey’s network of relationships under John by examining other “influential friends.” Appendix 1 supplements the section on abbatial governance by identifying the Abbey’s justices about whom the townspeople appealed to King Edward for relief from what they saw as abuse in the abbatial courts.

In Part III, chapters 13–20, Gransden focuses...