The English in Rome, 1362–1420: Portrait of an Expatriate Community (review)

The English in Rome, 1362-1420: Portrait of an Expatriate Community. By Margaret Harvey. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, 45.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xv, 278. $59.95.)

Rome between 1360 and 1420 was a place of fluctuating fortunes. The papal exile at Avignon, the return of Gregory XI immediately followed by the outbreak of the Great Schism, and the following forty years of a divided church and papacy, all took their toll and added their excitements. Only in 1420 did Martin V return to re-establish Rome as the capital of a reunited church. Throughout those years, nevertheless, Rome continued, and continued to attract foreign residents. Having already addressed relations between England and the papacy in two significant books, Margaret Harvey now turns her attention to a rather different aspect of connections between England and Rome in the later Middle Ages: the persistent presence of an expatriate community, a small group who had uprooted themselves to take their chances as permanent residents rather than transients.

Central to her analysis are the relatively extensive early records of the Hospital of St. Thomas at Rome, "the English Hospice," founded in 1362. Drawing primarily on its collection of early deeds, Dr. Harvey meticulously and skillfully reconstructs the milieu of the English in Rome in these busy years. The early chapters establish the setting, examining the Rome which the English would have known during this period. Attention then turns in chapter 3 to the early years of the Hospital itself, followed in chapter 4 by a consideration of the less successful English hospital of St. Chrysogonus, and the German hospice of St. Andrew, which had strong ties with the English community. Thereafter the people become the focus, examining the laity in general (chapter 5), the women in particular (chapter 6), and finally the English in the curial administration in the years from the papal return to Italy in 1376 through to 1420 (they merit two chapters, separated on no immediately obvious basis).

Up to this point, the discussion is necessarily somewhat general. Details are deftly used to construct individuals' careers and contexts, but the aim is certainly to depict a community. The last three chapters change tack significantly, focusing on two striking individuals. John Fraunceys (whose career is analyzed in chapter 8) was one of the curial hangers-on who managed to build his career at Rome, having failed to exploit the potential of his connections to create a niche for himself back in England. Chapters 9 and 10 concentrate on the last pre-Tudor English curial cardinal, Adam Easton. Cardinal almost by accident, he is important as perhaps the most prominent English expatriate at the papal court. He was also a writer, taking on Wycliffe and contributing to debates about clerical power. Both career and works are analyzed in some detail. Particularly important about these last chapters is their analysis of the difficulties of maintaining contact over distance, difficulties which had a particularly significant impact on clerical careers. That is clearly demonstrated when looking at successions to benefices: the rival stances of English common law and papal canonistics resulted in 'official' lists of occupants of benefices which could be very different at either end of the rope, generating complex negotiations and assorted chicaneries as rivals exploited the competing legal processes until forced to some kind of compromise.

By drawing attention to the minutiae of personal contacts, and the reality of experiences for those who chose to pursue their lives and careers in Rome, Dr. Harvey has opened up new perspectives which must affect attitudes to issues like pilgrimage, and the importance of credit networks and long-distance contacts among such displaced groups. Lively, informative, and useful, this is a book which certainly deserves to be read widely.

 

R. N. Swanson
University of Birmingham

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