Today’s post is an image of The Crucifixion taken from the mortuary roll of Lucy de Vere. In the twelfth century, she founded the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, North Essex and and was its first prioress. According to the British Library’s catalogue “The roll was sent to 122 religious houses in the southern half of England, each writing an answer to a request for prayers made by Agnes, Prioress of Hedingham, for the soul of her predecessor Lucy.”

‘The Crucifixion’ from Mortuary roll of Lucy, foundress and first prioress of the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, with tituli (responsive prayers) 1-6, (Essex, England)  c. 1225 – c. 1230. Shelfmark Egerton 2849 Part I

Happy Easter to all my readers and followers.

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Notes
Images from the British Library’s collection of Medieval Manuscripts are marked as being Public Domain Images and therefore free of all copyright restrictions in accordance with the British Library’s Reuse Guidance Notes for the Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts.

You may also be interested in the following posts
– Easter celebrations in a late medieval English parish
– Easter Monday during Tudor Queen Mary’s reign
– Early modern and medieval illuminated manuscripts

© Essex Voices Past 2014

All photographs are © Essex Voices Past 2012 and may not be reproduced without permission.

Transcription of Tudor Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts (1526-7)

Commentary
Line 1:  We are now in the next year of the churchwardens’ account i.e. 1526-7.

Line 4:  The May i.e. May Day.

Line 5: Michaelmas Day is 29^th September.  Originally a medieval Catholic Saint’s day for St Michael, the Archangel, over time Michaelmas become one of the English legal system’s quarter days for paying landlords their rent.

Line 16: Wax for the rood light.  The 14 pounds of wax detailed here is probably for the entire year.  This is quite a substantial weight so the rood-light (i.e. the candle in front of the rood) must have been quite large.  The rood was the cross at the entry to the chancel and often had images of the Virgin Mary on one side and St John on the other side.  No evidence survives as to what Great Dunmow’s pre-Reformation rood looked like.  As the church was dedicated to St Mary the Virgin, it is likely that the pre-Reformation rood also contained the images of St Mary and St John.  Sadly, very few English medieval roods survived the Reformation.

Line 21: corpraxis a cloth on which the host and the chalice was placed on during Mass.

Line 26: ob [in the money column] Latin abbreviation – short for obolus. One-half old penny.

Line 32: Sanctus bell (small hand-held bells).

Easter week in late medieval Great Dunmow
Line 22: The sepulchre represented the tomb of Christ and was used (or created) in many medieval/pre-Reformation English Catholic churches during Easter week.  From Good Friday until Easter Sunday, the church’s consecrated religious items were hidden in their sepulchre and a man was set to watch over the sepulchre night and day until Easter morning.  During the reign of Henry VIII, in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts, there are numerous references to pins, nails, lights and canopies for the sepulchre, along with payments to the sepulchre’s watcher.  Watching over the sepulchre was a serious duty for the men of the parish as there are also references for charcoal for the fires burnt by these watchers.
 

 ‘Three Holy Women at the Tomb, facing the text used to celebrate Easter mass’ from the Augsburg Sacramentary (Augsburg, Germany, 2^nd or 3^rd quarter 11^th century),
shelfmark Harley 2908  fos. 53v-54, © British Library Board.

 ‘Resurrection of Christ, at the beginning of Easter prayers’ from The Stowe Breviary (Norwich, England, between 1322 and 1325), shelfmark Stowe 12  f. 87,
© British Library Board.

 ‘Resurrection of Christ, from a liturgical text for Easter’ from A Dominican Antiphoner (North France, 1^st quarter of the 14^th century),
shelfmark Yates Thompson 25 f. 1, © British Library Board.

 ‘Resurrection of Christ, at the reading for Easter’ from Epistolary of the Sainte-Chapelle (Paris, 2^nd or 3^rd quarter 14^th century),
shelfmark Yates Thompson 34 f. 84,  © British Library Board.

 Volvelle for calculating Easter and other movable feasts (England, 2^nd half of 15^th century), shelfmark Harley 941 f. 29v,  © British Library Board.

All digital images from the British Library’s Online Images archive appear by courtesy of the British Library Board and may not be reproduced (© British Library Board).

Notes about Great Dunmow’s churchwarden accounts
Great Dunmow’s original churchwardens’ accounts (1526-1621) are kept in Essex Record Office (E.R.O.), Chelmsford, Essex, D/P 11/5/1.  All digital images of the accounts within this blog appear by courtesy of Essex Record Office and may not be reproduced. Examining these records from this Essex parish gives the modern reader a remarkable view  into the lives and times of some of Henry VIII’s subjects and provides an interpretation into the local history of Tudor Great Dunmow.

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You may also be interested in the following
– Index to each folio in Great Dunmow’s churchwardens’ accounts
– Great Dunmow’s Churchwardens’ accounts: transcripts 1526-1621
– Tudor local history
– Pre-Reformation Catholic Ritual Year

© Essex Voices Past 2012-2013.