Piety

by Dr Lynda Pidgeon based on an article by Mary O’Regan

Medieval life was dominated by the Church. The year was shaped by the religious festivals of Easter, Christmas and Saints Days, while daily life was structured around the seven sacraments of baptism, confirmation, mass, penance, ordination, marriage and extreme unction. Until the Reformation in the sixteenth century there had only been the one Church, of which the Pope was Christ’s representative on earth and salvation could only be found through the Church.

The Church ministered to the spiritual and religious needs of the laity, provided hospitals for the sick, hostels for travellers, relief for the poor and education. As well as addressing people’s spiritual and social needs the Church also acted as a court dealing with such matters as marriage disputes and witchcraft. Clerics also became involved in politics providing administrators for the state, many of whom held high office in the king’s council.

With such wide ranging involvement in the daily lives of people, it can be difficult to assess the extent to which people were genuinely pious or were simply following customary practices which gave them acceptance in their community.

Canterbury Cathedral

Influences on Richard's Religion

It is probable that Richard was influenced by his mother, Cecily, Duchess of York, who was considered one of the most saintly laywomen of her generation. In her later years she is known to have devoted most of her day to religious matters. Cecily was a follower of the devotio moderna, a regime of devotion put forward by Gerard de Groot of Flanders, in which lay practitioners built their lives around worship, prayer, study and contemplation. Their personal devotions focussed on the works of famous mystical writers, such as Mechtild of Hackeborn. She was a thirteenth-century Cistercian nun whose mystical visions were written down in her lifetime as Liber Specialis Gratie, sometimes called ‘The Book of Ghostly Grace’. Cecily owned a copy of this book and was also known to be interested in the lives of St Catherine of Siena and St Brigid of Sweden.

Richard’s older sister Margaret, Duchess of Burgundy, was also influenced by their mother’s religious interests. Cecily taught her to set aside regular hours for prayer contemplation and reading. When Margaret became Duchess of Burgundy she made contact with leading theologians and reformers in the Low Countries, giving generously to the church to found convents and build churches and monasteries. Margaret’s foundations were also practical; the convent she founded at Binche provided a hospital, an orphanage and a school for girls.

St Brigid of Sweden

Richard's Religious Books

We may have an indication of Richard’s religious tastes, and possibly his spiritual life, in his personal library. It has been estimated that ‘of the eleven books that he probably owned only four can be called devotional’ (Sutton and Visser-Fuchs, p.84), a Book of Hours, relatively simply written and decorated. For Scripture he owned an English translation of the New Testament and an English verse paraphrase of the Old Testament. Like his mother he had The Book of Special Grace of Mechtild of Hackeborn, for meditation. The book also bears the name of his wife Anne Neville, and might as easily reflect her religious tastes. Meditation demands solitude and freedom from interruption, something more easily attained by an aristocratic woman than a man, especially one engaged in a busy public life, such as Richard was, as both duke and king.

Much has been made of the fact that Richard owned an English New Testatment translated by John Wycliffe, raising the question that he was sympathetic to Lollard ideas. However the copy owned by Richard was an earlier, orthodox translation by Wycliffe to which no taint of heresy was attached. It is not known how easily Richard read and understood Latin, but an interest in reading the Gospels in the vernacular suggests an intention to absorb its message as perfectly as possible.

Richard III's Prayer

It is Richard III’s Book of Hours that has borne the weight of later conjectures concerning Richard’s piety. In particular a prayer that was added to the book after it came into Richard’s possession. This has been closely analysed in the hope of throwing light on everything from his spiritual life to his mental health. Richard’s own circumstances have been taken to be directly relevant to words and phrases used in the prayer, as if it were composed with the king in mind, however texts of it have been found dating from the fourteenth century, and originating in places as far apart as Italy, Catalonia and Burgundy. It is a long prayer, designed for use by anyone in distress, anxiety, infirmity or affliction of any kind. The prayer seems to have been particularly valued by other medieval rulers: known owners of books containing it include Alexander, Prince of Poland, Maximilian I, Frederick of Aragon, and successive Dukes of Burgundy. Recitation of the prayer on thirty successive days was enjoined, in the belief that God would then turn the supplicant’s troubles to ‘joy and comfort’.

Without additions peculiar to a single owner, the normal contents of a Book of Hours were, principally, formal prayers of the Church designed for public recitation but suitable also for private use. The main constituent was the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a simpler, shorter version of the Divine Office making it suitable for laypeople to pray either alone or with a companion. Like the Divine Office it was divided into sections corresponding to hours of the day: Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers and Compline.

If Richard III used his Book of Hours regularly he would have made himself conscious of God continually during the day. In addition the book contained many prayers directed to and praising the Virgin Mary. Devotion to the Mother of God was popular among both clergy and laity at all times during the Middle Ages, and there is no reason to think that Richard III was any exception.

Richard's Prayer

His Religious Donations

According to John Rous in his Anglica Historia, ‘King Richard was praiseworthy for his building, as at Westminster, Nottingham, Warwick, York and Middleham, and many other places, which can be viewed. He founded a noble chantry for a hundred priests in the cathedral of York, and another college at Middleham. He founded another in the church of St Mary of Barking, by the Tower of London, and endowed the Queen’s College at Cambridge with 500 marks annual rent.’

Jonathan Hughes suggest that Richard had an ‘excessive preoccupation with chantry masses…He was responsible for ten chantry or collegiate foundations (apart from his patronage of Queen’s College, Cambridge) and he distributed a stream of largesse to religious houses, parish churches, houses of friars, chapels and chantries’. He adds that many of Richard’s gifts were small and mostly given in the north, where he established most of his foundations.

Richard’s surviving, and best known collegiate foundation is that at Middleham. On 21st February 1478 he obtained a licence to found and endow the college, which was to be served by a dean, six chaplains, five clerks and six choristers. As well as providing prayers for himself, his wife and son, prayers were to be offered for his surviving siblings, the king and queen, and his mother. Masses were also to be said for the soul of his father and his deceased brothers and sisters. However the college was not only to serve as a house of prayer, it was to contribute towards the better education of the clergy and improve services in the locality. The same licence also gave Richard permission to endow a college at Barnard Castle, comprising a dean and twelve priests. The endowment was valued at 400 marks per annum, twice the size of Middleham. All of these foundations would have been overshadowed by Richard’s plan to establish a college of 100 priests at York Minster in 1483.

While Richard may have been concerned about his own soul, his was not a unique preoccupation. What his grants also demonstrate is his concern for the poor or those who lived in remote areas, and that they should have the benefit not only of a priest but one who was educated. If he was concerned for his own soul he was also concerned for the souls of his people, especially those in the north.

St Mary and St Alkelda Church, Middleham

Conclusion

Sutton and Visser-Fuchs place Richard firmly in his time: ‘Richard’s religion was that of the later middle ages, humanised, fervent and personal within the strong and controlling framework of the church’. They assess from the known facts about him that ‘his private piety was no different from that of his contemporaries, although his sorrows and cares may have been greater than most people’s. He directed his attention to the same things: he, too, adopted favourite saints to be his patrons and intermediaries with God and had particular object of veneration.’

Richard left no spiritual or other writings which would help us. But he owned religious books, whose character leads one to suppose that they were for use rather than ornament. He founded colleges and chantries and he gave alms generously in comparison to others. He probably prayed every day, and no doubt attended Mass and other services of the Church regularly. We know he had a confessor, so he will have received the Sacrament of Penance regularly too. As far as we can judge, Richard fulfilled his obligations and more, and for a medieval prince that was remarkable.

Books Consulted

The Piety of Cecily, Duchess of York: A Study in Late Medieval Culture by C. A. J. Armstrong in For Hilaire Belloc, ed. Douglas Woodruff (1942)

His Life & Death

Influences on Richard's Religion

Richard's Religious Books

Richard III's Prayer

His Religious Donations

Conclusion

Books Consulted

Further Reading