Accounting at Durham Cathedral Priory

Management and Control of a Major Ecclesiastical Corporation 1083-1540

Alisdair Dobie

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781137479785
• Topic: Economics
• Subtopic: Economic History
• Index: Economics

This study utilizes the rich archives which survive at Durham Cathedral to examine the way in which accounting methods and systems were adopted and adapted to manage income and expenses, assets and liabilities in changing economic environments.

1

Durham Cathedral Priory 1083–1539

The city of Durham is dominated by the twin monuments of its medieval cathedral and episcopal castle-palace. Facing each other across the open space of Palace Green, they crown the summit of a narrow-mouthed peninsular which is tightly bound by a loop of the River Wear. Long recognized as a magnificent Anglo-Norman achievement, the present Durham Cathedral, founded in 1093, is considered one of the great buildings of Western Europe: a building of immense dimensions and technological daring.¹ In its original Romanesque form its length of 123 metres is estimated to have slightly exceeded that of Old St Peter’s in Rome.² Durham Cathedral was conceived as a suitably monumental setting for the mortal remains of St Cuthbert, whose body was translated there in 1104.³ The elaborate complex of cathedral church and monastic buildings bears witness to an age characterized as one in which ‘faith held such an empire on the minds of men that they were persuaded to build churches to the greater glory of God, and to think no building too magnificent for His service’.⁴ Besides this monumental legacy in stone, the monks of Durham Cathedral Priory have bequeathed to us an administrative archive of great richness in which upwards of 4,500 financial and accounting records and documents still survive. This chapter explains the purpose and function of the cathedral priory as a medieval institution before sketching the origins, foundation and demise of Durham Cathedral Priory and identifying a number of events and persons significant in its 460 years of existence. It then examines the assets with which the priory was endowed, and the management practices adopted to administer its resources and enable satisfactory performance of its functions. Finally, a number of threats and challenges to the resources available for the adequate fulfilment of these activities are then outlined.

The cathedral priory as a medieval institution

Durham Cathedral Priory was a monastic house inhabited by a body of Benedictine monks who served the cathedral church of the bishopric of Durham. Its community thus combined two roles: they oversaw and performed the duties which a medieval cathedral required of its clergy; and additionally, they were members of a monastery which acknowledged and sought to observe the principles and guidance expounded in the sixth-century Rule of St Benedict.⁵ Thus cathedral priories encompassed the dual function of cathedral church and Benedictine monastery.

A cathedral is defined as the seat of a bishop, a word which derives from the Latin episcopus and the Greek ‘episcopos’, terms found in the New Testament and which literally translate as ‘overseer’ or ‘guardian’, indicating a function of supervising and protecting the Christian church and community. Medieval bishops were, by the process of the laying on of hands in an unbroken chain across the generations, considered to be the direct successors of the apostles. To them were reserved such functions as the consecration of other bishops and the ordination of priests.⁶ Bishops were responsible both for the spiritual welfare of all who dwelt within their sees and for the conduct of the clergy who administered to them. By the eleventh century much of Western Europe was divided into provinces, each headed by an archbishop, and subdivided into a number of sees, each headed by a bishop. All acknowledged the ultimate spiritual authority of the pope as the inheritor of the keys of St Peter. The see of Durham comprised much of the later counties of Northumberland and Durham and was one of the constituents of the province of York. The bishop of Durham owed obedience to his metropolitan, the archbishop of York. The archbishop of York administered his own see centred on the city of York, and in 1133 the diocese of Carlisle, again subject to the archbishop of York was formed in the Cumbrian territory annexed by William Rufus (1087–1100) in the late eleventh century.⁷

The bishop’s cathedral housed his cathedra or episcopal throne, and frequently nearby was one of his major residences or palace which might serve additionally as a centre for the administration of his diocese. The enthronement of the bishop upon his cathedra marked his acquisition of his rights of spiritual supervision and jurisdiction over his see. Cathedrals were served by a body of clergy, whose duties included the performance of the liturgy and the running of the cathedral church, an important role as bishops were often absent from their dioceses for extended periods while engaged on royal business and involved in royal administration. The clergy who served the cathedral might be ‘secular’ or ‘religious’. Secular clergy were priests, but unlike the religious they did not form part of a monastic community subject to the Rule of St Benedict. On the continent the vast majority of cathedrals were served by secular clergy.⁸ In contrast in England a majority of cathedrals (Bath, Canterbury, Coventry, Durham, Ely, Norwich, Rochester, Winchester, and Worcester) were served by Benedictine monks.⁹ Monks were introduced to some cathedral churches such as Winchester and Worcester in the tenth century and to others such as Durham and Rochester following the Norman Conquest. At that time, the monastic condition was generally perceived to be spiritually superior to that of secular priests and thus capable of providing a more suitable and purer service to God in the cathedral church. Monastic reform movements had improved standards of liturgical performance which were thus often higher amongst the religious than the standards achieved by the seculars. In their earlier histories, the bishop of a cathedral priory was frequently a monk and thus able to fulfil the role of abbot to the cathedral priory as well as bishop to his see. Subsequently the majority of bishops were not monks and this led to tensions in their role as heads of the religious houses attached to their cathedrals. These tensions were frequently resolved by an increasing separation of the activities and assets of the cathedral priory from those of the bishop. The increasing importance and autonomy of the role of the prior as de facto head of the cathedral priory was often recognized by the papal grant of mitre and crozier as acknowledgement of the prior’s effective abbatial authority.¹⁰

Benedictine cathedral priories were also monasteries, which, in the Christian sense, may be defined as places of residence for a community living under religious vows, especially the residence of a body of monks. Such communities could be referred to by the Latin terms monasterium or conventus. The present day close association of the term conventus with female houses did not arise until a later period. Prioratus was the term used to refer to a monastic establishment governed by a prior, in contrast to an abbatia which was ruled by an abbot. Durham Cathedral Priory is also frequently referred to simply as the ‘ecclesia dunelmensis’, ‘the church of Durham’. The prior of a priory was its acknowledged head, whereas in an abbey, the prior occupied a subordinate position under the abbot. The members of such monastic communities in the medieval period had dedicated their lives to God; had withdrawn from the secular world; and had taken vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Monasteries were perceived as powerhouses of prayer; an important weapon in the struggle to keep the forces of darkness at bay. A major purpose of a monastic community was the welfare of the souls of its members so that after death they would partake in the kingdom of Christ,¹¹ but additionally prayers and intercessions were offered on behalf of a community’s founders, benefactors and protectors. Monasteries were viewed as ‘citadels of faith’ where the sins of those in the world might be purified by the unceasing intercessions of the monks.¹² The appeal of the monastic life and of the benefits of monastic prayers can be seen in the number of institutions established in England and Wales, where it has been estimated there were perhaps a thousand communities in existence in 1300, with around 17,000–18,000 members.¹³ Monasteries ranged in wealth from the very rich to the very poor. Collectively their estates were vast, and it was even said that were the Abbot of Glastonbury to marry the Abbess of Shaftesbury, they would control wealth exceeding that of the King of England.¹⁴

In the later Middle Ages monasteries did not constitute a homogenous group of organizations. Different ‘orders’ such as the Benedictine (sometimes referred to as the ‘Black Monks’ because of the colour of their habit), Cluniac and Cistercian existed. Although these different orders shared many common characteristics, and acknowledged the primacy of the sixth–century Rule of St Benedict,¹⁵ they also demonstrated marked differences from each other. They followed different practices and were governed by different sets of rules, and often the appearance of a new order (for example, Cluny whose origins date back to the early tenth century, and Citeaux dating from the eleventh century) was a reaction to perceived shortcomings in existing monastic practice, particularly a decline in the observance of the monastic ideal as exemplified in the Rule. Monastic reform and renewal and the maintenance of high spiritual standards was a recurring theme. The emergence of monastic communities in the early Christian church had led to the development of various ‘Rules’ intended to assist in the government of their activities. The one composed by St Benedict in the sixth century became dominant and was accepted as the definitive document by which the monastic life should be ordered throughout Western Europe.¹⁶ When the standards set by St Benedict were not adhered to, critics emerged who argued the need for reform. Thus in 817 St Benedict of Aniane issued a series of regulations which became law throughout the Carolingian empire. In England, where in the second half of the tenth century it was observed that monasteries were ‘wasting away and neglected’ and ‘almost wholly lacking in the service of our Lord Jesus Christ’, a series of reforms was embodied in the Regularis Concordia: a document which sought to restore the monastic life to its former pristine state.¹⁷ At Cluny the evolution into an order was a gradual process which resulted in each subsidiary house being ultimately subject to the abbot of Cluny, who thus had the authority to intervene in the affairs of any house which was seen to be in need of reform.¹⁸ The Cistercian order much more quickly compiled the four documents which established its constitutional framework.¹⁹ Of these the Carta Caritatis, as well as providing detailed rules for the conduct of monastic life, also embodied measures aimed at ensuring the observance of these rules. These included the requirement that each year every house was to be inspected by the abbot of the founding house and that an annual meeting of the heads of all houses, called a general chapter, was to be held at Citeaux.²⁰ Together these arrangements constituted a form of quality control for the perpetuation of the reformed movement. In comparison, the Benedictine houses, including the Benedictine cathedral p...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Introduction
• 1  Durham Cathedral Priory 10831539
• 2  Economic, Bureaucratic and Religious Developments
• 3  The Corpus of Accounting Material
• 4  Rentals, Compoti, Status, and Other Documentary Forms
• 5  Debtors, Creditors and Financial Management
• 6  Accounting as a Management Tool
• 7  External Monitoring and Conclusions
• Appendices
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index