SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL - … · The Miracle of the Ring - Saffron Walden Historical...

The Miracle of the Ring - Saffron Walden Historical Journal No 13 (2007)

SAFFRON WALDEN HISTORICAL JOURNAL

The following article appears by permission and is the copyright of the Saffron Walden Historical Journal and the author. Fair dealing for the purposes of private study or non-commercial educational, archival or research purposes is freely allowed, but under no circumstances are articles or illustrations to be reprinted in any other publication, website or other media without permission. All rights reserved. It has not been possible to include all the original illustrations with the articles, but these can be seen in copies deposited at Saffron Walden Town Library. Enquiries re articles can be sent to [email protected]

The Stone Coffin, the Lost Chapel and the Miracle of the Ring

©Jacqueline Cooper (with acknowledgements to Douglas F. Salmon)

Reprinted (with minor alterations) from: Saffron Walden Historical Journal No 13 Spring 2007

Clavering Churchyard, where in a chapel the Miracle of the Ring is said to have taken place in medieval times, and where a medieval stone coffin was found in 1923. Photograph ©Jacqueline Cooper. This is the intriguing story of one of the Miracles associated with Edward the Confessor, the last of the Saxon kings, and of its connection to a long-forgotten chapel in the village of Clavering in NW Essex.1 The stone coffin In the spring of 1923, Clavering carpenter Ed Martin was putting in a post for a new fence along the north edge of the churchyard, adjoining the deep, tree-lined moat of

Clavering Castle. Two feet down he hit a large stone slab, cracked across. He scraped off the soil, lifted one section and saw there were bones inside. Ed Martin knew that the person to consult would be Miss May ffytche, who lived nearby at The Old House in Church End. Miss ffytche, wealthy and eccentric, wore many hats - school governor, church treasurer, Girl Guide


leader and local historian. She examined the heavy coffin of red sandstone, over seven feet long and almost three feet wide tapering to under two feet, with a seven-inch thick lid and inside a well-preserved male skeleton. The event is remembered to this day by Mrs Irene Cranwell, who now lives in Chrishall, but was born as Irene White in 1910 in Clavering:

Miss ffytche was terrifically excited. She sat at the top of the grave with her little feet on the edge of the hole and her feet dangling inside, sifting through the earth with her fingers. She decided it was a village treasure and came into the school and appointed six of her Girl Guides to stand in uniform with their staves around the coffin – I was one of them! It was kept open and someone took photographs.2

Nothing is known of the whereabouts of these photographs, but a published account does exist of a visit by the Essex Archaeological Society three months later, and correspondence by Miss ffytche with various experts, who disagreed on its antiquity, but it was generally thought to be 13th century.3 The churchwardens were unhappy about the open grave and after a short service by the vicar, the coffin was reburied, its mysteries unsolved. The proximity to the castle moat and the status implied by a coffin of red sandstone (not found locally) made Miss ffytche conclude that the skeleton was that of a medieval lord of the manor: The lid was very much broken, and had, I think, been removed before. Beyond the head were worked flints again and in the coffin at the head are two large flints; otherwise nothing but bones and fresh soil which had fallen in… on the east a flint wall, hollow… An old inhabitant, Mr Livings has told me that when he was a boy he used to find bones and skulls in the castle moat.4 Nothing further is known of this coffin or the skeleton inside, not even its exact location of which several ideas exist. It could well have resembled the stone coffin which stands outside Saffron Walden Museum.

Medieval stone coffin outside Saffron Walden Museum – probably similar to the one found at Clavering in 1923. Photograph ©Gordon Ridgewell.


The lost chapel The find has added interest because of Miss ffytche’s observation of the hollow flint wall to the east of the coffin (see above). A member of the Essex Archaeological Society ‘who superintended the uncovering of the coffin, said that an old chapel formerly stood near the spot where it was found’.5 St Helen’s Chapel, which still survives at Bonhunt, gives a good idea of how it might have looked. Miss ffytche wondered: ‘Is it possible that the chapel of S. John the Evangelist was here 1353 and that the worked flints were a part of that building?’6 Her comment shows that Miss ffytche was clearly aware of an entry for 1353 in the Calendar of Patent Rolls: License for the alienation in mortmain by Ralph de Nevill of a messuage, 40 acres of land and 60s of rent in Claveryng, said to be held in chief, to a chaplain to celebrate divine service daily in the Chapel of St John the Evangelist in the churchyard of Claveryng church as the said Ralph shall ordain.7 Later references in the Calendars of Rolls refer to a chantry in this chapel. Time and again, the records use the phrase ‘in the churchyard’ or ‘in the cemetery’ of Clavering church, making clear that this was a different building from the church itself.8 After the early 16th century no more is heard of the Chapel of St John the Evangelist, but given the impact of the Reformation, this is not surprising. However, there is a further puzzling reference during Elizabethan times to grant of ‘a chapel in the churchyard of Claveringe founded by the late countess of Salisbury to find a chaplain to celebrate in the said chapel’.9 The Countess of Salisbury owned the manor of Clavering at the time of the Lay Subsidy in 1525.10 She would appear to be the same woman, Margaret Pole, an ardent Catholic, who was executed aged 67 for treason by Henry VIII in 1541.11 If so, this would explain why she was ‘the late countess’, for whom founding a Catholic chapel in one of her manors would be in character. There is one more reference to a chapel in Clavering. It is included in 1570 among a long list of post-Reformation grants of confiscated property, but again there is a different name:

… the guilde hall in the churchyard in Claveringe, and a roofless chapel called Our Ladye Chapple, given for the guild there to sing le morrowe masse in the chapel.12

Clavering had two religious guilds, dedicated to St Katherine and St John the Baptist, and a Guildhall, still there today, built circa 1500-20.13 If Our Ladye Chapple was roofless in 1570, this could denote its neglect once guilds and lights were abolished from 1547 onwards. The question is: was the Salisbury/ Our Ladye Chapple the same building as the Chapel of St John the Evangelist? It is not possible to resolve this on present knowledge, but it could be that the Countess re-founded and re-named an existing building. After 1570 there are no further references to any


chapels in the churchyard of Clavering church and it does not appear on any early maps. Nor is there any folk memory of a chapel ever having existed, although Miss ffytche did report a village tradition that there was a bridge across the moat which might relate to the flint wall she found. It is possible that, as at St Helen’s Chapel at Bonhunt, the old chapel remained in tumbledown state and was used for other purposes, or the stones taken away for use elswhere. Whatever the fate of the chapel, it would remain a subject of largely local interest, were it not for the association of the Chapel of St John the Evangelist with the Miracle of the Ring. The Miracle of the Ring This is where the story moves away from parish history into national legend. We are not now discussing something that can ever be proved to have actually happened, but the perception of medieval chroniclers that it did happen. Douglas F. Salmon points out that it links to a Bible story in St John’s Gospel:

Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die, yet Jesus said not unto him, he shall not die; but, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? St John’s Gospel, chapter 21, verse 23

In medieval times this was taken literally to mean that John the Evangelist would remain alive until Jesus returned. The best-known manifestation of this notion was the Miracle of the Ring. The story goes that Edward the Confessor was dedicating a church to St John the Evangelist, when he was approached by a poor beggar who asked for alms. As he had no money, he took instead a valuable ring from his finger and gave it to the poor man. Then much later, shortly before Edward’s death, the ring was given to some pilgrims in the Holy Land, and the donor said that he had been the beggar who received it from Edward, but that he was actually John the Evangelist in disguise. He entreated the pilgrims to return it to Edward, and tell him they would meet in Paradise within six months. The pilgrims obeyed his wishes and returned the ring to the king who, within six months, was dead. By this sign, it was known that Edward had gone straight to heaven.14 Over a century after his death, this was promoted as one of the Miracles associated with Edward, to illustrate his goodness and generosity. Although it had not been mentioned in the earliest biographies of Edward, it did appear for the first time in 1163 in a specially-commissioned Life of Edward by Aelred of Rievaulx. No location was given for the Miracle story, but it was said to have taken place when Edward the Confessor was dedicating a church to St John the Evangelist.15


The story was given further depth and detail in the Waltham Chronicle, written by a former secular monk of Waltham some time after 1177.16 The Waltham Chronicle is less well-known than Aelred but the story is mentioned again in a 15th century translation of a 13th century work, the Gilte Legende, and in another mss. on the Life of Edward the Confessor describing the ring given at ‘a churche in Essex called Claueryng’.17 Researching a location where the miracle could have occurred, the Waltham chronicler clearly felt that Clavering made sense and put the story into the words of John the Evangelist when he met the travellers in the Holy Land:

When he was dedicating the church of Clavering in my honour, an importunate beggar was standing near him asking for alms, but he had nothing to give. However, he was pressed insistently by the beggar to give him something for the sake of God and St John the Evangelist, but although he had no alms at hand to give him, when he heard the name of John, he bestowed on me — for it was I who was pressing him so hard — a valuable ring, which he had, and then I vanished from his and everyone else’s sight until today.

What was it that convinced the Waltham chronicler that Clavering must be the right location for the Miracle? He underlined the veracity of his sources: ‘we have seen it written down and have learned about it from the report of trustworthy men’. It appears that he was a careful researcher who investigated the details of the story. He may have had access to annals now lost detailing Edward’s itinerary and knew perhaps that Edward had indeed visited Clavering to dedicate a chapel.18 He would know that Clavering had a connection with Edward the Confessor through its lord, Robert fitz Wimarc, who was a courtier and kinsman to Edward.19 He would know perhaps there was a moated site there called ‘Robert’s Castle’, where the king might have stayed, and he would certainly know that there was a chapel there which was dedicated to St John the Evangelist, and may have believed that it dated back to the mid-11th century. We know this chapel existed in the mid-13th century as it is mentioned several times during the reign of Henry III at which time it was ruinous suggesting that it was much older. King Henry III After his death, the cult of Edward the Confessor grew – he represented the ‘good old days’, a relatively peaceful interlude between the troublesome Viking period and the extremes of William the Conqueror. He had been the last of a line of Saxon kings stretching back to the sixth century, an impeccable lineage. Although he had not been a particularly religious man in his lifetime, in death he was promoted as pious and generous, a very special monarch whose soul had gone straight to heaven after he died and worthy to


become, as he later did, a saint. Part of the evidence presented in favour of his sanctification, promoted by Westminster, were the miracles.20 This cult waxed and waned, but reached a peak during the reign of the Plantagenet king Henry III, who was devoted to the memory of Edward. He rebuilt Westminster Abbey with its shrine to Edward, still there today behind the high altar. Unlike Edward, the itinerary of Henry III is known through the Calendars of Rolls, the official government record, which reveals that on 10 March 1251 Henry stayed, as he often did, at Waltham where, as Douglas Salmon points out, he could well have read the Waltham Chronicle with its story about Clavering – how else to explain why he stopped off there the following day? On 11 March he spent the night in Clavering, and while there he sent an order for further embellishment to Edward’s tomb at Westminster. Next day he journeyed on to Walden, from where he sent an order relating to the chapel at Clavering, which he must have seen the previous day as it stood adjacent to the castle which was still occupied and where he probably spent the night.21 The wording of Henry’s order gives a great deal of information:

To the sheriff of Essex. Contrabreve to thoroughly mend the roof of the chapel of St. John the Evangelist in the churchyard of Clavering, which is miraculously called the chapel of St. Edward the king and confessor, to paint an image of St. Edward on the east side of the lower part of the doorway, with a ring to stretch out to the image of St. John the Evangelist on the upper part, to find a lamp burning before the altar, and to cause a chaplain celebrating divine service there daily to have 50s. yearly.22

A vivid picture of the chapel is painted by this record – of its state of repair, its dedication, its association with St Edward, the details of the painting and its precise location, the arrangements for a light, services and a chaplain. The order was repeated a few months later since the late sheriff had failed to carry out the orders. In this second order, the reason why the chapel was ‘miraculously’ thus named was given: ‘where St John the Apostle and Evangelist received the ring from the hand of blessed Edward’.23 The same order was repeated several times up to 1257 and the name of the chaplain given as Gregory.24 There are no more 13th century references to the chapel, but it turns up again in the 1353 record as given above when the manor had passed through marriage to the Neville family who lived distantly, but continued to support a chaplain here. There are further records, as noted above, referring to the chapel or its chaplain, and which also mention a chantry in the chapel.25 The 1480 reference once again gives us a name for the chaplain, Paul Whityng. Fortunately the probate of Paul Whityng, dated 1500, has survived in the National Archives and, although in medieval Latin and difficult to decipher, appears to ask that his body actually be buried in the Chapel of St John the Evangelist and of King Edward at


Clavering. He also left five shillings so that an image of Edward could be painted in the chapel.26 In summary, a chapel in Clavering churchyard was recorded from 1251 to 1500. In 1251 it had been in poor repair, so must have been built some time before, perhaps when the moated site was constructed in the mid-12th century: a manorial centre like this would always have a chapel and it was common for such buildings to be sited just outside the moated area.27 It probably continued in use until the Reformation: the 16th century references (if the same building) suggest it had fallen into disuse following the abolition of guilds, lights, chantries and masses. The chapel could thus have been in use from the mid-12th century (or even earlier) to the mid-16th century, a span of at least 400 years – and yet today there is no folk memory that it ever existed and no sign whatever of where it once stood. All we have are the observations of Miss ffytche in 1923, offering clues that perhaps could be followed up with geophysical survey.* The Ring It is worth noting that in medieval times the miracles were regarded with awe and became part of the iconography of St Edward. In particular, the Miracle of the Ring is often pictured in later works, such as illuminated manuscripts, sculptures, stained glass windows and wall paintings. A panel in the British Museum taken from a church, shows the scene. There is an illuminated mss in Westminster Library in which the ring is prominent. An early published version of the Domesday Book has a plate depicting the miracle, and there are also illustrations in a volume by Mathew Paris in the Cambridge University Library. The story can also be found at Westminster Abbey on the stone screen in the Chapel of St Edward the Confessor, with three scenes representing the giving of the ring, its return to the pilgrims and its restoration to the king. It is also shown over the Courts of Kings Bench and Common Pleas in Westminster Hall and over the gate into Deans Yard. The story used to be depicted in a 15th century window at a church in Romford, demolished in the 19th century. One very fine depiction is at St Laurence’s Church in Ludlow, Shropshire, a beautiful 15th century stained-glass window dedicated to the Palmers’ Guild.28


One of eight panels in the stained glass Palmers’ Guild Window in St John’s Chapel at Ludlow Church, depicting King Edward the Confessor giving the Ring to a poor man. Illustration by permission of Keir Francis: www.insitement.co.uk

It is interesting to speculate what happened to the famous ring? When Edward’s body was exhumed in 1102, it was found to be uncorrupted – seen then as a proof of his saintliness. The sceptre and crown were taken out but the ring on his finger left in place. However when his body (still uncorrupted) was translated to its new shrine in 1163, the ring was taken from his finger and kept by Abbot Laurence as a memento.29 The ring remained among the abbey relics and was recorded in John Flete’s History of Westminster Abbey in the 15th century as being still there. After this, there appear to be no further records, apart from a suggestion that when James II fled the country in 1688, he took the ring with him. However there is a further legend that the sapphire set in the Maltese Cross on top of the Imperial State Crown, still used for coronations, came from Edward’s ring – who knows!30 Conclusion It would seem perfectly plausible for Edward to dedicate a chapel while visiting one of the chief manors of his kinsman Robert. At any rate this was clearly the belief of Henry III when he visited Clavering in 1251, hence his detailed orders for the event to be commemorated in the chapel


where it was said to have happened. Whatever the truth of the story, the evidence of the calendared Rolls – the official government records of their time – give historical credence to the claim of Clavering to be the location identified with this legend. Indirectly, the emphasis on Clavering placed by medieval chroniclers is indicative of the potential importance of the adjoining moated site as being possibly pre-Norman in origin and therefore the earliest castle in eastern England. Only excavation would prove or disprove this but the miracle story offers another possible link to the connection between Edward the Confessor and Clavering. Through the researches of a number of scholars, including most recently Douglas Salmon, a careful examination of all the available evidence has firmly placed the legend of the Miracle of the Ring where it belongs.31

*In 2013 the Clavering Landscape History Group commissioned Archaeology Rhee Search to carry out geophysical survey along the churchyard path beside the moat, to try and locate the chapel. A possible site was identified towards the west end of the fence, but the results await further interpretation. Notes 1. The author is indebted to American scholar, Douglas F. Salmon, for allowing access to his extensive researches on this subject, to be published as ‘Edward the Confessor and the Chapel of St John the Evangelist in Clavering’ (forthcoming). 2. Irene Cranwell in conversation with author. 3. ERO D/DGd Q15/2. See also RCHME An Inventory of the Historical Monments in Essex, vol 1 NW Essex (1916). 4. ERO D/DGd Q15/2: letter, 12 July 1923. 5. ERO D/DGd Q15/2: press cutting, undated. 6. ERO D/DGd Q15/2: letter, 12 July 1923. 7. CPR 24 Feb 1353 Edward III. 8. Clavering Church dates from circa 1380 onwards and is known to stand on an earlier site so must have co-existed with the chapel. 9. CPR 31 Dec 1561 Elizabeth. 10.Ludgate, E.M., Clavering and Langley: the first thousand years (1996), p.33 writes that the Countess of Salisbury was grand-daughter of Richard Neville, known as ‘Warwick the Kingmaker’. 11. See Margaret Pole: Countess of Salisbury 1473-1541 by Hazel Pierce. 12. Information Leigh Alston, site visit with author 2005. 13. CPR 4 Feb 1570 Elizabeth: see Ludgate p46. 14. Neither the Vita Edwardi Regis, nor the Life by Osbert of Clare 1138 mentioned the Miracle of the Ring. It was first described in the Life by Aelred of Rievalux written in 1163. (Ref. D. F. Salmon.) 15. Bertram, J. (trans.) Aelred of Rievaulx, The Life of Saint Edward, King and Confessor (1997). For earlier versions of the Life, see Osbert of Clare La vie de S. Edouard le Confesseur par Osbert de Clare, Bloch. M. ed. Analecta Bollandiana 41, pp5-131 (1923). (Refs. D.F. Salmon.) 16. Watkiss, L. & Chibnall, M. (eds. & trans.), The Waltham Chronicle:an account of the discovery of our holy cross at Montacute and its conveyance to Waltham, pp 38-43 (1994). (Ref. D.F. Salmon.) 17. The Gilte Legende, an early translation (1438) of the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine (c.1228-98). (Ref. D.F. Salmon.) 18. Frank Barlow in Edward the Confessor ((1970, new ed. 1997), p.188 notes that the chronicles relating to the period 1054-64 appear to have been lost through the


‘carelessness of the annalist or of the monastic house where the annals were kept’. Barlow mentions Fitzwimarc several times: pages 41n, 94, 124, 125n, 150, 163n, 164-5, 191, 197, 229, 245, 247, 252, 335 and gives a picture of the Miracle in plate 11. 19. Robert’s Castle, mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in 1052, is identified with Clavering Castle. See Whitelock D. et al, The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: a revised translation version E, p125 (1961). For discussion of this, see Cooper, J., ‘Clavering Castle: a mysterious moated monument’, Saffron Walden Historical Journal, vol 9, pp3-9 (2005). See also Barlow, op.cit. p228. 20. Barlow, op.cit. 21. Project Castle, organsed by the Clavering Landscape History Group from 2005-8, noted pottery (brought to the surface by burrowing animals) dating to the 13th century, alongside oyster shells and animal bones, suggesting domestic use of the moated area continued into the 13th century and could be contemporary with the visit of Henry III. 22. CLR, 1245-1251, p342 (35 Henry III, m. 11). 23. CLR 1245-1251,p 373 (35 Henry III, m. 4). See also Ludgate, op.cit. p17. 24. See Calendars of Close Rolls 1251, 1256, and Calendars of Liberate Rolls 1256, 1257. 25. See calendars of rolls for these dates. 26. TNA Prob.11.12.10. 27. Douglas Salmon points to the example of Raunds, Northants. See John Blair, The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society (2005), p.388. In a site visit in 2003, the noted landscape historian Christopher Taylor believed that the present form of Clavering Castle is mid-12th century in origin, but said this does not preclude the rebuilding of an earlier site. 28 See St Laurence Church, Ludlow website. 29. Barlow, op.cit. p.282. 30. Information D.F. Salmon. 31. Douglas F. Salmon’s forthcoming article will discuss the counter-claims of Havering as the location, but Havering has no claim to being the place associated with the giving of the Ring. For an earlier discussion, see Galbraith, V.H., ‘Edward the Confessor and the Church of Clavering’ Trans. Essex Arch. Soc., n.s. 16, pp187-9 (1923); idem, n.s. 17, pp48-9 (1925).

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