THE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT PETER IN EXETERTHE CATHEDRAL CHURCH OF SAINT PETER IN EXETER
by Keith Barker
Walter de Stapeldon (lived 1261 –1326, bishop 1307 –1326)
Walter de Stapledon, the fifteenth bishop of Exeter, was priest, lawyer, land and estate owner, entrepreneur, academic and college founder, courtier, diplomat, government minister and economic reformer, and a great benefactor of Exeter Cathedral.
1 Family life
Born 1st February, 1261 at Stapeldon Manor, near Black Torrington (west of Hatherleigh) to William and Mabel, Walter de Stapeldon was one of a family of seven children, probably the second of four boys. His father was a fairly prosperous freeholder, but not a knight and only the oldest son Richard (whose tomb is in the north quire aisle of Exeter Cathedral) could afford, because of the right of primogeniture, to get married a church career was the best option for Walter and his younger brothers Robert and Thomas, the latter –with the influence Walter was able to wield –achieving canonical rank.
Between 1310 (and probably far earlier) and 1326 Richard and Walter were business partners, collaborating (using Walter’s enormous influence) on many housing and land deals. Richard also served as a judge and on several occasions as knight of the shire (MP) for Devon and Cornwall. His business ‘empire’ seems to have collapsed with his brother’s murder.
2 Walter’s church career
Stapeldon was educated at Oxford where he continued to study from time to time until 1307. He was appointed Vicar of Aveton Gifford (near Kingsbridge) around 1293 and his links with Exeter Cathedral date from 1297, when records show that he was granted 16s rent for the tenement in the close occupied by Master Roger. His ties with the city go back before 1300 –he had been extensively involved –often with Richard –in the buying and selling of property in Exeter in the last years of the C13th and in 1300 was made a freeman of the city.
Stapeldon’s outstanding abilities as scholar and church administrator were recognized early by Oxford, which made him professor of canon law, by the diocese of Exeter, and by the Vatican (he was almost certainly made one of Pope Clement V’s private secretaries).
He probably became one of Bishop Bitton’s officials in 1300, deputizing for him in consistory courts and was made a cathedral canon in 1301. From 1301 he was heavily and famously involved in a dispute over burial rights between the dean and chapter and the Dominicans which dragged on until 1306.
Briefly, a knight, Sir Henry de Ralegh, had resided in, died and was to have been buried in the Dominican convent of Exeter in 1301. Since Saxon times the cathedral (and the minster before it) had been the sole permitted place of burial in the city for everyone –other than those who had died in one of the monastic institutions. The canons asserted that the Dominicans and other orders had agreed in 1270 that anyone who died in convents/monasteries/friaries should be brought to the cathedral for mass to be said over the body. When Ralegh died in 1301 Walter de Stapeldon and colleague John Uphaven were sent to the convent to bring his body to the cathedral. They were refused access. The canons then asked Ralegh’s executors and friends to make arrangements to transport the body, which they did. The Dominicans then refused to receive back the body –and it was allowed to lie in the cathedral where eventually it began to stink and so was buried there (in 1301, not 1303 as given in Erskine, Hope and Lloyd and elsewhere). The friars subsequently brought the case to consistory courts and eventually (in 1306) to the Pope to obtain rulings on future burial policy in the city.
Traditionally, one of the stone effigies of knights on the north side of the south quire aisle is supposed to be Sir Henry, but Eddie Sinclair is doubtful about this.
In 1305 Stapeldon became precentor of Exeter Cathedral. Records indicate that his attendance record whilst in the post was a good one, absences being accounted for by periods of study at Oxford and a first involvement in diplomacy.
Bishop Bitton died on 21st October, 1307 and Stapleton was elected in his place by a large majority of canons, royal assent to the result being given on 3rd December. His election was, however, disputed by Richard de Plympstoke, Rector of Exminster, and Stapeldon’s promotion was only confirmed by the Pope the following spring. The enthronement took place in December, 1308 –a magnificent occasion, with no expense spared. The bishop’s path through Broadgate across the close to the cathedral was carpeted with black cloth which, once he had passed over it, was cut up and distributed to the poor the majestic service was followed by a sumptuous feast. The proceedings were orchestrated by Hugh Courtenay, hereditary steward of the feast the fee that he claimed for doing this was larger than that given to the Earl of Gloucester for organizing the installation of the Archbishop of Canterbury! The cost of the whole ceremony is said to have consumed the revenues of the diocese for an entire year.
The day before his installation (December 21st, 1307), Stapeldon had ordained the incredible total of 1,005 men priests, deacons, sub-deacons and acolytes in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Cross, Crediton –every name is included in his register.
It should be remembered that Exeter Diocese then comprised Devon, Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. As now, populations were widely dispersed and a great many of the churches were impoverished. The diocese was, in fact, poorer than any other in England except Rochester and was a very difficult one to administer. Until he became a government minister Stapeldon seems to have been very conscientious in his visitations and far more involved in diocesan affairs than would be Grandisson (unlike Grandisson he was, of course, a native of the diocese, and unlike him appointed many local men as assistants). According to records it would seem that Stapeldon in just over nineteen years as bishop, covered probably twice as many miles as Grandisson in forty-two years. Indeed Grandisson seems hardly to have moved from Chudleigh in his last twenty years.
Stapeldon’s register shows that he was ready to discipline priests and junior priests who misbehaved (many were illiterates who had come into the church as a ‘soft option’), but he certainly tried to ensure that they knew (and were able to follow) the manual which Bishop Quinil had ordered to be placed in every parish in 1287. This gave fairly basic guidance on how to carry out parochial duties, what religious instruction to give parishioners and how to impart it and what advice on infant welfare to give to the mother of a young baby. He encouraged those of his ordained staff those who showed enough ability, to get degrees. Stapeldon Hall –later Exeter College –which he founded (with Richard) at Oxford in 1314 originally only took students from Exeter diocese.
He was officiating at a Petertide service in Holy Cross Crediton in 1315 when a blind man from Bristol, told in a dream to come to the service and to pray in the St Nicholas Chapel, miraculously had his sight restored. After subjecting him to a number of tests and hearing his neighbours testify that he had indeed been blind, Stapeldon proclaimed that a miracle had happened, bells were rung and a mass immediately held.
From the time he became a government minister in 1320 to his death in 1326 he was rarely in the diocese.
3 Entrepreneur, estate and land owner
Stapeldon was involved in the buying and selling of property in Exeter in the last years of the C13th and in 1300 was made a freeman of the city. Records show that he continued to acquire land and property in the very early years of the 1300’s, and it was the income from these deals which enabled him to make the annual payment of £124 18s 8d to the Fabric Fund.
Between 1310 (and probably far earlier) and 1326 Richard and Walter were business partners, collaborating (using Walter’s enormous influence) on many housing and land deals. Richard also served as a judge and on several occasions as knight of the shire (MP) in Devon and Cornwall. His business ‘empire’ seems to have collapsed with his brother’s murder.
Stapeldon became vastly wealthier from 1320, when he became Lord High Treasurer. In 1325 much of Queen Isabella’s property, including Cornish tin mines, found its way into his possession. It was said that he was ‘unreasonably avaricious during his term of office [as Treasurer], he had become remarkably rich, whence it seemed that he had made his wealth by extortion rather than by honest dealing!’
4 Educationalist
In 1314, Stapeldon, with Richard his brother, founded Stapeldon Hall, later Exeter College, in Oxford University as a house for poor scholars, with the dean and chapter of Exeter being named as trustees of the endowment.
He established the city grammar school in Exeter, sited at the hospital of St John the Baptist by the east gate of the cathedral close in Exeter.
5 Diplomat
Between 1309 and 1326 he was employed by Edward II on a number of missions to foreign courts, one of these, in 1319 was to the French court and the Low Countries. King Edward was overdue in rendering homage to Philip V of France for Gascony –and Stapeldon was sent to make the arrangements for this. The other purpose of the mission was to visit Hainault in the Low Countries to examine the suitability of a daughter of the Count as a bride for Edward, Prince of Wales. Stapeldon has left this lovely description of Sybella, the elder daughter of the Count of Hainault in his register:
‘The lady whom we saw has not uncomely hair, betwixt blue-black and brown. Her head is clean-shaped her forehead high and broad, and standing somewhat forward. Her face narrows between the eyes, and the lower part of her face is still more narrow and slender than the forehead. Her eyes are blackish-brown and deep. Her nose is fairly smooth and even, save that it is somewhat broad at the tip and somewhat flattened, yet it is no snub-nose. Her nostrils are also broad, her mouth fairly wide. Her lips somewhat full, and especially the lower lip. Her teeth which are fallen and grown again are white enough, but the rest are not so white. The lower teeth project a little beyond the upper yet this is but little seen. Her ears and chin are comely enough. Her neck, shoulders, and all her body and lower limbs are reasonably well shapen all her limbs are well set and unmaimed and nought is amiss so far as a man may see. Moreover, she is brown of skin all over, and much like her father and in all things she is pleasant enough, as it seems to us. And the damsel will be of the age of nine years on St John's day next to come, as her mother saith. She is neither too tall nor too short for such an age she is of fair carriage, and well taught in all that becometh her rank, and highly esteemed and well beloved of her father and mother and of all her meinie, in so far as we could inquire and learn the truth’.
Reg. Stapeldon, 169 (A.D. 1319).
In fact Edward was eventually betrothed to, and married, Philippa, Sybella’s younger sister, but even so I reckon that’s quite a decent ‘once over’ of an eight-year old.
In 1325 Edward II had reluctantly sent his queen, Isabella, to France to attempt to negotiate peace (she was sister to King Charles IV and had kept up connections with the French court throughout her marriage). Medieval regal etiquette demanded that Edward do homage to Charles IV (king since 1322, but homage hadn’t yet been done to him) for his lands in Gascony. Edward had felt unable to leave England to do this and in September, 1325, probably on the urging of the Despensers, sent his twelve year old son, Edward, Prince of Wales to represent him, Stapeldon accompanying him as his guardian.
The prince, attended by Stapeldon, met with Isabella at Charles IV’s court in Paris. Mother and son greeted each other with great affection. The French thought (probably with justification) that Stapledon was behind recent arrest of Frenchmen in England and the confiscation of their goods and absolutely hated him. He wrote that since his arrival French courtiers and officials had treated him ‘as if he were guilty of some crime’ and had obviously become quite paranoid. His presence was anathema to Isabella who identified the bishop as a right-hand man of the Despensers and held him in large part responsible for a massive reduction in her allowance, the confiscation of all her estates in England, the loss of many servants and her estrangement from Edward.
Stapeldon’s opening statement to the French court was a demand that Isabella should return to England immediately. Instead of meekly complying with this, Isabella launched a bitter attack on her husband and the younger Despenser, but the venom also targeted Stapeldon:
‘I feel that marriage is a joining together of man and woman, maintaining the undivided habit of life, and that someone has come between my husband and myself trying to break this bond. I protest that I will not return until this intruder (ie Hugh Despenser) is removed, but discarding my marriage garment, shall assume the robes of widowhood and mourning until I an avenged of the Pharisee’
Stapeldon responded by asking King Charles to overrule his sister, but must have been infuriated when the king declined, saying: ‘The queen has come of her own free will and may freely return if she so wishes. But if she prefers to remain in these parts, she is my sister, and I refuse to expel her’. These words effectively made the break up of England’s royal marriage permanent.
The bishop had cause for concern. He had heard a rumour that English exiles in France (these probably included Roger Mortimer, Isabella’s lover) were planning to assassinate him and fled from the palace disguised as a pilgrim.
An extant contemporary letter from Isabella to the bishop –written after his abrupt departure from France –shows the depth of her loathing of him. Not only had he caused all her English goods to be seized but he had failed to give her the protection he had offered and had left for England without paying the expenses of her household! Furthermore, she had never been shown the letter that authorized his return to England which he had alleged (in Paris) he had received from Edward II. He was in league with the Despensers!
6 Government minister and political reformer
Stapeldon attended parliament from 1313 until his death and was made a privy councillor in 1316. In 1320, on the death of Bishop Sandale of Winchester, he was made Lord High Treasurer of England, the fourth highest office of state. It was a position he held in two spells, 1320-21 and 1322-25. He had no qualifications for the post, but his lawyer’s mind enabled him to “make a heroic effort to introduce some order and system into the unwieldy mass of exchequer records”. In the words of T.F.Tout, historian of the late C19th and early C20th:
“It is hardly too much to say that we owe to Stapeldon, more than to any one person, the fact that our vast collection of exchequer records before 1323 is still preserved to us”.
The bishop may have been a marvelous archivist, but working directly to Hugh Despenser, Edward II’s favourite and effectively a behind the scenes dictator, Stapeldon also put in place measures which rationalized the tax gathering system to maximize the income of the royal household silver and gold had almost filled Edward’s coffers by 1325. This made the bishop a very unpopular person nationally, but particularly in London, where his reforms bit hardest. He was identified by the population both with Despenser and Edward II (in fact the latter’s reign and Stapeldon’s episcopate almost coincide).
7 Stapeldon’s contribution to the rebuilding of Exeter Cathedral
Bishops Quinil and Bitton, both fairly rich men, had each been generous in their financial contributions to the work. Bitton gave over £100 annually and left the residue of his estate, £1,345 5s 11d, to the cathedral fabric. In 1303/4 he gave £124 18s 8d, and Stapeldon chose this figure as the level of his donation for the whole of his episcopate The rebuild was done at a fairly slow pace (surviving Fabric Rolls show a maximum of 30-35 people involved at any one time) and with fixed annual contributions from bishop, canons and dignitaries together with income from investments (mostly by appropriated parish churches), clergy of the diocese, diocesan contributions, bequests and indulgences there was sufficient for the completion of the furnishing of the quire.
Stapeldon had a reputation nationally for being ‘unreasonably avaricious during his term of office [as Lord High Treasurer], he had become remarkably rich, whence it seemed that he had made his wealth by extortion rather than by honest dealing’.
This was what was achieved in Stapeldon’s episcopate, a time when wars were being lost (the Battle of Bannockburn was in 1314), there was a great deal of social unrest (harvests had failed and there was actual starvation) and when, before the Black Death, the population had begun to shrink:
From 1307 –1309: (under Master Roger) painting of quire bosses, merging of new church into Norman church (includes demolition of Norman screen), moving of quire stalls to present position.
From 1310 –1326: William Luve succeeded as master mason on Master Roger’s death in 1310. It seems likely that the choir was completed in that year. In his short time in post, Luve was preoccupied with work on the transeptal crossing. The tower chapels of St Paul and St John the Baptist were completed by glazing in 1310, but Love had to call in Thomas of Witney’s help in order to progress the furnishing of the choir in 1313. After being appointed master mason in 1316, Witney changed the plan of the presbytery by inserting the triforium gallery using columns of Corfe marble and organised the apparent unity of design in the walls of the presbytery and choir.
The bishop’s throne was constructed between 1313 and 1319 and the pulpitum between 1317 and 1325. The high altar was under construction from 1316 to around 1325 (Stapeldon’s tomb, built well before his death, was to form part of it).
The crossing bosses date from 1316/7, many of them were carved by William of Montacute and his successor, Richard Digon. The first bay of the nave was reached in Stapeldon’s episcopate (ie before 1326).
Cloisters to the south of the cathedral were being built from 1318 (they were completed sometime in the 1340’s).
7 Stapeldon’s murder
In August 1326, Edward had ordered Stapeldon to prepare the South-West of England for an invasion led by Queen Isabella and her lover, Roger Mortimer.
The Queen and Mortimer landed on in East Anglia 24th September. Stapeldon was instructed to take charge of London whilst Edward fled west.
Stapeldon had been attending a conference at Lambeth and hearing what had been happening decided that he must return to London to comply with his instructions. The mob had already sacked his house in the Temple, stolen his valuables and burned his Episcopal registers. He donned full armour and went with two squires to register a protest. Spotted by a horde of Londoners he was chased nearly to St Paul’s. Before he could reach sanctuary he was dragged from his horse through the churchyard to the Eleanor Cross in Cheapside, where his armour was pulled off and his head was removed with either a bread knife or a butcher’s knife. It was sent to Queen Isabella as a trophy. His body was refused burial in St Clement Danes Church on the strand, and was later interred on a rubbish tip ‘without off ice of priest or clerk’.
Although Isabella detested Stapeldon, she arranged for his head to be re-associated with his body and in March 1327 his remains were brought to Exeter where his tomb –built several years previously on the prestigious north side of the new high altar –awaited him.
The 20cm painted stone figure climbing up the north side of the interior of that tomb, above Stapeldon’s effigy, is a mystery. Does it represent Edward? This seems quite possible. Stapeldon was in his sixties in the 1320’s, an old man in mediaeval terms, so his tomb was probably built when he was a member of Edward’s government because of Edward he was one of the most powerful men in England. He was the only bishop of his time that was loyal to Edward.
The inventory made of his goods in 1327 includes a pair of rivet spectacles. This is one of the first known references to the item in historical records.
Sources:
Lives of the Bishops of Exeter by Dr George Oliver, publ. 1861
The Accounts of the Fabric of Exeter Cathedral vol. 1 1279-1326 and the introduction to vol. 2 1328-1353 publ. Devon and Cornwall Record Society 1981 & 1983
Isabella and the Strange Death of Edward II by Paul Doherty publ. by Constable in 2003
Isabella, She-wolf of France, Queen of England by Alison Weir, publ. By Jonathan Cape in 2005
The Greatest Traitor by Ian Mortimer publ 2003 by Jonathan Cape
The Perfect King: The Life of Edward III, Father of the English Nation by Ian Mortimer Publ. 2006 by Jonathan Cape
Politics, Finance and the Church in the Reign of Edward II Walter Stapeldon, Treasurer of England by Mark Buck CUP 1983
sundry papers in Exeter Cathedral Library and the WestCountry Studies Library