Message
Dear Friends and
Colleagues,
Thank you for the
suggestions and other comments that you've sent me off list concerning the
(continuing to be) elusive Holy John of Bower. I am very grateful.
Several of you have asked if I could supply more context to help with
thinking about it, so here is what I know, at the moment, about the
reference. I hope that this is appropriate use of the REED-L
list.
The reference
appears in the Grimsby Borough Court Book for 1501-39 (NELA 1/102/2) in an order
on 18 June 1527 directing six men of Grimsby "to prepare for the play of holy
Iohn of bowre." Of the six, the man listed first is Peter Mason. His
will (LA: LCC Wills 1535-47/5v-6v) includes this bequest: "Item I
bequeth to the gylde of holly Iohn of bower yat I am alderman of / iij s iiij
d." He also left lesser amounts to the Trinity, Ascension, Assumption, and St.
George guilds of St James Parish Church of Grimsby. He was buried in that same
church. Local historian Edward Gillett says that St. James was "the
principal church" of Grimsby and that the Guild of St. John of Bower may have
had an altar in the church. He also says that the guild hall was "often
called St. John a bower house" and that it lay "on the south bank of the West
Haven' (i.e., near the docks).
Stan Kahrl,
who included the court book reference in his Malone Society volume, assumed that
the entry refers to an unknown saint of that name, and that the Guild of St.
John Bower to which Mason refers was perhaps a group within either the Trinity,
Ascension, or St. George guilds, to whom Mason had also left
money. Stan's own opinion, he
says, is that Mason was alderman of the powerful Mariners'
Guild.
.
My own
inclination is to think that the entry does not refer to an
hitherto unknown saint but to a play (of unknown content) belonging to
the Guild of St John of Bower. Tht guild seems to have been a guild
independent of the others, because Mason lists his bequests to them separately
from St John of Bower Guild. In the same year as the court book entry
(1527), the nearby town of Louth paid the players of Grimsby for speaking the
banns of their play. It seems reasonable to assume that the play of the
court book and the one mentioned in the Louth records are the same play, and
that this play was "the" town play of Grimsby, just as Donington, Boston,
Long Sutton, et al, had a single play representing the entire town and/or
parish.
I don't think
that the aldermanship to which Mason referred was the Mariners' Guild.
Grimsby had two parishes (St. Mary and St. James). The Mariners' Guild was
associated with St. Mary's church and kept its Noah Ship there, whereas Mason's
life was centered in St. James parish church and in the John of Bower
Guild.
What else can
we know of St. John of Bower Guild? It must have been a very powerful
guild to have been responsible for the town play, and to share a name with the
guild hall. Of the six men named in the order, at least three can be
identified as being were among the town's elite sea
merchants.
Peter
Mason. In 1523 he was was identified as being one of only two townsmen
in Grimsby with a worth assessed as more than 40 pounds. He was mayor in
1534. His will mentions houses, lands, tenements, silve, and
money.
Michael
Mason. His son. A corn merchant. In 1532 he shipped 40 quarters
of corn on the Leonard of Newcastle, and in 1534 was licensed to
ship 200 quarters of wheat.
Richard
Empringham. From a landowning family; one of Mason senior's
executors.
Grimsby
historian S. H. Rigsby observes that there is no evidence of a gild merchant in
Grimsby, but the Guild of St. John of Bower seems to have had some of the
qualities of one. All the important guilds except the Mariners' Guild were
associated with St. James Parish, and of them, St John seems to have been the
most powerful. I'm inclined to think that it was the town's most important
spiritual guild, that its principal membership was the town's powerful
burgesses and merchants, and that the six men appointed were similar to the
playmasters recorded in other towns, commissioned not to mount the play but to
oversee it.
One final
thought (perhaps fanciful). One of the meanings of bower is anchor or
anchors. Grimsby was first and last a sea port built upon the fishing
industry. Its merchants and sailors were its life. One can imagine
the two guilds (Mariners and St John) as being, so to speak, the ship and the
anchor of the town. St. John Baptist has important redemptive
associations with water, and the order to prepare the play was given on 18 June,
just a week or so before the Feast of St. John Baptist. Perhaps he is a
more likely candidate that John of Beverly as the subject of the
play?
Thank you for
letting me muse aloud. Thank you for your help.
Jim