INTRODUCTION. John le Romeyn, Romayn, or Romanus, archbishop of York, came of clerical stock, though in a somewhat irregular way. His father, another John le Romeyn, was so intimately associated with the church of York, that it will not be out of place to give a brief sketch of his career. In the foundation deed1 of a chantry in the minster, made somewhere between 1241 and 1252, when he was archdeacon of Richmond, a little information is given of his parentage. At this chantry, founded against the altar of St. Andrew, which stood over against the north-west pillar of the lantern of the minster, which he himself had built, and near St. William's tomb, prayer was to be made for the souls of king Richard i, John and Mary, the founder's parents, and for Cincius his priest.3 After his death the patronage was to belong to the dean and chapter. The priest celebrating this chantry was not to be one of the vicars in the minster. When he had sung the mass and the office for the dead he was to be present in the choir in the minster at the canonical hours, or at any rate high mass.4 Endowments for this 1York Domesday, fo. 52, belonging to the dean and chapter of York. There is another grant in the same MS. (fo. 82), printed in the Historians of the Church of York (Rolls Series, iii, 152), of rather an earlier date. It is a grant by Romeyn of rents of 13s 4d and 10s from land in Goodramgate, York, and Garton, probably Garton-on-the-Wolds, for keeping his obit. In the York Fabric Rolls (Surtees Soc., xxxv, 276) the editor, in a moment of forgetfulness, calls the founder archdeacon of York. A member of the important Roman family of the Cenci. The name Cencio or Cinthio is primarily connected with the house of Frangipani. Cinchius the Roman, a subdeacon, was prebendary of Rugmere in St. Paul's Cathedral in 1232 (Hennessey's Novum Repertorium, p. 47). For more information about him see Fasti Ebor., i, 328n. When the treasurer's son the archbishop went to Rome in the spring of 1292, the chronicler (Chronicon de Lanercost, i, 137) reports" a nobilioribus Urbis et sibi attinentibus honorifice susceptus est," which looks as if he had come of good stock. At the time of the dissolution of the chantries, in the reign of Edward vi, the duties of the chaplain of the chantry of St. Andrew, founded by archdeacon John le Romayn, were, besides praying for the souls named above, to be in the high quyer in his habyte at dyvyne service, redy to rede, and syng, and exercise at the high aulter at th' appoyntyng of th' officers. The same chaunterye is wythyn the said church. necessitie thereof is for the mayntennance of Goddes service, and the same is observyd and kept accordyngly (Yorkshire Chantry Surveys (Surt. Soc., xcı),, i, 23). The The chantry were made in no niggardly spirit. In York, five rentcharges were given, namely, 20s from land he had bought in Buthum of the prebend of Strensale, held by him of Roger de Sexdecimvallibus and Luke; 22s paid him by Robert the cook, for a house which had belonged to Geoffrey Brun; one mark from land in Bleykestret, held of him by Lenier1 and his brother; and 40d and 32d in Walmegate from the prebend of Fridaythorpe, held by Philip the carter and Nicholas Welpe's daughter. He also gave half a carucate of land in Fridaythorpe as well as 3s rent and a windmill there, with land with the houses on it in Barkaregate bought of Arnald the priest. He further deposited sixty marks in the minster treasury for the purchase of other lands.2 Doubts were cast on his legitimacy, apparently without reason, as in 1224 he had letters from the pope,3 declaring that John Romanus, canon of York, was legitimate, he having lost both parents when of tender age, and there having been some uncertainty about his birth. Names of a couple of other of his relatives are on record. A nephew, Denis, in 1240 resigned all claim to the church of Stanford-on-Avon (Northants.), which was in the patronage of Selby Abbey ;4 and another nephew, James Judici, was pardoned in 1255 at the instance of Matthew Hanibal, a Roman proconsul, for the rape of a woman at Wyvestowe, now Westow, near Malton, on condition that he made peace incumbent, who was meanly learned and of honest conversation and qualities, had for singing Our Lady mass in the same church to the yearly value of 9li 13s (Ibid., ii, 437). 1Perhaps Lemer. 2At the time this chantry was dissolved, it was only worth 4li 7s 11d (loc. cit.). The witnesses, of whose names the initials only are given in the case of dignities, were : -William or Walter de Kirkham, the dean, Simon of Evesham, the Robert precentor, Haget, the treasurer, John Blund, the chancellor. Laurence of Lincoln, archdeacon of York, Simon de sancto Egidio, the subdean, canons of York, Thomas the baker (pistor), Jeremy, Adam de Vestibulo, Elias, vicars (of the church) of York, William the parson of Beryngham (now Barningham), Richard the parson of Askham, John de Hesel, Richard de Aquila and Henry of Devon (Devoniensis), clerks. This grant was not fully ratified when John le Romeyn the son had an inquisition ad quod dampnum taken in 1284 (Yorkshire Inquisitions, ii, 18), and in consequence of the favourable finding a licence for the alienation in mortmain of the houses in Gutherumgate was granted, the object being the maintenance of the anniversary of Master John le Romeyn, sometime treasurer of the church of York (Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1281-1292, p. 136). Even this does not seem to have been effectual, as in 1298 the vicars of St. Peter's, York, had licence to retain this property, then bequeathed to them by the will of the archbishop himself (Ibid., 12921301, p. 352). Cal. of Papal Letters, i, 100. Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste, episcopi Lincolniensis, p. 182. with her, or stood his trial if any one wished to proceed against him.1 The earliest mention of the elder John le Romeyn occurs on Nov. 23, 1218, when, already a canon of York, he was appointed one of the commissioners to report about Robert de Lelleia, clerk, of the diocese of York, who had three wives and had publicly pleaded cases of bloodshedding in a secular court, taking no notice of church censures, and had presumed to hold the church of Tadcaster and many others with cure of souls.2 It seems probable Le Romeyn may have come over in the train of Walo or Pandulph, who were papal legates in England at the end of the reign of John and the beginning of that of his successor. In 1228 he was presented by the king to the church of Hampsthwaite (Hamethweit), which must have been of considerable value as it was charged with a pension of 100s in favour of Henry de Essex, clerk.3 Later in the same year on the institution of the subdeanery of York it was collated to him.4 The subdean must have been regarded as a man whose favour was worth courting, probably on account of his being able, through his Italian connections, to influence members. of the Curia. It was for this reason, very likely, that the archbishop in 1236 granted him a pension of twenty marks a year from his treasury until he should be provided to something better. His next piece of preferment was the archdeaconry of Richmond, in which he succeeded Robert Haget in 1241.6 On attaining this dignity the archdeacon must have vacated the subdeanery, which at this time was held by Master Simon of St. Giles (de sancto Egidio). The archdeacon managed further to enrich himself by obtaining possession of the treasurership at York. This must have been about 1249. On St. Matthew's day (Sept. 21) in that 1Cal. of Patent Rolls, 1247-1258, p. 16. Another possible relative was Adam, son of William, called the Roman, who was presented to the church of Kirby Misperton in 1254 by Thomas the abbot and convent of St. Mary's, York, according to the ordination made by Mr. J. (Romanus), treasurer of York (Gray's Register (Surtees Soc., LVI), p. 120n). There is a letter from pope Innocent iv, dated at Lyons, kal. Aug., 6th year (Aug. 1, 1248) addressed to " Johanni dicto Romano clerico, scriptori pœnitentiariæ nostræ," who must be a different Cal. of Charter Rolls, 1225-1232, p. 174. and Gray's Register, p. 33. 'Le Neve's Fasti, iii, 127, and Reg. Gray, p. 28m, and Reg. Joh. Romani, i, 205, where the date is incorrectly given as 1229 instead of 1228. Reg. Gray, p. 75. year it was still held by Robert Haget, the archdeacon's predecessor at Richmond,1 and according to the Registrum Album2 le Romeyn enjoyed that dignity in the same year. This accumulation of benefices seems to have caused trouble, as in 1255 he, as treasurer, although in possession of a dispensation from a previous pope to hold the archdeaconry together with his other benefices, had a further dispensation to retain the treasurership, having resigned the archdeaconry.3 This resignation must have taken place between May, 1249, when as archdeacon he had a grant of the church of Bolton-le-Sands from John, abbot of the monastery of St. Martin at Sées, in Normandy, and March 16, 1253-4, when William, archdeacon of Richmond, occurs as a witness to a deed of archbishop Gray about land in Goodramgate.4 Nothing more seems to be recorded about him. He must have died towards the end of 1255, for on Jan. 2, 1256, the king granted to his clerk, John Mansel, provost of Beverley, the treasurership of the church of York with the prebend annexed thereto, void by the death of John le Romeyn, and in the king's gift by reason of the voidance of the archbishopric on the death of archbishop Gray.5 During his long life, for he must have been sixty at least when he died, he had managed to amass very considerable wealth. Matthew Paris characterizes him as avaricious and cantankerous (cavillosus). In another place Paris? draws a fuller and even more unfavourable picture of the treasurer. He terms him one of the most avaricious of men, crammed (saginatus) with rents and treasures. For nearly fifty years he had devoted himself to heaping up riches, and though the chief or one of the chief canons of York, he had, like a wicked spy, discovered a way of unlocking the English treasury (archam Anglia) and of inciting the Romans to gape in a greedier way than common after the rents and treasures of this country, whether legally or illegally. This extortion by the foreign clergy provoked reprisals. In the North, Robert de Thweng of Kilton Castle, near Saltburn, under the nom-de-guerre of Will Wither, acted as leader of bands which went about the country in 1231 destroying the crops of the foreign intruders, who, in fear of their lives, hid themselves like thieves. John le Romeyn, then a canon of York, had to conceal himself in the minster, expecting to have his head cut off. Other evidence confirms the unfavourable view taken of Romeyn's character by Matthew Paris. His correspondence with Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, which Canon Raine from insufficient knowledge thought redounded to his credit, really shews him in a very discreditable light. In one case2 the bishop had to refuse leave to the subdean of York to let his church of Chalgrove in Oxfordshire, although his request was backed up by the papal nuncio. The other case was that of a nephew whose illiteracy was so gross the bishop was unable to institute him to the church of Stanford.4 Le Romeyn, however, had some sterling qualities. His frequent employment by the Curia is a testimony to his business capacity, and the important posts he held cannot have been entirely due to favouritism. He was not without gratitude to the church from which he derived his great wealth. Stubbs6 is our authority for attributing to him the building of the north transept of the Minster and the lantern tower, together with a great part of the hospital of St. Leonard. Not only did he do this at his own cost, but in 1234 he got a grant from the king of forty oaks from the forest of Knaresborough and "Ockeden" for making a belfry (berefridum) in which to hang the minster bells. The north transept still remains a monument of his munificence, but the central tower has been refaced or destroyed. By his will he endowed twelve beds for men and women in St. Leonard's hospital, York. It was probably for furthering this purpose that he built the greater part of the infirmary of that hospital, and so arranged it that the two sexes could live Boston (ecclesia sancti Botulfi in Hoiland) on the presentation of the abbot and convent of St. Mary's, York, and instituted in the person of Richard the clerk, his proctor (Rot. H. de Wells, iii, 164). 4Grosseteste Epp., p. 203; cf. Rot. Rob. Grosseteste, p. 182 See the first volume of the Cal. of Papal Letters passim. "Hist. of the Church of York (Rolls Series), ii, 409. "Cal. of Close Rolls, 1231-1234, 403. P. Reg Romeyn, nos. 372, 391, 418. |