The Lady Chapel (40 page)

BOOK: The Lady Chapel

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A key element in any study in character is motive. Motive traces the trajectory of an action from stringing the bow through setting up, aiming, and hitting (or missing) the target. What fascinates both the historian and the novelist is that any one event seen through the eyes of different participants suggests completely different motives, and it's the sum of the motives that culminates in the epic events. For a mystery writer, there is an additional fascination in how many people have motives for any crime, innocence being at times little more than a lack of opportunity.

The Lady Chapel
's plot hinges on King Edward III's manipulation of the wool trade. Motive: to finance his repeated attempts to add the crown of France to his English crown. The wool trade was of vital importance to the economy of Flanders; Flanders was of strategic importance to Edward's war with France. Edward's scheme was to influence supply and demand to such an extent that the Flemings would support Edward rather than the French King in order to protect their economy. But Edward did not inspire confidence and trust in his own merchants--he gave them rights and revoked them ruthlessly, and promised monies that his scheme failed to raise; nor did he learn from the failures of the first year--he bullheadedly went on with the scheme. In effect, he pushed the merchants on both sides of the English Channel to devise means to continue their trade illicitly. In general, their motivation was to make a living, but in some, opportunity for unrestricted trade inspired greed. Merchant companies such as Chiriton and Company and Goldbetter and Company steered a daring course, sometimes winning, sometimes losing.

But in the 14th century, even in the heat of business, people were keenly aware of their mortality and tried to secure a comfortable afterlife. Gilbert Ridley was tending to his soul when he offered a generous sum to Archbishop Thoresby for York Minster's Lady Chapel. Lady Chapels were common additions to churches and cathedrals in the 14th century, when the cult of the Blessed Virgin Mary was strong. Mary was seen as the gentle intercessor between God and man. In a time that suffered plague, war, famine, deluges, and drought, the Virgin was embraced by the people as the Mother who would beg God the Father to forgive His erring children and spare His hand. The placement of the Lady Chapel was usually on the east end of the church, behind the high altar. The chantry priest appointed to the chapel would say daily masses there dedicated to the Virgin. John Thoresby, Archbishop of York from 1352 to 1373, built York Minster's Lady Chapel to house his own tomb and those of six of his predecessors. He also provided for the chantry priest. Motive: the obvious one was that he saw the chapel as a lasting monument to his power and holiness. But I put forth another. At this point in his life Thoresby was an aging man, increasingly disillusioned by the King, and his thoughts often turned to his own passing. Like Ridley, he wished to secure his place in Heaven, and

in building the Lady Chapel he expressed his hope that the Blessed Virgin Mary would intercede on his behalf.

As I present it, part of Thoresby's rift with the King was Alice Perrers. He saw her as a meddling commoner, an insult to the ailing Queen Philippa. Alice's influence over the aging King Edward III, particularly after the death of Queen Philippa, was the great scandal of the time. And yet this powerful, enigmatic, controversial woman left little record of herself, and as surviving descriptions of Alice Perrers were written by her enemies, even those are suspect. There is no record of her relationship with John Thoresby. I based my portrait of Alice on F. George Kay's Lady of the Sun: The Life and Times of Alice Perrers (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1966), and then seasoned to taste. Alice Perrers's motives were complex--love and devotion to the King mixed with ambition and the need to secure her future; being mistress to a King, especially one who was quite old by medieval standards, was to walk on quicksand, because the King could die at any moment and leave her defenseless in the midst of her enemies. Being a commoner, she lacked the family connections that might have protected her. It is interesting that what her highborn enemies appear to have disliked most about her was her business savvy.

The Mercers' Guild was a trading company, later known as the Merchant Adventurers. Representatives chiefly of the woolen industry--mercers, drapers, hosiers, dyers, the guild members were the wealthiest citizens of York, especially the mercers, or wool merchants. In this period, the term "merchant" was applied to the large traders, the petty retailers and also the artisans who bought their own raw materials, produced their own wares in their own workshops, and sold the wares direct to their own customers. The mercers of York dominated the city council. Of the eighty-eight mayors of York between 1399 and 1509, sixty-eight were mercers. Archbishop Thoresby would have taken great pains to solve the murders of two members of this guild in his jurisdiction. And, of course, the Archbishop would wish to clear Gilbert Ridley's name so that he could make use of the merchant's generous donation to the lady chapel with a clear conscience.

It is not surprising that this influential guild was responsible for the elaborate play "The Last Judgment" that formed the finale of the York mystery plays on the feast of Corpus Christi. The guild had the money to invest in a pageant wagon with various levels and a platform that lowered Jesus Christ from heaven to earth.
The Lady Chapel
opens on the feast of Corpus Christi, as the pageant wagons of the guilds of York wind through the narrow streets of the city, stopping at stations set up along the way for the players to present the set of roughly fifty plays (the number varied over time) depicting the history of mankind from the Creation to the Last Judgment. These were elaborate undertakings; preparations began in early Lent. An abbreviated, four-hour production is performed in York in the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey every fourth summer.

Town Waits participated in the Corpus Christi celebrations. They were musicians who received an annual stipend from the city treasury as well as livery and sometimes free accommodation. They performed on specified occasions for the mayor and the corporation of the city and provided special music for ceremonial occasions and royal entries. In York they held a special position in relation to the Minster, regularly performing at Pentecost and on the two feasts of St. William. In The Lady Chapel, Ambrose Coats is therefore a civil servant and hence his concern about keeping out of trouble.

Ambrose plays two medieval bowed instruments, the rebec and the crowd. The rebec belonged to the generic family of fiddles. It was a pear-shaped instrument, typically with three to four strings, held either in the armpit or across the chest. The bow was held as fiddlers hold theirs today. Its pitch was described as high, its quality shrill. It was used often as a drone instrument.

The crowd was the ancestor of the Welsh
crwth
. It was an adaptation of the newly imported bow to the long established lyre (or Anglo-Saxon
hearpe
). It typically had parallel sides, and most English examples had some form of neck. The number of strings varied from four to six. It was most commonly held at the shoulder and pointing downward. Typically sounding at least two notes at once, the crowd was described as melodious and harmonious.

For further reading about King Edward III's financing of the war, I recommend Scott L. Waugh's
England in the Reign of Edward III
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and E. B. Fryde's
Some Business Transactions of York Merchants
(York: St. Anthony's Press, 1966). For further detail on the musical instruments, see
English Bowed Instruments from Anglo-Saxon to Tudor Times
by Mary Remnant (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986).