Sunday, August 27, 2017

William Toli and the Constantinople patriarch and the letter issued a month before time

William Toli and the Constantinople patriarch
and the letter issued a month before time

Niall C.E.J. O’Brien

Sometime between 1342 and 1345 William Toli from Dunmow, Essex, in the diocese of London went overseas to fight for the Byzantine Empire against the Ottoman Turks.[1] William Toli was of humble origins yet still he went to fight in the Smyrna Crusade led by Henry, Patriarch of Constantinople.[2]
This patriarch of Constantinople was the Latin patriarch of the city, established following the Fourth Crusade capture of Constantinople in 1204. Henry de Asti was elected patriarch in 1339. Henry was also known as bishop of Negroponte.[3] 

In 1342 Patriarch Henry was commissioned by Pope Clement VII to lead a crusade against the Turkish controlled city of Smyrna. On 28th October 1344 the city of Smyrna fell and Henry established his headquarters there. 

On 17th January 1345 Patriarch Henry decided to celebrate a victory mass in a former church that was located between the Christian and Turkish lines. The patriarch was advised against it but he went ahead. While at mass the Turkish leader Umar attacked and in the ensuing battle Patriarch Henry was killed.[4] In his own account William Toli claimed that he was severely wounded in the battle of the Smyrna church when the patriarch was killed.[5] It is also possible that William Toli may have received his wounds in the battle fought when the Crusaders were trapped between the harbour walls and the Turkish cavalry.[6] Whatever the circumstances William Toli suffered these wounds for the rest of his life.[7]   

Dunmow in Essex by Paul Farmer

Reward for services

As a reward for his services on crusade William Toli received papal letters assigning him a benefice in the gift of the abbot and convent of St. Osyth's. The abbey of St. Osyth’s was one of the largest monasteries in Essex from which county William Toli came from. This assignment was annulled in 16 Kal January 1345 (that note of the date) when William Toli got a new papal mandate.[8] But before the annulment William Toli was also got an assignment of a poor clerk’s benefice in the gift of Barlinch Priory.[9] The Priory of St. Nicholas at Barlinch was a small Augustinian house in the parish of Brompton Regis in Somerset.  Humphrey de Umbiri was prior in the 1340s (he resigned in 1347).[10] On his way back to England William Toli lost at sea the papal letters assigning him a benefice in the gift of Barlinch Priory.[11]

But was it Barlinch or the St. Osyth provision that he lost. The petition letter says it was the abbey of Orlyche which the editor of the Papal Registers thought was Barlinch priory but there seems to be doubt about this interpretation.[12] The issued papal letter of 1345 said it was the St. Osyth abbey provision that was annulled.[13] It seems therefore that William Toli received only one reward for hi services on crusade and that was the benefice in the gift of St. Osyth abbey with W.H. Bliss misreading Osyth as Orlyche.

Ancient Smyrna by Georges Jansoone

Return to England

After the battle of Smyrna in 1345 William Toli returned to England still suffering from his war wounds. Therefore sometime before 16 Kal January 1345 William Toli petitioned the Pope for a benefice in the Diocese of London. This was granted for the amount of 25 marks with cure of souls and 15 marks without.[14] In 16 Kal January 1345 William Toli got new papal letters giving him a reservation of a benefice in the gift of the Bishop of London to the value of 25 marks with cure of souls, or 15 marks without. To help William Toli get a benefice a concurrent mandate was issued to Francis Orsini, treasurer of York and papal notary, along with the abbot of Tiltey, and another named cleric.[15]

Getting a papal letter

The death of Patriarch Henry and the papal letters given to William Toli all seem to happen in mid-January 1345. Yet the process of getting a papal letter takes some time longer than a few days.

The first step in securing a papal letter for a benefice or other religious office was filing a petition to the Pope in Avignon (the Popes lived at Avignon in France from 1309 to 1376). This was done in person or by proxy. At Avignon the Referendary was the first to examine the petition and make sure it was written in the proper manner. Next the petition went to the Datary to receive a date stamp after which it went to the Registry of Supplications. Here the petitioner paid a fee to have the petition registered within three days.

Next the petitioner went to the Vice-Chancellor in the Chancery, where another fee was paid to have the letter of grace recorded in the books. An Abbreviator in the Chancery then wrote out the papal letter granting the petition in precise words agreed with the petitioner. If a reservation of a benefice was desired, as in the case of William Toli, then two letters were made; one for the petitioner and another for three nominated executors.

After the letter was noted in the Chancery records the petitioner went to the Rescribendarius and the Computista where another fee was charged to write up the papal letters proper and more money to the scriptor who did the actual writing. The Rescribendary dated the letters and applied any notarial marks and signed it. Yet this was not the end of the process. Now another Abbreviator was needed to recheck all the wording of the papal letter against the petition and the various records made during the process. The letter then went to the Bullator who affix the type of bulla needed on the letter in return for a fee. The letter then went to the office of the Lateran Registers where it was registered within three days on payment of another fee along with a tax set by the Rescribendary. After all this the petitioner finally got his papal letter.[16]   

The Pope's Palace at Avignon

William Toli’s papal letters before the event

William Toli would have gone through this process of the getting a papal letter of provision at least twice but it would have still taken a week or two at any time. Yet it appears that William Toli received his final papal letter on 16 Kal January 1345 before the battle of Smyrna and the death of Patriarch Henry occurred. This is because 16 Kal January 1345 is not actually in January 1345 but is the papal way of dating documents. In the normal calendar used the world over 16 Kal January 1345 is 17th December 1344, a full month before the death of Patriarch Henry. We also have the story in William’s petition to the Pope that he lost the assignment to St. Osyth abbey while at sea on his way back to England.

The battle of Smyrna happened on 14th or 17th January 1345 and possibly a few days afterwards in mopping up operations. The evacuated crusaders would first be taken by ship to Greece and later via the same ship or another be transported back to Italy or southern France from where the crusaders would make their own way home. If William Toli left Smyrna in January 1345 and got back to France he would then possibly have travelled to Avignon in southern France to meet the papal officials and get a new benefice provision to replace the lost on of St. Osyth. All of this would have taken time and it would be February or March 1345 before the business at Avignon would be completed. Why then was the papal letter of provision back dated to the 17th December 1344, a month before everything happened?

Maybe W.H. Bliss made another misreading of the faded fourteenth century handwriting and took 16 Kal January 1346 to be 16 Kal January 1345 as 5 and 6 are not too dissimilar from each other. Many of the other letters surrounding the William Toli letter in the Papal Registers are dated sometime in 1346.[17] If so then the papal letter of provision of a benefice in the diocese of London was issued on 17th December 1345 which would give William Toli enough time to get back to Europe and recover from his wounds such that he was able to get the money together to petition for the new provision to replace the lost one of St. Osyth. Otherwise William Toli was an exceptional person who could see the future and so got a papal letter a month before he needed it. Maybe some other documents will surface in the future to work out better the story of William Toli in 1345 and his relationship with Patriarch Henry and the Papal Court but for the moment we will leave it there.

Bibliography

Bliss, W.H. (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope (London, 1896), Vol. 1, A.D. 1342-1419
Bliss, W.H. & Johnson, C. (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1897), Vol. 3, 1342-1362
Guard, T., Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2013)
Haren, M.J. (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XV, Innocent VIII: Lateran Registers 1484-1492 (Dublin, 1978)
Weaver, Rev. F.W., ‘Barlinch Priory’, in the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society: Proceedings, 1908, Vol. 54, pp. 79-106

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[1] Bliss, W.H. (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope (London, 1896), Vol. 1, A.D. 1342-1419, p. 90
[2] Guard, T., Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the Fourteenth Century (Woodbridge, 2013), p. 119
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_of_Asti accessed on 26th August 2017; Tresor de Chronologie, p. 2199 says that Patriarch Henry was killed on 14th January 1345
[5] Bliss, W.H. & Johnson, C. (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1897), Vol. 3, 1342-1362, p. 186
[6] Guard, Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the Fourteenth Century, p. 36
[7] Guard, Chivalry, Kingship and Crusade: The English Experience in the Fourteenth Century, p. 119
[8] Bliss & Johnson (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 3, 1342-1419, p. 186
[9] Bliss (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope, Vol. 1, A.D. 1342-1419, p. 90
[11] Bliss & Johnson (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 3, 1342-1419, p. 186
[12] Weaver, Rev. F.W., ‘Barlinch Priory’, in the Somersetshire Archaeological and Natural History Society: Proceedings, 1908, Vol. 54, pp. 79-106, at p. 84
[13] Bliss & Johnson (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 3, 1342-1419, p. 186
[14] Bliss (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope, Vol. 1, A.D. 1342-1419, p. 90
[15] Bliss & Johnson (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 3, 1342-1362, p. 186
[16] Haren, M.J. (ed.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. XV, Innocent VIII: Lateran Registers 1484-1492 (Dublin, 1978), pp. xv, xvi, xvii, xviii
[17] Bliss & Johnson (eds.), Calendar of entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. 3, 1342-1419, p. 186

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