DISCUSSION

In 1264 Urban IV ordered that Corpus Christi be celebrated as a religious festival each year on the Thursday following Trinity Sunday, although his death that same year prevented this from having much effect. It was not until early in the next century that Clement V followed up and observance of Corpus Christi, as one most important Catholic festivals; its observance spread quickly across England in the 1320s. The festival was marked by a solemn procession whose purpose was to display the Holy Sacrament (or rather, the shrine that contained the Host) on its travels from one church to another, but also gave the Church the opportunity to show off its pomp and circumstance, since it was the local clergy who accompanied the Host on the march. With observance and organization being left by the Church up to its local representatives and to local authorities, we find the procession becoming a major civic event by the mid-fourteenth century. The timing of Corpus Christi, a moveable festival occurring between late May and late June, placed it very close to midsummer, providing for long hours of daylight and one of the best chances for clement weather.

The Corpus Christi procession provided an opportunity for communal display generally. Particularly the display of communal harmony, in which all interests – as represented by the various trades and the socio-religious fraternities – worked together. The lower strata of urban society are not very conspicuous in this ceremony, and this may reflect their general exclusion from the definition of commuity at this period in towns; on the other hand, the gilds simply provided a convenient mechanism for ordering the procession, while at the same time reflecting how urban society was coming to be perceived as divided into these interest groups. Borough authorities often took advantage of the event to reinforce their authority by giving themselves a conspicuous role in the procession. The trend towards ever more elaborate display, fostered in part by competitiveness between the gilds, led to the introduction of religious iconography and in some English towns to the Corpus Christi pageants, which may initially have been still-life scenes but later developed into playlets. It is not clear whether these could have been integrated into the procession itself, but possibly they were presented on a second circuit, after the procession proper – which began very early in the morning – was completed.

The procession thus combined expression of religious piety, civic pride, and gild rivalry. Ironically, because of the social statement being made by the procession and the competition between the participating groups to see which could outshine the other, matters such as the order in which participants appeared, or the costs of participation, or behaviour prompted by jealousy, could become the cause of squabbling, disharmony, and even bloodshed. An example of this is at York, where it appears that the torches for the procession were custom-made to beautify them as much as possible. In 1419 on the day after Corpus Christi the skinners complained to the mayor and city council that their torches had been smashed by certain carpenters and tawyers, using cudgels and Carlisle axes, and other unspecified enormities had been done to them, disturbing the ceremonies. Early in the reign of Henry VI the York cordwainers were complaining about the high cost of custom-made torches for the procession as well as the cost of the Corpus Christi plays (which was a frequent bone of contention for the craft gilds). In 1426, a week after Corpus Christi, we have the concern expressed in the document above, that the party atmosphere at the time of Corpus Christi plays was interfering with the solemnity associated with the procession; the arrangement for separating the two was later altered so that the play would be the main feature on Corpus Christi day, and the procession was relegated to the day after.

The persuasive argument in leading the city authorities to this decision was the question of indulgences. The concept of Purgatory had become, for the lay population, a key feature of Catholic theology in the Late Middle Ages, painting the picture of an extended period the soul must spend prior to the Last Judgement in a place of punishment and torment – at least, so it was perceived in England. Indulgences provided a partial remission of their punishments, for sins that had already been confessed and contrition shown, so that the recipient was in a state of grace. Normally, the adverse effect of sins on the well-being of the soul had to be erased not merely by absolution from guilt but also by undertaking the reparations assigned by the pardoning agent; in order to remove the burden from the soul before Judgement, these reparations might be undertaken during life (e.g. through penance) or for a certain period in Purgatory. An indulgence removed or reduced the obligation for reparations (or, more strictly, assumed that the sinner's debt to the Church had been paid in full or in part). The value of such remissions to medieval people, in reducing the length of the dreaded stay in Purgatory, was influential, as evidenced in the widespread medieval traffic in indulgences, reflected in Chaucer's Pardoner. The normal length of time specified on an indulgence was 40 days, but longer periods could be given – in the case of the Corpus Christi indulgences above, 100 days for attending the principal Mass of the day. The various services gave structure to a day for the clergy and especially monks, but Mass lay at the core of religious participation for lay people.

Friar William did not stop with his proposal about Corpus Christi. He was on a reforming kick for, as we see above, his proposals to the authorities went beyond Corpus Christi to lack of church attendance on Sundays generally. At the same time he also had roused the populace, and was urging the authorities, against prostitutes, seeking their expulsion from the city; the authorities revived an existing ordinance prohibiting them from living in the city and ordering all to leave within eight days or foreswear their occupation.

A gild dedicated to Corpus Christi had been founded at York in 1408, though it is difficult to say whether this had anything to do with a perception among the clergy that the spirit of Corpus Christi observances had been corrupted among the citizenry. It took some years for the gild to establish its authority in regard to the procession. At some point apparently after the date of the document above, which makes no reference to the gild's role, it was the master and keepers of the gild – all chosen from local clergy – who took the lead in the procession, ensured the procession remained orderly, and accompanied the bejewelled gilded container of the blessed sacrament in the procession. Other local clergy sang, if capable, during the procession, and carried crosses, banners, and lights (torches and tapers). The city officers, dressed in their ceremonial robes, followed after the clergy, and were in turn followed by the the gilds, each in a prescribed order, carrying more banners (symbolizing their crafts) and torches. The streets down which the procession passed were decorated by the citizens. Most members of the Corpus Christi gild were clergymen. Lay persons of good reputation could also become gild members, but not participate in governing the gild; mayor Peter Bukcy had been a member since 1414, and Richard Russell (a former mayor) joined in 1426 – probably close to the events in June – while Thomas Gare had been one of the founding members. Melton was not a member; he would have lacked the means to join.

As the Winchester ordinance was made immediately following the day of the procession, we may suspect some local commotion there concerning the ordering of the procession, necessitating intervention from the borough authorities. As in other towns, each group participating in the procession would carry a large light, which went in pairs; they would probably end up as an offering. The largest crafts monopolised a section of the parade and thereby had to provide two lights; we can clearly see here the importance of the cloth industry in the town. These provisions remained in effect into the reign of Henry VIII, with minor additions of other crafts (the plumbers, silk-workers, chandlers, and brewers).

At about the same period we find other urban regulations governing the processions. At Beverley a Corpus Christi gild founded to support the procession, with priests its principal members, dates back to the 1330s. As the craft gilds became involved, there was a tendency towards disorderly behaviour. In 1430 the Beverley authorities restricted participation in the procession to the aldermen and stewards of the gilds, and arranged the order in which the gilds would appear in the procession. At Chester too we see, in the first reference made to a Corpus Christi procession (1399), an outbreak of violence between the weavers and fullers participating.

At Norwich we hear of the procession in the 1389 returns of two gilds associated with the Collegiate Church of St. Mary's, also known as the Chapel in the Fields; one of the gilds, its members clerics, was said to have been created in honour of Corpus Christi in 1278, which was when the chapel changed from a hospital to a college. It is therefore probably significant that a Norwich ordinance of ca.1449 reveals the Chapel in the Fields as the destination of the Corpus Christi procession; the fact that the same building was also used at times in the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries for large civic assemblies is of less certain significance. The same ordinance specified that the procession should begin with the Body of Christ surrounded by light-bearers, followed by specific gilds, the lesser in front and the greater (mercantile) to the rear, each bearing a banner, then followed by "the procession" possibly meaning a dozen pageants depicting scenes from Old and New Testaments, and ending up with the city officials: the sheriffs' assistants, the sheriffs themselves, the mayor's assistants, the mayor himself, and finally the aldermen each carrying bibles or rosaries.

Instructions issued at Coventry in 1445 for the order of the procession also seem to embody some rationale for positioning, placing victuallers first, artisans involved in the leather- and metal-working trades next, those involved in the cloth industry (more vital to the city's economy) thereafter, closing with the large-scale cloth-dealing trades of drapers and mercers. Charles Phythian-Adams has noted that this arrangement is the reverse order in which the crafts were likely to have access to high political office in Coventry ["Ceremony and the citizen: The communal year at Coventry, 1450-1550", in Crisis and Order in English Towns 1500-1700, ed. P. Clark and P. Slack, London, 1972, 63]

London, as so often, is an exception to the rule. It had no gild of Corpus Christi dedicated to organizing a city-wide procession, and the feast of Corpus Christi was not treated as a civic ceremony, per se. However, the skinners gild, whose dedication was to Corpus Christi, was holding a procession by at least 1327; over time this grew to incorporate (according to Stow) over 100 decorated wax torches, more than 200 singing clergymen, followed by civic officials, and finally the members of the skinners gild. In some other London parishes, other individual gilds or fraternities organized lesser processions for their members.