DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.6886#0159
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 127
between the Bishops of London and this monastery, but the matter was now
fully and finally adjusted, and the exemption of the latter from any claims of
that nature completely established.
In the time of this abbot a confederation took place between the monasteries
of Westminster and St. Edmonsbury, which gave a mutual claim to civil
reception and hospitable entertainment, when business led the members of their
respective houses to the vicinity of each other. These accommodating agreements
were not unusual between the monastic institutions*. Indeed, many of them
were obliged, by the law of their institution, to give a special reception to
travellers: an essential convenience at a time when inns, or places of public
entertainment, were no where to be found but in the cities and principal towns. •
No other circumstance is recorded of this abbot, than that he accompanied
William de Trumpington, Abbot of St. Alban's, to the fourth Lateran council,
held by Innocent III. in the year 1215; and that he, with the Bishop of
Salisbury, the Abbot of Waltham, and the Prior of Trinity, London, were
appointed arbitrators to determine some disputes between Hugh de Wells, Bishop
of London, and the Abbot of St. Alban's, in the year 1219f.
Having presided in the monastery eight years, Humez departed this life on
the 20th day of April, 1222, in the sixth year of the reign of Henry III. He
was buried in the south walk of the cloisters. A mitred effigy decorated his
gravestone, which is said to have been placed at the head of Abbot Gervase;
and if so, the stone now marked for Vitalis must belong to him:}:. This inscrip-
tion was engraved around it, in Saxon characters:
Ortus ab Humeto Willelmus, huic venerando
Praefuit isle loco, nunc tumulatus humo.
* Archives of the Church.
+ Matt. Paris, Vitas Abbatum S. Albani, p. 116, ISO.
i Flete.
between the Bishops of London and this monastery, but the matter was now
fully and finally adjusted, and the exemption of the latter from any claims of
that nature completely established.
In the time of this abbot a confederation took place between the monasteries
of Westminster and St. Edmonsbury, which gave a mutual claim to civil
reception and hospitable entertainment, when business led the members of their
respective houses to the vicinity of each other. These accommodating agreements
were not unusual between the monastic institutions*. Indeed, many of them
were obliged, by the law of their institution, to give a special reception to
travellers: an essential convenience at a time when inns, or places of public
entertainment, were no where to be found but in the cities and principal towns. •
No other circumstance is recorded of this abbot, than that he accompanied
William de Trumpington, Abbot of St. Alban's, to the fourth Lateran council,
held by Innocent III. in the year 1215; and that he, with the Bishop of
Salisbury, the Abbot of Waltham, and the Prior of Trinity, London, were
appointed arbitrators to determine some disputes between Hugh de Wells, Bishop
of London, and the Abbot of St. Alban's, in the year 1219f.
Having presided in the monastery eight years, Humez departed this life on
the 20th day of April, 1222, in the sixth year of the reign of Henry III. He
was buried in the south walk of the cloisters. A mitred effigy decorated his
gravestone, which is said to have been placed at the head of Abbot Gervase;
and if so, the stone now marked for Vitalis must belong to him:}:. This inscrip-
tion was engraved around it, in Saxon characters:
Ortus ab Humeto Willelmus, huic venerando
Praefuit isle loco, nunc tumulatus humo.
* Archives of the Church.
+ Matt. Paris, Vitas Abbatum S. Albani, p. 116, ISO.
i Flete.