Commemorating the Crusading Past in Late Medieval England: The Worksop Priory Tabula

Abstract

Memory has featured prominently in recent scholarship on the crusades. In particular, the remembrance of crusaders by their descendants and associated ecclesiastical institutions in the high Middle Ages has attracted considerable attention; however, few studies have concentrated on the commemoration of crusaders in the later Middle Ages. This article examines a late fifteenth-century genealogical poem, which was produced for public display on a tablet at Worksop Priory (Nottinghamshire) and contains unique information about members of the Furnival family on the Barons’ Crusade (1239–41), in order to explore how and why medieval institutions preserved memories of crusaders into the late Middle Ages. It argues that, although inaccurate in its crusade narrative, the poem provides invaluable insights into the mechanisms of aristocratic family memory in medieval England; and it focuses on the important role of material prompts in the process of commemoration. Specifically, it suggests that an effigy of Sir Thomas de Furnival was erected at Worksop soon after his death away from home in 1241. In the absence of a written record, this cenotaph acted as a prompt to an oral narrative tradition which informed the Worksop poet when he came to compose his genealogical work. This study is, therefore, an analysis of crusade memory, but it is also an examination of the presentation of a crusade narrative to a public audience, an opportunity to unravel the confused history of three crusading brothers, and an attempt to understand the response of a medieval community that had suffered losses in overseas ventures.

The Crusading Furnivals: Family Tradition, Political Expediency and Social Pressure in Crusade Motivation

“…What little can be said about the experiences of the Furnivals on the Barons' Crusade has been dealt with elsewhere, but it is worth setting out two matters pertinent to the current investigation. 90 First, only William returned to England: both Gerard and Thomas died in the East. A fifteenthcentury rhyming history, which includes information about Furnival involvement in the campaign, has misled a number of historians into believing that Gerard survived, but thirteenth-century evidence makes clear that neither Gerard nor Thomas made it home alive.…”

“…He does not begin to appear in records produced in England with any regularity until the 1240s, and no evidence survives to tie him to the earl prior to his presence in Richard's crusading host. 100 Michael Lower has cautioned against interpreting Matthew Paris's description of Richard's contingent as his familia as indicative of a pre-existing household, and the absence of any link between William and Richard before 1240 supports Lower's claim that Matthew Paris was referring only to Richard's crusade force. 101 Factors other than obligation must, therefore, have been at work.…”