A Tale of Two Monasteries: Westminster and Saint-Denis in the Thirteenth Century

A comparison of Westminster Abbey and the Abbey of St. Denis in the 13th century does offer, as William Chester Jordan summarizes in his Epilogue, a fascinating angle for understanding the relationships between England and France, the Church and the State, exempt monasteries and local hierarchies, and between the two Benedictine monasteries. Although he might presume some knowledge of the era in his readers, Jordan provides an excellent narrative of the major issues of the 13th century: the disputes between England and France, the Crusades, and the monastic movement. Westminster Abbey and the Abbey of St. Denis had a similar status in their countries. Both reported directly to the Pope, bypassing the authority of the local bishop and both had a special relationship to the throne. Westminster served as both the site of coronation and of burial of kings; while St. Denis contested with Reims for the honor of crowning the king. The abbots Jordan follows came to their rule the same year, 1258 and both fulfilled important roles for their king. Richard de Ware of Westminster travelled often on diplomatic missions for Henry III and Edward I, so much so that discipline the Rule of St. Benedict became lax and he had to respond strictly. Mathieu de Vendome of St. Denis assisted Louis IX when he went on Crusade and served as Treasurer for Louis IX's heir Philip III. The two older kings also had much in common: kingship, devout personal piety, vow to go on crusade (except that Henry III never did), and married to sisters--but they also were often officially at war. Both kings looked to these abbeys as important emblems of their personal piety and of national pride. Henry III particularly lavished gifts and benefits upon Westminster to build a proper shrine for Edward the Confessor. Louis IX may have been distracted by the building of Sainte Chapelle as a proper shrine for the Crown of Thorns, but his heir was certainly focused on making sure his saintly father's tomb in St. Denis was ready for pilgrims' intercessory prayers and to be the site of miracles in answer to those prayers. For a time Edward I had the same hopes for his father, but they faded at Westminster. The book describes the pecuniary and juridical concerns of both monasteries to maintain their authority, their possessions, and their income. Their direct, exempt ties to Rome created some tensions with the local ordinaries. Vendome slammed the doors of St. Denis in the bishop's face when he came dressed in vestments indicating rank over the abbot's, while de Ware fought the Franciscan Archbishop of Canterbury, John Pecham, over who could arrest and charge whom on a Westminster holding. Briefly at the end, Jordan compares the fates of Westminster and St. Denis in later days. French revolutionaries desecrated the graves of kings and queens at St. Denis, scattering bones later gathered in a mass grave. Westminster would survive the English Reformation and the Civil War relatively intact,