A history of the venerable English college, Rome : an account of its origins and work from the earliest times to the present day

Front matter

Stljata. SJem ^atk

BOUGHT WfTH THE INCOME OF THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

Preface

This volume must not be taken as furnishing a full and complete history of the Venerable English College in Rome. The material which exists is so abundant and the names of those who, in one way or another, have been connected with the Establishment from the earliest period of the old EngUsh Hospice are so numerous and distinguished — ^many of them, indeed, illustrious — that to do adequate justice to the story a work of much greater length would be required. I have, however, tried to set down what I conceive to be the main features of the history, as I could gather them from a rapid survey of the material existing in the Archives of the Venerabile and elsewhere. My immediate purpose was to prepare a record for the celebration of the centenary of the re-opening of the College in 1818. Circumstances arising out of the Great " World- War " made the celebration impossible at the time, and these pages are now published in the hope that, until something better is given to the public by one who can devote more time to the work than I have been able to do, they may serve to awaken or keep alive the memory of the history of what I believe to be one of the most interesting — ^if, indeed, not the most interesting — of the English Institutions on the continent of Europe.

Fortunately, when the College was seized and pillaged by the French at the close of the eighteenth century, when the Republican troops took possession of Rome, a faithful friend was able to carry away and hide the archives. On the restoration of the College in 1818 these valuable papers were all returned to the authorities. Among the documents thus happily preserved are several hundred original Papal Bulls and parchment deeds, which go back to the very beginning of the EngHsh Pilgrims' Hostel in the fourteenth

vii viii PREFACE

century. During the period between the establishment of the present College, on the site of the old Hospice, by Pope Gregory XIII and the close of the eighteenth century, these muniments were well cared for; and at one time, about the close of the eighteenth century, a carefully planned and well written Index of the entire contents of the College Archivium was made in six large volumes, which still exist.

The early account books of the old Pilgrim Hospice of St. Thomas and those of the sister Establishment of St. Edmund, King and Martyr, in the Trastevere, subsequently merged into that of St. Thomas, are naturally fuU of archaeological interest. A complete set of books, covering the whole period of the existence of the college from its foundation to its destruction by the French, are still preserved on the shelves in the Archives room, where also may be found a long series of registers in which are recorded various business transactions in regard to the administration of the College property. All these would furnish many items of considerable interest and would repay careful examination.

Besides these, more or less official volumes, there exists a large collection of original letters dating from the middle of the sixteenth century, and a number of important MS. books and tracts, some of them connected with the College or written by authors who were members of the Establishment at the time. For example, what would appear to be the original copy of Harpsfield's Hisioria Anglicana Ecclesiastica is amongst the treasures in this collection, and two other volumes are of special interest and importance; namely, the College Diary and the Pilgrim Book. The former records the names and gives details of the students of the CoUege, many of whom gave their lives for the Faith during the years when the Catholic reUgion was proscribed in England. This has been printed and edited, although not very carefully, by Brother Foley in his volume of Records of the English Province S.J., which deals with the English College at Rome. I have not hesitated to make use of his labours, and hereby acknowledge my great indebtedness to him for all that concerns the students. Also this diligent labourer has edited in the same volume the second book to which I refer — the Pilgrim Book. In this are registered

PREFACE ix

the names of the Enghsh Visitors, who came to Rome and naturally to the English College during the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

Besides, once for all acknowledging my indebtedness to the late Brother Foley, S.J., I desire to express my thanks for the help given me by Mgr. Mann, the Rector of the Bede College in Rome, who not only read through the MS. and suggested corrections and additions, but also has furnished me with the story of the Schola Anglorum in Rome, which forms the first chapter of this volume. Mr. Short of the English College has helped me very much in the illustrations of this volume, and I desire to express to him my thanks, as well as to Dr. Ashby and Mrs. Strong of the British School in Rome, from whom I had received much help and encouragement. Lastly, I am greatly indebted to the Lord Bishop of Clifton, who has read the proof sheets and suggested several additions and corrections.

A. Card. Gasquet

Rome, Palazzo di S. Calisio in Trastevere.

June 1 91 9.

Contents

PREFACE

I. THE SCHOLA ANGLORUM

II. THE ENGLISH HOSPICE ....

Conclusion

OF ITS

PAGE

vii

I

79 107 118 147

XI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FRONT OF THE COLLEGE ,

THE FIRE IN THE BORGO, IN WHICH THE SCHOLA ANGLORUM WAS DESTROYED From a Photograph by Anderson.

MONUMENT TO ARCHBISHOP BAINBRIDGE

THE MONUMENT TO BP. JOHN CLERK

CARDINAL POLE ....

CARDINAL POLE'S BOOK OF ACCOUNTS

THE OLD ENGLISH HOSPICE .

CARDINAL ALLEN .

ARISTOTLE ....

From Bronze Plaque.

MONTE PORZIO

THE UPPER GALLERY

BISHOP R. GRADWELL, D.D. .

From a Painting at the English College, Rome.

THE COLLEGE STAIRCASE

DR. WISEMAN

From a Painting by Ftirse at the English College, Rome

THE COLLEGE LIBRARY .

CHURCH OF THE ENGLISH COLLEGE

To face page Frontispiece

49 51 54 57 61

91 93

116 117 207

213 223

244 264

Chapter I

When an Englishman, especially if he be a student of the Venerable College of the English in Rome, who has the least interest in the fortunes of his fellow-countrymen in the Eternal City, has learnt that the scholastic home of many of them is the heir of a mediaeval hospice, he must naturally wish to know something of the institution from which this College has sprung. ^ A httle investigation will reveal to him that the said hospice was founded in the fourteenth century in order to minister to the wants of English visitors and pilgrims to the religious centre of the world. Should he push his enquiries a little further, he will find that this hospice of St. Thomas had itself been instituted to replace a former one which had been erected some six centuries before to serve the same purpose. Filled then perchance with laudable pride that an existing English institution in Rome should be so closely connected with so large a portion of the religious history of his race, he may wish to learn if an5^hing is known of this earlier hospice, the foundation of which would thus seem to date from the first days of the conversion of his countrymen. It is to satisfy such an enquirer that this chapter has been written.

It was, as is well known, at the very close of the sixth century that Pope Gregory the Great sent from the monastery of St. Andrew, which he had founded on the Coelian hill, the Benedictine abbot St. Augustine with a number of monks to convert the Angles and Saxons of England.

1 A large portion of this chapter appeared in the Tablet of Oct. 1913, and is used here with its kind permission. B

The labours of these apostles, helped in turn by other missionaries from Rome, from Gaul, and from the little isle of lona, were most successful. Before the lapse of a century the fierce Anglo-Saxons who had exterminated the faith of Christ in Roman Britain had themselves accepted it. Like the Franks, they bowed before what they had previously burnt. But long before the conversion of the whole of England, the stream of pilgrims and visitors from it to Rome had begun to flow.

There was one city in the world at least that was known by every barbarian in Europe. The might of Rome had impressed itself indelibly upon them. But its name for many ages inspired them for the most part with only a feeling of hatred for its oppressions. They longed to destroy it, and they succeeded but too well in wrecking its material power. Gradually, however, they found that the City whose marvellous might they had brought to naught, was putting forth a spiritual power which they could not fesist. Again, then, the wish came upon them to make Rome their goal. But now it was the wish of their hearts to pray where they had scoffed, to bring back their gold, frankincense and myrrh to the City from which they had plundered so much.

It is impossible to say who were the first of our Christian countrymen who first made their way to Rome to pray at the shrines of the Apostles, to do homage to the successor of the great Pontiff who had sent apostles to convert them, and, no doubt, to look upon the famous City which they had been taught first to hate and afterwards to love. If, however, we are prepared to accept the words of Eddi, the enthusiastic biographer of St. Wilfrid of Hexham, it was that ardent soul who was the first Christian Enghshman to make the " Rome journey." Possibly he was the first distinguished Englishman who went to Rome. His first visit was as early as the middle of the seventh century (c. 654). Although later on he betook himself to the Eternal City to obtain from the Pope that ecclesiastical justice which he could not secure in his own land, we may be sure that in his first visit to Rome, he was influenced by other motives than the search after justice. He may then be usefully thought of as the first Enghsh pilgrim to Rome.

At any rate, we know that the example set by him of visiting Rome was certainly followed ; and, long before even the seventh century had run its course, every class of English society sent many of its members to Rome. Thither went on pilgrimage, says Venerable Bede, " noble and simple, men and women, soldiers and private persons, moved by the instinct of divine love " ; ^ or, as St. Boniface, the Apostle of Germany, expresses it, English people " left their country's shores, and trusted themselves to the ways of the sea, and sought the shrines of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul." ^

Many, however, went to Rome not merely as pilgrims. Some, as for instance St. Wilfrid himself, went to the Eternal City to carry canonical appeals to the Pope or to learn the ecclesiastical discipline of Rome. Many, too, went for purposes of study,^ to learn music, or to gain an insight into other branches of art. For we must never lose sight of the fact that the arts were cultivated at Rome throughout the whole of the Middle Ages, and that, too, even during its darkest days in the tenth century. Even the art of painting did not, as is still beheved by some, owe its glorious renaissance in the fourteenth century to Florence. That fortunate city received its artistic inspiration from Rome, from Pietro Cavallini.* Our countrymen, then, often went to Rome in the Middle Ages to study art ; they went there also to buy books,^ to purchase articles of virtu,^ and to procure workers in wood, stone and glass.' They went there, in short, for humanitas in the fullest sense of that comprehensive word. Of the humanitas which men found in Rome we have some striking examples. In the days of Pope Leo IX there went to Rome Thorfinn, Earl of the

^ De sex estat., 720; Hist. Eccles., v. 7.

" Ep. 14 of St. Boniface ap. Men. Germ., Epp. III.

' Bede, v. 19; Vitcs Abhat., nn. 2, 18.

' See Crowe and Cavalcaselle, Hist. 0} Paintings, i. p. 53 n.

^ Bede, VitcB, nn. 4, 11.

^ The famous Henry, Bp. of Wiucliester, brother of King Stephen " veteres statuas emit Rome." John of Salisbury, Hist. Pontif., 39 ap. M., S.SS., XX. Cf. vit. S. Abbo., c. 11, ap. P.L., t. 139.

' Vitcs, nn. 6, 9. Our Henry III brought artists of " Cosimati " work to decorate Westminster Abbey. The cornice of the Confessor's tomb displays (1279) : " Petrus, Civis Romanus " and its basement " Odericus Romanus." Lethaby, Medieval Art, pp. 259, 282 f.

Orkneys, who did not get his title of the " raven-feeder " without terrible cause. After his visit to Rome and his interview with the Pope, this ferocious sea-king on his return home " sat down quietly, and kept peace over all his realm. Then he left off warfare, and turned his mind to ruUng the people and the land, and to law-giving." Our great King Canute himself put on record in his famous letter to the Enghsh people what a civiHsing effect the " humanity " of Rome had had upon him. The still greater Charlemagne effected his gigantic work for the uphfting of his enormous empire through his contact with Rome.

For this humanitas our countrymen sought Rome, in spite of the serious dangers and difficulties that nearly always beset the journey thither. At one time it was the Langobardorum immanitas that had to be feared. Later on in the tenth century it was the savage Saracen. More than once wiU be found in the Chronicler Frodoard entries Uke the following : In the year 923 " a great number of English, on their way to the threshold of the Apostles for the sake of prayer, were slain by the Saracens in the Alps." Still later, especially after the reforms inaugurated by Hildebrand (Gregory VII) in the eleventh century, the dissensions between the Papacy and the Empire brought great dangers to the pilgrim. The Emperors set up antipopes, and their followers showed little mercy to the unhappy traveller whom they caught making his way to Rome or to the true Pope. One of our old chroniclers ^ has left us an amusing account of a journey ^ to Italy of the monk Sampson of Bury St. Edmunds during the time of the antipopes set up by the Emperor Frederic I, Barbarossa, against Alexander III (c. 1 160).

Owing to the perpetual strife throughout the Middle Ages between ourselves and our neighbours, the Scots, it was the rule that, if there was any schism in the Church, and the English acknowledged one Pope, the Scotch acknowledged his rival. At the time of which we are treating, the Enghsh acknowledged Alexander III. Accordingly, Sampson, who had to pass through parts of Italy in the hands of the antipope in order to reach Alexander, feigned to be a

' Jocelin of Brakelond. Cf. p. 14. ' a.d. 1159-1162.

Scotchman, for he was in danger, says the chronicler, " of being hanged or incarcerated, or of having his nose and Ups cut off, and of being in that condition sent to Pope Alexander for his shame and confusion." When questioned, he talked gibberish in a kind of English, brandished his staff as the Scotch did their gavelocs or pikes, and also, after their manner, so we are told, used threatening language. By these devices he reached Rome, and procured from Alexander the written privileges of which he was in quest. With these he set out on his return journey rejoicing. But, so he told the story himself, he was seized by the officers of a certain castle, who declared that he was either a spy or was bearing letters from the false Pope Alexander. "But," continues Sampson, "whilst they were searching my ragged clothes, my leggings and breeches, and even the old shoes which I carried over my shoulders after the manner of the Scotch, I thrust my hand into the little wallet which I carried, wherein was contained the writing of our Lord the Pope, which was close by a little jug which I used for drinking purposes. Then, the Lord God and St. Edmund so permitting, I drew out the writing, together with the jug, and, extending my arm aloft, I held the writ underneath the jug. They could see the jug plain enough, but they did not notice the writ. But whatever money I had about me they took away, and so I had to beg from door to door till I arrived in England."

Almost as fatal to the pilgrim to Rome were the elements. Ice and snow waylaid the travellers over the Mons Jovis — the great pass of St. Bernard. A monk of Canterbury ^ has left us a vivid picture of the awe with which the peaks and precipices of the Alps inspired him, and he writes to tell his brethren in England how his ink which he carried in a Uttle bottle at his girdle all froze solid, and how his very breath froze on his beard. Hence it is not surprising to read of one of our Archbishops of Canterbury, Elfsy, being

1 Giraldus Cambrensis, too, speaks feelingly of the precipices, snows and robbers of the Alps, and tells us that the people in the vale of Spoleto were astonished at his safe crossing of them. " Qui Alpes illas prsedonibus et periculis plenas sic indemnis pertransivit." Op. vol. iii. p. 241, Rolls Series.

frozen to death in the Alps (c. 958) when on his way for his pallium.

The sea, too, when it did not drown the unfortunate traveller made him often dreadfully miserable. An English poem of the fifteenth century, published by the Early English Text ^ Society, gives a most graphic and humorous description of the horrors of a long sea voyage. For, as we shall again have occasion to note, many of our countrymen went the whole way to Rome by water. The poem teUs how unfortunate pilgrims were pushed about by the sailors, who found, or pretended to find them in the way when they were working the ship, and who, with their usual contempt for land lubbers, took pleasure in bantering them when they were in the agonies of sea-sickness. The Captain cries : —

Our pylgryms have no lust to ete.

I pray God give them rest.

The sailors, too, make them more miserable by suggesting an approaching storm : —

Then cometh cone and seyth : Be mery Ye shall have a storm or a pery (squall) .

Nevertheless, despite these and many other difficulties and dangers,^ our countrymen not only went to Rome in large numbers during the Middle Ages, but went there over and over again. Benedict Biscop, the energetic abbot of St. Peter's at Monkwearmouth, who did so much to illumine our north country, went to Rome no less than five times. In a word, so regular was the intercourse of our mediaeval countr5anen with Rome that our earliest national chronicler, in connection with the year 889, thought it worth recording that " there was no journey to Rome, except that King

THE SCHOLA ANGLORVM 7

Alfred seiit two couriers with letters." ^ Unfortunately, however, even though, as Bede says, it was thought " a thing of great virtue to go to Rome," ^ not all who left England for Rome got virtue of any kind from the journey. Sometimes the pilgrims were only dishonest traders who assumed the dress of the palmer, in order to escape paying the tolls which were gradually relaxed in favour of the bona fide pilgrim.^ A much worse evil was the number of women, both nuns and others, who got themselves into disgrace when abroad through want of money or proper protection, not to say through any evil inchnations of their own. So serious was this evil that our countryman, St. Boniface, the famous apostle of Germany, when writing to the authorities at home, stated that there was scarcely a city in Lombardy, Frankland (Francia) or Gaul in which there was not an Enghshwoman leading a notoriously bad Ufe ! *

Fortunately, from the very earUest times, among those who took a keen interest in the " Rome journey " were the Anglo-Saxon rulers themselves, and they proved both able and willing to supply some remedy for these evils. The first of our Kings who made up his mind to go to Rome was Oswin, our great Northumbrian sovereign.^ Death, however (670), prevented him from carr5dng out his intention.® But the first English King actually to go to Rome was CaedwaUa, King of the West Saxons, who died there, as he had wished, immediately after his baptism (689). His epitaph, now lost, was to be seen for many centuries in the portico of old St. Peter's and was not unfrequently copied by the more curious pilgrims. It was composed by Benedict, the contemporary Archbishop of Milan. Buried in some way along with the tomb {area) on which it was cut, it was recently, says John de Deis, dug up by those who were building the present St. Peter's.' Coinred, King of the Mercians, and Offa, the heir to the throne of the East Saxons, went

1 Ang.-Sax. Chron., 889. ' Hist. Eccles., iv. 14.

^ Ep. Charlemagne, 11, ap. JafEc, Mon. Carol., p. 357. • Ep., ap. M., G. Epp., iii. 78 (middle of eighth century). 5 Bede, iv. 5. " lb. v. 7.

' Successores S. BarnahcB Ap., f. 23, Rome, 1589, ap. De Rossi, Inscripi. Christianes, II. pt. i. p. 70, n. 40.

together, not many years after; and both, according to the phrase of Bede,i "became monks at the shrine of the apostles " (709), and both died in Rome. Others of our Princes followed their example.

Among these others was Ina, the successor of Caedwalla. When he had reigned over the West Saxons for thirty-seven years (688-725) he also resigned his kingdom, and to use the words of Bede, " went to Rome to visit the shrines of the blessed Apostles . . . being desirous to spend some time of his pilgrimage upon earth in the neighbourhood of holy places, that he might be more easily received by the saints into heaven."

This visit of Ina proved of lasting importance, for he founded the Schola Anglorum. At least, such is the assertion of Matthew Paris. It is true he is only a late authority, but nothing can be urged against the substantial accuracy of his statements, and as will be apparent later on, the author on whom Paris is here resting, was alive at a time when special attention had been called in England to the Schola by vain appeals made to it to save their national centre in Rome from ruin. Moreover, contemporary evidence of the early ninth century proves that the Schola Anglorum was certainly in existence in the eighth century. What then is the precise testimony of Matthew Paris? These are his words : " When Ina arrived in Rome he built a house, with the approval of Pope Gregory (II), which he called the School of the Enghsh (Scholam Anglorum). This he did in order that the kings of England and the Royal family with the bishops and priests and clergy might come to it to be instructed in learning and in the Catholic faith, lest anything might be taught in the Enghsh Church which was heterodox [sinistrum) or opposed to Catholic unity. Thus they would return home thoroughly strengthened in the faith." " Moreover," continues the Monk of St. Albans, " Ina built near the aforesaid house a church in honour of the Blessed Virgin Mary in which the divine mysteries

' V. 7. Cf. William of Malmesbury, De Gest. reg., ii. c. 2, for Ina's sojourn in Rome, and the device by which his queen Ethelburga induced him to give up the luxuries of a throne. He, ib., attributes the foundation of the Schola Anglorum to Ofifa. King of the Mercians.

might be celebrated for the English who came to Rome, and in which such of them as might die in Rome might be buried. Finally, in order that his work might be lasting, it was ordained by a decree of the Witan {generali decreto) that, throughout the whole kingdom of the West Saxons, every family should every year send to Blessed Peter and the Roman Church one denarius (or silver penny) (which is known in Enghsh as Romescot), in order that the English who resided there might have a means of support." ^ According, therefore, to Matthew Paris, or really according to John of the Cell (d. 1214) whom he is quoting, Ina founded in Rome a theological school in the modern sense of a school, a hospice and a church, and instituted Peter's Pence.

Now it is no doubt probable that there may be some exaggeration in these statements, and that Paris or John of the Cell may have attributed to Ina all the developments of the School which were in existence just before his own time, and which were reaUy the work of several successive English rulers.^ But there is no reasonable room for doubt that a substantial beginning of the Anglo-Saxon quarter in Rome was made by Ina himself.

Moreover, the story of Ina's connection with the English School receives some confirmation from Roman tradition. For to this day you wiU find in the Church of San Spirito in Sassia, which occupies the site of the Church of Our Lady in Sassia (S. Maria in Sassia, or Schola Anglorum), an ancient picture of our Lady which, according to Roman tradition, was given to the church by King Ina. The picture is, at any rate, declared to be of the seventh or eighth century, and a seventeenth century inscription on the wall of the church not far from the picture sets forth that the Canons of St. Peter dedicated a golden crown to it, as it had been preserved from the fires in the days of Pope Paschal I and of Pope Leo IV, and as it was famous by reason both of its

1 " Vitale subsidium." Matthew Paris, Chron. Maj., an. 727, i. 330 f. Rolls Series. On Ina's connection with Peter's Pence, see also the document " De Saxonum Adventu " inserted in Simeon of Durham, ii. 371, Rolls Series.

' 738, Queen Frithogith of the West Saxons retires to Rome. Henry of Huntingdon, I. iv. sub. an. 736, and Florence of Worcester, an. 737'

lo THE ENGLISH COLLEGE IN ROME

age and of the miracles worked in connection with it.^ In the sacristy of this same church ^ there are a number of frescoes which show what was the tradition on the spot regarding the origin of the Schola Anglorum. One of these frescoes depicts the founding of the Schola by Gregory II and Ina in the year 725, and another shows Charlemagne and King Offa adding to it in 794. Whenever and by whomsoever the School of the Enghsh was founded, it was no doubt to some extent modelled on the older non-Germanic schola of the Greeks which was situated in the neighbourhood of S. Maria in Cosmedin, and its buildings were certainly erected in the classical Horti Agrippinse which were situated to the south-east of the Circus of Nero below the Vatican Hill. The whole quarter, once familiar as the falatium of Nero, henceforth became the " Vicus Saxomrai."

The next of our Kings whose name is connected by our historians with the Schola Anglorum is, as we have just seen, Offa II, King of Mercia, whom the same Matthew Paris calls the " great King who ruled over twenty-three provinces which the EngUsh call shires." * He was the founder of the famous monastery of St. Alban's, and went to Rome (793), as we learn again from Matthew Paris,* to get papal privileges for his new estabUshment. Wlien he reached his destination he at once visited {content) the longed-for threshold of the Apostles, and with pious devotion hurried {percurrit) to the different shrines of the Saints. Then in gratitude for obtaining from the Pope all that he required, he gave the " Schola Anglorum which then flourished in Rome " a denarius (silver penny) from every family whose arable land (pasena) was worth over thirty denarii. " This he gave for the support of those of his kingdom who went to Rome." So much, indeed, was done by King Offa for the " English School " that by some of our historians who lived before Matthew Paris he is thought to have been the founder of

^ Galletti, InscHptiones Romans, p. xxi., n. 30; Rome, 1760.

' Cf. infra for fuller details about this interesting sacristy.

* Or whoever was the author of the earlier portion of the Chron. Maj., quoting from the Life of Offa II, written probably by the author of that earlier portion, ap. ib,, p. 358^fE.

THE SCHOLA ANGLORUM ii

it.'- We may here add that deposits of Anglo-Saxon coins which have been found in Rome from time to time prove that money was regularly sent out from England. According to Professor Lanciani three such deposits have been found in the City.^ The first was discovered in 1843 walled up in the old belfry of St. Paul's-outside-the-Walls, the second at Tre Fontane in 1871, and the third on November 8, 1882, in the House of the Vestals in the Forum.*