historical research volume 74 issue 183 2001 [doi 10.1111%2f1468-2281.00119] michael burger -- the...

d:/1hisres/74-1/burger.3d 5/1/1 11:26 sh

# Institute of Historical Research 2001. Historical Research, vol. 74, no. 183 (February 2001)Published by Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden MA 02148, USA.

Notes and Documents

The date and authorship of RobertGrossetestes Rules for Household andEstate Management*

Michael BurgerMississippi University for Women

Abstract

Grossetestes Rules is canonically dated 12402 arguing thus: the countess of Lincoln,for whom the work was written, was a widow since only widows needed a manualconcerning matters not pertinent to married noble women. The one widowedcountess of Lincoln during Grossetestes episcopate (123553) was widowed in 1240and remarried in 1242. Given, however, the activities of married noblewomen, andthe appearance of other unmarried countesses of Lincoln during Grossetestespontificate, the treatise is datable only to 123553. Pace Dr. Dorothea Oschinsky,Grosseteste also had the capacity to write the Rules, and so presumably wrote it.

Robert Grossetestes Rules is one of several treatises on household and estatemanagement produced in England in the high middle ages. The Rules has,however, long had a double attraction. Not only does it illuminate its subjectmatter, but it was produced by one of the leading figures of the day. Thisdual status explains the continued interest in the work in the middle ages.The French original seems to have been especially attractive to later copyists,to judge from the ten surviving French manuscripts. From this original atleast one Latin translation was made, apparently for the use of the bishopsown household. Part of the work was also translated into English in thefifteenth century.1 This interest has continued among modern historians,making the work something of a minor classic.2

The Rules can be divided into two parts: rules for estate management andrules for managing a great household. This division was one clearly made inthe text itself. The rules are numbered, with rules 112 governing estates.

1 Walter of Henley and Other Treatises on Estate Management and Accounting, ed. D. Oschinsky(Oxford, 1971), pp. 1936, 199.

2 Hence Eileen Powers reference to the Rules . . . which are so often quoted (E. Power, MedievalWomen, ed. M. M. Postan (Cambridge, 1975), pp. 478).

* The author is grateful to Evelyn Mackie, Dr. Emily Zack Tabuteau, Dr. Bjorn Weiler, and thereader for Historical Research, who made suggestions or supplied information which improved thispiece. The author is, of course, solely responsible for any errors.


This first set is preceded by the information that He who will keep to therules will live well and comfortably o his demesne and keep himself and hispeople.3 Rules 1328, covering households, are preceded by the Latin noteincipiunt statuta ospicii,4 thus clearly dividing the Rules into estate andhousehold portions.

The work has long been dated to between 1240 and 1242. The kernel ofthe argument establishing these dates was propounded by Samuel Pegge inthe late eighteenth century; Pegges argument was partly reproduced byElizabeth Lamond in her edition of the Rules in 1890, and the Lamondversion was refined by Dr. Dorothea Oschinsky in her very fine edition of1971.5 The fully-developed version of the argument runs as follows. The textitself opens by stating here begin the rules, which Robert Grosseteste thegood bishop of Lincoln made for the countess of Lincoln, on how to guardand govern lands and households.6 The countess herself is not named. Pegge,followed by Lamond and Oschinsky, supposed that no such treatise wouldhave been drawn up for a married countess. The recipient must thereforehave been a widow. Who could she have been? Although neither Lamondnor Oschinsky says so outright, the explicit implies that the work was writtenwhile Grosseteste was bishop, which means that the widowed countess musthave lived, as a widow, between 1235 and 1253. This point is apparentlyconfirmed by a Latin document called the Statuta which served as the pre-existing basis for the household section of the Rules and which, Oschinskybelieves, was clearly written during Grossetestes episcopate.7 These factsnarrow the field of potential dedicatees to Margaret de Quincy, countess ofLincoln, whose husband, John de Lacy, the earl, died on 22 July 1240. In 1242Margaret married again, this time taking Walter Marshal, the earl ofPembroke, as her new husband. Thus, Lamond and Oschinsky establishedthe dates 12402 as those of the treatise although, as will be noted below,Pegge himself allowed for an earlier date as well.8 Indeed, these dates are thecanonical ones, appearing nearly wherever the date of the work is given.9

Robert Grossetestes Rules 107

# Institute of Historical Research 2001.

3 Ki les reules vout tenir ben e bel del son demeyne porra vivre e soy meymes e les sons sustenir(Oschinsky, pp. 3889). Here and below, all translations are taken from Oschinsky.

4 Oschinsky, p. 398.5 S. Pegge, The Life of Robert Grosseteste (1793), p. 95; Walter of Henleys Husbandry, Together with an

Anonymous Husbandry, Seneschaucie and Robert Grossetestes Rules, ed. E. Lamond (1890), pp. xliiiii;Oschinsky, pp. 1967. See also F. S. Stevenson, Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln: a Contribution to theReligious, Political and Intellectual History of the 13th-Century (1899), pp. 2301; S. H. Thomson, TheWritings of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln 123553 (Cambridge, 1940), p. 149.

6 Isci comencent les reules ke le bon eveske de Nichole Robert Grosseteste fist a la contesse deNichole de garder e governer terres e hostel (Oschinsky, pp. 3889).

7 Ibid., p. 196.8 Lamond, pp. xliiiii; Oschinsky, p. 196.9 E.g., Women of the English Nobility and Gentry, 10661500, ed. and trans. J. Ward (New York,

1995), pp. 128, 159; eadem, English Noblewomen in the Later Middle Ages (1992), p. 58; J. R. Maddicott,Simon de Montfort (Cambridge, 1994), p. 167; M. W. Labarge, A Baronial Household of the 13th Century(New York, 1965), p. 40; J. M. W. Bean, From Lord to Patron: Lordship in Late Medieval England(Manchester, 1989), p. 132; Household Accounts from Medieval England, ed. C. M. Woolgar (Oxford,1992) pt. i, p. 16; P. Coss, The Lady in Medieval England, 10001500 (Stroud, 1998), p. 52; M. Thompson,


Unfortunately, the composition of Grossetestes Rules cannot be confined tothe years 12402. There are several reasons why what can be called thePegge-Lamond-Oschinsky position is not tenable.

The first of these reasons stems from a broad reassessment of the activityof noblewomen in the high and late middle ages which has taken place sincePegge wrote in 1793. It has become something of a textbook commonplace,and a true one, that medieval noblewomen could be called upon to manageboth household and estates when their husbands were away.10 Thus, onecannot assume that a treatise on household or estate management could havebeen written only for a femme sole. Moreover, noblewomen might have theirown households to manage even when their husbands were present, althoughno evidence on such matters survives specifically for the countesses ofLincoln in Grossetestes time.11 An English lady could also find herselfinvolved in the administration of her husbands estates, and not only whileher husband was away, although clear evidence for the latter situation datesonly from the fifteenth century.12

These observations explain why a married countess might have had needof the Rules, but do not explain why a bishop would undertake to write sucha work for her. Grosseteste could, of course, have wanted to create arelationship with a married noblewoman for her own sake, or perhaps tomaintain an already existing one. But one would expect her husband to bethe chief focus of Grossetestes attention. The high middle ages had, however,seen the realization in ecclesiastical circles of the morally beneficial influencewives might have on their husbands,13 a development which suggests a reason

108 Robert Grossetestes Rules


The Medieval Hall: the Basis of Secular Domestic Life, 6001600 A.D. (Aldershot, 1995), p. 115. The lonedissenters are Pegge (see below, at n. 21) and Sir Richard Southern, who states, without elaboration,that these rules, which form a comprehensive guide to the management of a great estate, wereprobably written for Hawice de Quincy, who was Countess of Lincoln in her own right from 1232to 1242 (idem, Robert Grosseteste: the Growth of an English Mind in Medieval Europe (2nd edn., Oxford,1992), p. 319 n. 41). As will be apparent below (nn. 1921), this conclusion is a real possibility.

10 Hence S. Shahar, The Fourth Estate: a History of Women in the Middle Ages (1983), pp. 14950;D. Herlihy, Opera Muliebria: Women and Work in Medieval Europe (New York, 1990), p. 60; Power,pp. 423; Coss, pp. 312; H. Leyser, Medieval Women: a Social History of Women in England, 4501500(1995), p. 165; Ward, English Nobility, pp. 89. For an assessment of some of the evidentiary problemsregarding this topic, see R. A. Archer, How Ladies . . . who live on their manors ought to managetheir households and estates: women as landholders and administrators in the later middle ages, inWoman is a Worthy Wight: Women in English Society c.12001500, ed. P. J. P. Goldberg (Stroud, 1992),pp. 1503, followed by Coss, pp. 701.

11 Ward, English Noblewomen, p. 51; and see Manners and Household Expenses of England in the 13thand 14th Centuries, ed. T. H. Turner (1841), p. 15. One noble wife built her own quarters, separatefrom her husbands (R. Gilchrist, Medieval bodies in the material world: gender, stigma and thebody, in Framing Medieval Bodies, ed. S. Kay and M. Rubin (Manchester, 1994), p. 53), although it isunclear how far this can be generalized. Queens did enjoy their own extensive quarters during theirhusbands lifetimes (ibid., p. 51). For a discussion of the activities of noble wives during the earlier12th century, see M. Chibnall, Women in Orderic Vitalis, Haskins Soc. Jour., ii (1990), 11516.

12 Ward, English Noblewomen, pp. 10910; Archer, pp. 15361.13 S. A. Farmer, Persuasive voices: clerical images of medieval wives, Speculum, lxi (1986), 51743,

esp. pp. 52134 and eadem, Softening the hearts of men: women, embodiment, and persuasion in the


for Grosseteste to address such a gift specifically to a married woman. ByGrossetestes time such views had already led some ecclesiastics to cultivatenoblewomen as a means of influencing their husbands, often in moralmatters.14 As Dr. J. R. Maddicott notes, Grossetestes associate Adam Marsh fitthat mould in relation to Eleanor, wife of Simon de Montfort.15 Moreover,noble households of the period were very much religious communities.16

This point, along with the Rules attention to the Christian nature of thehousehold,17 made the work an especially suitable means for the spiritualdevelopment of the recipient. Thus, the cultivation of a noblewoman inorder to influence her husband could have been the social context in whichGrosseteste presented the Rules to the countess of Lincoln, a context notunusual in Grossetestes time, although the situation must remain obscure.

It is true that a widow would more certainly have found use forGrossetestes work than a married woman. Moreover, by this time, a countesswho survived her husband was unlikely to remarry; it has been calculatedthat two out of three widowed English countesses in the years 121630remained single.18 There are, however, problems with the dates 12402 whichdo not stem from general considerations of womens history. For even if oneaccepts the principle that the Rules was written for a widowed countess ofLincoln, Margaret de Quincy was not the only eligible widowed countess ofLincoln. Pegges followers overlooked another lady, Hawise de Quincy,Margarets mother. Hawise, a widow, had become countess of Lincoln in1232.19 She did grant the earldom to her son-in-law, Margarets husband,later that year. Yet she was still referred to as countess of Lincoln, even as lateas her death; in the fine rolls for 1242, when her lands were turned over toMargaret and her husband, she is called countess of Lincoln.20 If ocialdocuments could grant her the title of countess after she had technicallytransferred the earldom to her son-in-law, one cannot expect a scriberecording Grossetestes dedication to be more particular about such matters.Hawise, then, extends the possible date of the treatise from 1242 back to the



13th century, in Embodied Love: Sensuality and Relationship as Feminist Values, ed. P. M. Cooey, S. A.Farmer and M. E. Ross (New York, 1987), pp. 11922.

14 Farmer, Persuasive Voices, pp. 5216.15 Maddicott, p. 41. No trace of Grossetestes manipulation of Eleanor to reach her husband

survives in the sources, although Grosseteste certainly had ample opportunity for such activity. Hewas closely connected to Eleanor and the earl of Leicester, both of whom turned to him for spiritualcounsel (ibid.).

16 K. Mertes, The English Noble Household, 12501600: Good Governance and Politic Rule (Oxford,1988), pp. 139160.

17 Oschinsky, pp. 399401 for rules 1315.18 R. DeAragon, Dowager Countesses, in Anglo-Norman Studies, xvii: Proceedings of the Battle

Conference 1994, ed. C. Harper-Bill (New York, 1995), p. 98.19 For these countesses, see The Complete Peerage, comp. G. E. Cokayne and others (13 vols. in 14,

191059) vii. 67580.20 For her death, see ibid., p. 676 n. h. For instances c.12361240, see Rotuli Roberti Grosseteste,

Episcopi Lincolniensis A.D. MCCXXVMCCLIII, ed. F. N. Davis (Lincoln Record Soc. Publications, xi,Horncastle, 1914), pp. 9, 11, 17, 23, 44.


beginning of Grossetestes episcopate in 1235. Indeed, Pegge himself notedHawises candidacy,21 although Lamond and Oschinsky neglected her.

Margaret de Quincy herself is also worth a closer look. Although Margaretremarried in 1242, her second husband, the earl of Pembroke, did not surviveGrosseteste (Pembroke died in 1245). Thus, Margarets second widowhoodpoints to her candidacy as a dedicatee of the Rules between 1245 and 1252,when she took a third husband.22 In this second widowhood she sometimesappears as the countess of Lincoln and Pembroke, but she could also bestyled simply countess of Lincoln as in, for example, a royal charter of1251.23 Moreover, although the treatise was said to be written for a countessof Lincoln, it may be too much to demand that the scribe concerned renderMargarets complete title, if indeed the Rules was written for Margaret, andwritten for her in this stage of her life. That may particularly have been thecase for a source originating in the diocese of Lincoln, where Margarets firsttitle can be expected to have made the greater impression.24

Thus, one cannot, for various reasons, limit the composition of the Rulesmore narrowly than the beginning of Grossetestes episcopate in 1235 and thebishops death in 1253 or, perhaps, to the conjunction of his pontificate andthe widowhoods of Hawise de Lacy or Margaret de Quincy (and so 123542and 124552). There is also the possibility that Grosseteste wrote the workbefore he became bishop. One cannot be sure a notice stating that the Ruleswas written by Bishop Grosseteste in fact accompanied the original, whichdoes not survive among the copies identified by modern scholars.25 A copyist,either during Grossetestes episcopate or later, might naturally have amplifieda notice that the Rules was written by Robert Grosseteste by including adignity Grosseteste had by then attained. Indeed, the description ofGrosseteste in this passage as le bon eveske raises the suspicion of this sortof interpolation; it is unlikely that the author would have described himselfin this way.26 A similar scribal decision to add later information explains why



21 Pegge, p. 96. As does Southern (see above, n. 9).22 Complete Peerage, p. 680.23 For countess of Lincoln and Pembroke, see ibid., p. 680 n. b and Calendar of the Charter Rolls

122657 (1903), p. 393. For countess of Lincoln in 1251, see ibid., p. 362 and see also Davis, p. 111and Close Rolls 124751, pp. 475, 486.

24 Her natal familys close association with the earldom also, perhaps, gave her identity ascountess of Lincoln greater weight in the eyes of the scribe than her later title countess ofPembroke.

25 The earliest copy identified by Oschinsky (British Library, Harleian MS. 1005 fo. 51v54v)dates, on palaeographical grounds, from the mid 13th century and appears in the manuscript with areference to an event of 1265 in the same hand as that of the Rules (Oschinsky, p. 13 and n. 3).Oschinsky considers this the best text. The volume includes other texts in the same hand associatedwith the house of Bury St. Edmunds (Oschinsky, p. 13). This copy was unknown to Lamond, whobased her text on Bodleian Library, Douce MS. 98 fo. 182r186v, which dates to c.1300 (Lamond,p. xliii; Oschinsky, p. 41).

26 Oschinsky, p. 388 (the authors emphasis). Two manuscripts refer to Saint Robert as theauthor (ibid., p. 410). For a discussion of the aected humility more common in medieval authorsintroductions, a flourishing tradition by Grossetestes time, see E. R. Curtius, European Literature andthe Latin Middle Ages, trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton, N.J., 1990), pp. 835.


the Latin version of the Rules notes that its author, Grosseteste, is bonememorie.27 But if the Rules was written before Grosseteste became bishop,how much before? The question very much turns on how early the futurebishop had the knowledge to write such a work. That issue, however,requires an investigation of a claim that Grosseteste was not in fact theauthor of the Rules.

In her edition of the Rules of 1971, Dorothea Oschinsky concluded that itseems unlikely that the Bishop of Lincoln can have been solely responsiblefor the compilation of the Rules, concluding that Grosseteste simplycommissioned the work.28 Her argument is that Grosseteste did not knowenough about great households or estates to have composed the workhimself. In the first place, she argues, Grossetestes other works fail toprovide evidence that he knew much about estates or noble households, asmight be expected given his low birth. Moreover, Grosseteste had had littleopportunity to learn about either subject during an academic career and, asbishop, he would have been too old and busy to learn. He could, in short,have [hardly] advised the Countess of Lincoln, who had grown up in such ahousehold and, together with her husband, had presided over one.29

Although Oschinskys authority is not to be disregarded lightly, thisposition needs to be reassessed. In order to do so, however, one shouldstress that there are two areas of knowledge under consideration here themanagement of noble households, and the management of great estates.Grosseteste or any bishop might have had expertise in one without the other.Since the work itself follows this division in subject matter, he could havecomposed one part and not the other. In both cases, however, Grossetesteshould be presumed to be the author.

That is particularly so with regard to the household. Despite his obscureorigins, Grosseteste had evidently mastered the ways of courteous society,which centred to such an extent on the noble household, at least by the timeof his episcopate. Even some of the evidence of his obscure backgroundattests to this: the earl of Clare once asked Grosseteste how he, a man of suchhumble birth, had become so courteous.30 This back-handed complimentwas, at least, a compliment; the earl was acknowledging Grossetestescourtesy.

Grosseteste had had opportunity to learn. Episcopal households weregenerally run along lines in common with those of the nobility,31 andGrosseteste had acquired years of acquaintance with such households beforeentering the episcopate. Fortunately, it is not necessary here to reconstruct in



27 Oschinsky, p. 194.28 Ibid., p. 192, and pp. xxi, 195.29 All these points are taken from ibid., p. 192, and see p. 195.30 For this and other evidence regarding Grossetestes birth, see Southern, An English Mind, p. 63

and n. 1. For a suggestion that Grossetestes background may have been more exalted, see N. M.Schulman, Husband, father, bishop? Grosseteste in Paris, Speculum, lxii (1997), 3423.

31 Mertes, p. 5, though see pp. 645.


detail Grossetestes disputed career between 1198 and 1225.32 It is still agreedthat Grosseteste had some connection with the household of Bishop St. Hughof Lincoln c.11861192, that he entered the bishop of Herefords householdc.1195, with the blessing of Gerald of Wales, and that this service came to anend with that bishops death in 1198.33

Moreover, Grosseteste had gained some experience as a head of amoderately complex household of his own even before his episcopate.Grosseteste became archdeacon of Leicester in 1229, resigning the post in1232.34 Being an archdeacon was not, of course, the same as being a bishop.Some idea of the size of an archdeacons domestic establishment can,however, be gained from Archbishop Langtons regulation of 1213 or1214, limiting the number of horses the archdeacon of Canterbury couldhave in his party while conducting visitations to seven, roughly between aquarter and a third of the number allowed to a bishop by the Third LateranCouncil of 1179.35 This rule concerning archdeacons was considered broadlyapplicable; diocesan legislation of 124552 from Chichester applies the samerule to the archdeacons of that see.36

Moreover, once he became a bishop, Grossetestes own household seems tohave been suciently comparable to that of an earl for Simon de Montfort toentrust his eldest son to the bishops care in order to learn manners as well asletters.37 This point is confirmed by the recollection of a member ofGrossetestes household, who remembered that the bishop had educatedingenuos pueros in manners as well as in Latin and Greek.38 And of course,



32 For the dispute, see Southern, An English Mind, pp. xviixxxiv, 6370 and idem, Intellectualdevelopment and local environment: the case of Robert Grosseteste, in Essays in Honor of Edward B.King, ed. R. G. Benson and E. W. Naylor (Sewanee, Tenn., 1991), pp. 122; B. Eastwood, review ofSouthern, Robert Grosseteste, in Speculum, lxiii (1988), 2337; Schulman, pp. 33046.

33 D. A. P. Callus, Robert Grosseteste as scholar, in Robert Grosseteste, Scholar and Bishop: Essays inCommemoration of the 7th Centenary of his Death, ed. idem (Oxford, 1955), pp. 35; Southern, An EnglishMind, pp. 636; Schulman, pp. 3301; J. McEvoy, The Philosophy of Robert Grosseteste (Oxford, 1982),pp. 411. The arguments below are strengthened if, as Southern suggests, Grosseteste was againactive in the bishop of Herefords household in the 1220s (idem, An English Mind, p. 67), although seealso the alternative reconstructions cited in this note.

34 John Le Neve, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 10661300, iii: Lincoln, comp. D. E. Greenway (1977),p. 34.

35 Councils and Synods, with Other Documents Relating to the English Church, ed. F. M. Powicke andC. R. Cheney (2 vols., Oxford, 1964), i. 36. For the Third Lateran Council, see C. R. Cheney, EpiscopalVisitation of Monasteries in the 13th Century (rev. edn., Manchester, 1983), p. 105. The same council alsolimited archdeacons to 5 or 7 horses.

36 Ibid., p. 458. The line ista tamen ad memoriam . . . excedant seems to deal with horses,although they are not mentioned by name a copyists or editors error? The next line limitsarchdeacons ocials to 3 or 4 horses (ibid.) and the chapter as a whole is modelled on Langtonsregulation (ibid. n. 2 and p. 451).

37 I.e., for doctrina litterarum et morum disciplina (Monumenta Franciscana, ed. J. S. Brewer(2 vols., Rolls Ser., 185882) i. 110).

38 Verses on the Life of Robert Grosseteste, ed. R. W. Hunt, Medievalia et Humanistica, new ser., i(1970), 248 ll. 959. This should not be a surprise, given not only Grossetestes academic eminence, butalso his apparent authorship of a 669-line poem, the Liber Curialis, a guide to etiquette, significantly, itseems, written before Grosseteste had ascended to the episcopate (Thomson, pp. 1489).


as Oschinsky notes, the French Rules written for the countess was itselftranslated into Latin for Grossetestes own household,39 underlining thecomparability of the two institutions.

Oschinskys argument is harder to meet regarding the first portion of theRules on estate management. Did Grosseteste know enough to have writtenit? As rector of Abbotsley in the years 122532,40 Grosseteste directlymanaged his glebe lands, farmed them out, or managed the rents fromthem, but his could hardly be called a great estate.41 He was in a similarposition as prebendary of Leicester St. Margaret in Lincoln cathedral, adignity he had reached by at least 1232, and which he presumably retaineduntil his elevation to the episcopate three years later.42 These tenures might,however, have given the future bishop a small introduction to some, thoughnot all, of the problems he would later face as a great landed lord and, moreparticularly, to the problems addressed in the Rules. He might have learnedthat it is good to have an estate servant on a fixed payment,43 and to havethe twentieth sheaf of grain collected at harvest in order to calculate theamount of grain threshed, or that a ploughland can be expected to yield 100seams of grain,44 or, possibly, that one acre of fallow can support twosheep.45 A bad experience, even on a small scale, could have taught him notto hold on to grain so long that it rots.46 It may also be that it was in theservice of the bishop of Hereford, or possibly Lincoln, that Grossetestelearned about these and moderately more technical matters, such as why oneshould not sell wheat unless its straw is retained for sheepfolds and compost,or that one should buy wine and wax at Boston, but robes at St. Ives.47 Allthis is easily possible, but uncertain. The nature of his service to thesebishops is obscure; it could have involved governance of their estates, butthis can be only a possibility. Gerald of Waless letter commendingGrosseteste to the bishop of Hereford praises Grosseteste for his ability todecide cases, his command of law, medicine, letters and general aairs, as



39 Oschinsky, pp. 1946. The dierences between the Latin and French texts are not great (eadem,pp. 1945, 41215).

40 Rotuli Hugonis de Welles, Episcopi Lincolniensis, MCCIXMCCXXXV, ed. W. P. W. Phillimoreand others (3 vols., Canterbury and York Soc., 19079), iii. 48.

41 Unfortunately, the exact nature of most parochial revenues is generally obscure (R. N.Swanson, Standards of livings: parochial revenues in pre-Reformation England, in Religious Beliefsand Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, Proceedings of the Conference held at Strawberry Hill,Easter, 1989, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1991), pp. 15196) and this is so of Grossetestesbenefices.

42 In 1232 Grosseteste told his sister that he was giving up all his preferments except his prebendin the cathedral, thus establishing this year as marking the end of his tenure in Abbotsley and alsothe fact of his tenure in Leicester St. Margaret, which included at least 2 churches and was valued at20 in 1254 (Roberti Grosseteste Episcopi Quondam Lincolniensis Epistolae, ed. H. R. Luard (Rolls Ser.,1861), pp. 434 and Le Neve, p. 77).

43 Rule 2 (Oschinsky, pp. 38990).44 Rule 8 (ibid., pp. 3967).45 Rule 8 (ibid.).46 Rule 4 (ibid., pp. 3923).47 Rule 9 (ibid., pp. 3967); Rule 12 (ibid., pp. 3989).


well as his character, and so gives little help, and no other evidencerecovered so far addresses the question.48

Some of what in the Rules which might be regarded as technical matterconcerning estates is technical more in relation to computation than estatemanagement per se. The Rules contains instances of rather emphaticarithmetical advice: You ought to know that each acre of fallow land cansupport at least two sheep for one year, 100 acres of fallow land ought tosupport 200 sheep, 200 acres 400 sheep, and so on.49 Such calculations werenot likely to have been beyond so mathematically-oriented a thinker asGrosseteste, although his bent was more toward geometry than calculation.50

It is also worth noting that, as bishop, Grosseteste stressed that lay estateocials employed by prelates in his diocese should in various respectsbehave justly toward those under them, and that this should be a matter ofinquiry at episcopal visitation. These same concerns regarding extortion,reception of bribes and redress of grievances mark the Rules discussion ofestate management as well.51 Such considerations are expressed in rules 1and 3. If one is to account for this fact by simply asserting that Grossetestesvisitation instructions and the Rules were independently expressing ideascommon to his time and place, one can also note that such ideas werehardly so technical that they would have been beyond a bishops knowledge.Similarly, Grosseteste was suciently impressed by royal inquiries by swornlocal juries that he attempted to hijack this institution for pastoralpurposes.52 This consciousness of the value of such procedure may liebehind the Rules instructions that, on lands which are not part of herdemesne, the countess should begin by having the Kings writ brought sothat an enquiry can be made on each manor, on oath by twelve free men,into all the lands by their parcels . . ..53 If many in the thirteenth centurywere aware of the value of such procedures, the fact does not precludeGrosseteste from having been so.

The same can be said for much of the rest of the estate portion of theRules. Most of the work cannot in fact be described as deeply technical. Rule2 mandates that the countess take stock of all her movables and immovables,and have the results enrolled. Rule 5 essentially tells the countess to becareful to find out about the extent of an escheat or wardship, and to do sofrom trustworthy men. Rule 6 states that granges should be secured andmonitored, and that a tally should be used for the transfer of wheat out ofthe grange. Rule 7 says one should, in secret, with one or two trustworthy



48 Giraldi Cambrensis Opera, ed. J. S. Brewer (8 vols., Rolls Ser., 186191), i. 249.49 Rule 8: Vus devez saver ke chascun acre de waret poet sustenir par an deus berbiz al meyns,

dunt cent acres de waret deus cenz berbiz poent sustenir, deus cenz acres quatre cenz berbiz, e issiavaunt (Oschinsky, pp. 3967). For similar arithmetical lessons, see ibid. and Rule 4 (ibid., pp. 3923).

50 For Grosseteste and mathematics, see McEvoy, pp. 18, 16880.51 Maddicott, pp. 1678.52 Southern, An English Mind, p. 259.53 al comencement fetes purchacer le bref le roy de enquere par serment de duze frauncs

hommes en chescun maner totes les terres par lur parceles . . . (Oschinsky, pp. 3889).


men, examine enrolled accounts of ones manors and compare them withthose from the previous years harvest in order to detect cheating. Rule 10advises the countess that, once she has at Michaelmas an estimate of howmuch grain she will have from place to place, she should then plan heritinerations for the year accordingly, also taking into account seasonaloerings in meat and fish. Rule 11 says that animals can be valuable becauseof the cheese and manure they produce.54 None of this advice seems torequire extensive, detailed experience with estates, even for a novice bishop.Grosseteste, moreover, was a bishop for eighteen years. Even as a busy bishop and he was a very busy bishop he could have had a chance to learn thebusiness detailed in the estate portion of the Rules, especially if he wrote theRules not before 1242, but some time as late as 1253. These argumentsindicate that there is no compelling reason to think Grosseteste did not writeboth portions of the Rules. Of course, proving that he did so, without relyingon the attribution of the text itself, is impossible. But when a source namesits author, the best procedure is to accept the attribution unless there is clearevidence to the contrary.

This discussion of the authorship of the Rules began by asking whetherGrosseteste might have written the Rules before he became bishop, thusextending the date of composition before 1235. One cannot know. Thequestion, however, depends partly on how early one thinks Grosseteste hadthe knowledge and experience to have written the Rules. As early as theeleven-eighties, in the service of the bishop of Lincoln? In the twelve-twenties, as rector of Abbotsley? As archdeacon of Leicester? Some know-ledge on Grossetestes part of complex households can be presumed fromsome of these capacities, and some, though less, can be postulated regardingestate management. If Grosseteste did write the Rules before 1235, such adate also suggests a social context rather dierent from that of an ecclesiasticout to mould a great magnates morals. It instead suggests a rising mancurrying favour with a potential patron, or possibly one already in herservice. But this matter, too, remains uncertain.

This consideration of authorship also allows an assessment of otherevidence that the Rules must have been written during Grossetestesepiscopate, specifically the Statuta, a brief series of general statements inLatin on the running of the household, evidently addressed to the bishopsown ocers. Oschinsky argues that the Rules was based on the Statuta ratherthan the reverse.55 Since the Statuta was composed during the episcopate, onemight be driven to conclude that so too must have been the Rules.Oschinskys reasons for dating the Statuta earlier than the Rules are twofold.In the first place, Grosseteste would not have based a work for his ownhousehold on a work for a secular lord.56 This is unpersuasive, however, giventhat the Rules was later translated into Latin for the bishops own household,



54 Ibid., pp. 38999.55 Ibid., p. 196.56 Ibid., p. 193.


as Oschinsky herself acknowledges.57 Her second argument relies onGrossetestes not having written the Rules. It is, she states, unlikely thatGrosseteste would have based the Statuta on a treatise . . . compiled bysomeone else.58 If the arguments presented here hold true, however,Grosseteste should be presumed to be the author of the Rules. Hence theStatuta could be a later, or even contemporary, summary of the householdportion of the Rules, rather than the prior model for the Rules.59 Thus, thesole evidence that the Rules dates from Grossetestes episcopate is the Rulesexplicit, itself open to question.60

Grosseteste can be fairly regarded as the author of the Rules attributed tohim. As to date, one can say, with certainty, only that the Rules was composedsome time before Grossetestes death in 1253, with a presumption in favourof a date between 1235 and 1253. The venerable dates 12402 remain aninteresting example of how views on the date and composition of a sourcecan be fossilized, and so preserved long after the conceptions on which theyrely are obsolete.



57 Oschinsky, pp. 1936.58 Ibid., p. 193.59 The Statuta, it may be noted, survives only in two late 13th-century copies (Oschinsky, pp. 23

4, 2931, 191). The verbal similarity between the Statuta and the Latin translation of the Rules isweak (Bodl. Libr., MS. Digby 204 fos. 3r4v versus Oschinsky, pp. 4089).

60 Above, at nn. 257.