Mary of Woodstock: Difference between revisions

Mary of Woodstock
Mary of Woodstock
	Mary depicted on the family tree of the kings of England
Born	11 March 1278; Windsor Castle
Died	before 8 July 1332; Amesbury Priory
House	Plantagenet
Father	Edward I of England
Mother	Eleanor of Castile

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Mary of Woodstock (11 March 1278^[1] – before 8 July 1332^[2]) was the seventh named daughter of Edward I of England and Eleanor of Castile. She was a nun at Amesbury Priory, but lived very comfortably thanks to a generous allowance from her parents. Despite a papal travel prohibition in 1303, she travelled widely around the country.

Early life

Mary's grandmother, Eleanor of Provence, had decided to retire to Amesbury Priory in Wiltshire, a daughter house of Fontevrault. She lobbied for Mary and another granddaughter, Eleanor of Brittany, to become Benedictine nuns at the priory. Despite resistance from Eleanor of Castile,^[3] Mary was dedicated at Amesbury in 1285, at the age of seven,^[4] alongside thirteen daughters of nobles. She was not formally veiled as a nun until December 1291, when she had reached the age of twelve.^[5] Eleanor of Brittany had been veiled in March, while Eleanor of Provence did not take the veil until June 1286.^[6]

Mary's parents granted her £100 per year for life (approximately £124,000 in 2024);^[3]^[7] she also received double the usual allowance for clothing and a special entitlement to wine from the stores,^[8] and lived in comfort in private quarters.^[9] Her father visited her and Eleanor at the priory repeatedly: twice in 1286 and in 1289, and again in 1290 and 1291.^[10] Eleanor of Provence died in 1291, and it was expected that Mary would move to Fontevrault. Certainly the prioress of Fontevrault wrote frequently to Edward I asking that his daughter be allowed to live there. Probably to prevent his daughter falling into French hands in the event of war with England, Edward refused, and Mary remained at Amesbury, while her allowance was doubled to £200 per year. In 1292, she was also given the right to forty oaks per year from royal forests and twenty tuns of wine per year from Southampton.^[3]

Representative of the order

Despite being a resident at the priory, Mary began to travel the country. She visited her brother Edward in 1293, and regularly attended court, spending five weeks there in 1297, in the run-up to her sister Elizabeth's departure to Holland.^[3] By the end of the century, she held the post of vicegerent and visitatrix for the abbess, with the right to authorise the transfer of nuns between convents.^[11] In 1302, her £200 per year was replaced by the rights to several manors and the borough of Wilton, all held on condition that she remain in England. However, she ran up considerable dice gambling debts while visiting her father's court, and in 1305 was given £200 to pay them off.^[3]^[12] She was also given Grovebury Priory in Bedfordshire to manage, holding this until her death.^[13]

Mary was unsuccessful in obtaining high office in the order,^[3] whereas Eleanor of Brittany became abbess at Fontevrault in 1304.^[11] The papal decretal Periculoso was read at Amesbury in 1303, requiring nuns to remain within their religious establishments, but Mary's travels do not appear to have been affected. She went on numerous pilgrimages, including one to Canterbury, and continued to visit court,^[8] with a retinue of up to twenty-four horses,^[3] sometimes with fellow nuns.^[8] Soon after 1313, her role as visitor was removed. In 1317, Mary's brother Edward, by now King Edward II, asked Eleanor to restore her to the post, but his request was refused. But Mary persevered and obtained a papal mandate requiring her reinstatement, which Eleanor appears to have obeyed.^[11]

Later life

Despite her apparent conflict with Eleanor, Mary continued to live comfortably. In 1316, she was able to borrow more than £2 from abbey funds (approximately £1,400 in 2024),^[7] and sent a clerk to London on personal errands, at the priory's expense.^[8]

It was effectively as a princess, not a nun, that Mary received the homage of the English Dominican friar Nicholas Trevet, a prolific and versatile university scholar and author, who in 1328–1334 dedicated to her his Cronicles,^[14] which she may even have commissioned him to write.^[15] Intended as an amusing history of the world, it later became an important source for several popular works of the period. In part it is an account of Mary's own Plantagenet clan, and she herself is given a flattering mention there:

the fourth daughter was dame Mary of whom it ys before sayde that she wedded herself unto the hygh king heaven. And in so moche as hit ys trewly sayde of her and notably this worthy text of holy scripture: optimam partem elegit ipsi Maria, que non auferetur ab ea. The whych ys as moche to say "As Maria hathe chosyn the best party to her, the whych shall not be done away from her".^[16]

Trevet here quotes from Jesus' words in the Gospel of Luke (10:42), where Jesus good-humouredly defends Mary to her sister Martha. It is a somewhat daring use of the Gospel text, which was traditionally often applied the Virgin Mary.^[17]

Likewise because of Mary's status, several nobles who wished their daughters to take vows placed them into her custody.^[3]

Mary died before 8 July 1332,^[2] and was buried in Amesbury Priory. After her death, John de Warenne, 7th Earl of Surrey, attempting to divorce Mary's niece Joan, claimed to have had an affair with Mary before he married Joan. If John's claim was valid, his marriage to Mary's niece would have been rendered null and void, but despite papal mandates for inquests to be made into the matter, the truth was never established.^[3]^[18]

Ancestors

Ancestors of Mary of Woodstock^[19]

16. Henry II of England

8. John of England

17. Eleanor of Aquitaine

4. Henry III of England

18. Aymer, Count of Angoulême

9. Isabella of Angoulême

19. Alice of Courtenay

2. Edward I of England

20. Alfonso II, Count of Provence

10. Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Provence

21. Garsenda, Countess of Forcalquier

5. Eleanor of Provence

22. Thomas I, Count of Savoy

11. Beatrice of Savoy

23. Marguerite of Geneva

1. Mary of Woodstock

24. Ferdinand II of León

12. Alfonso IX of León

25. Urraca of Portugal

6. Ferdinand III of Castile

26. Alfonso VIII of Castile

13. Berengaria of Castile

27. Eleanor of England

3. Eleanor of Castile

28. Alberic II, Count of Dammartin

14. Simon de Dammartin

29. Mathilde of Mahaut

7. Joan, Countess of Ponthieu

30. William III, Count of Ponthieu

15. Marie, Countess of Ponthieu

31. Alice of France

References

^ Burke's guide to the Royal Family (1 ed.). London, Burke's Peerage. 1973. p. 197. ISBN 9780220662226.
^ ^a ^b Weir, Alison (1999). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London, U.K.: The Bodley Head. p. 85. ISBN 978-0099539735.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ "Mary", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, pp. 3–4.
^ Orme, Nicholas (2017). From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530. Routledge. p. 63.
^ Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.240; Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, vol.2, London, 1849, pp.404–442, at 409; A. Rutherford, trans., The Anglo-Norman Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1932; Nicholas Trivet, F. Nicholai Triveti, De ordine frat. Praedicatorum, Annales, English Historical Society, p.310; Laura Barefield, Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's Les Cronicles, in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003), pp.21–30
^ Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England, p.300
^ ^a ^b UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, pp. 115–116; R. B. Pugh, ed., A History of Wiltshire, vol.3, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp.247–249
^ Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.110
^ R. B. Pugh, ed., A History of Wiltshire, vol. 3, p.247
^ ^a ^b ^c Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.136
^ Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, vol.2, p.421, p.431, p.434,
^ The Medieval Manor of Leighton Alias Grovebury Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Bedfordshire County Council
^ Full title Les Cronicles qe frere N. Trevet escript a dame Marie.
^ "Trevet, Nicolas", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
^ Quoted by Laura Barefield, Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's "Les Cronicles", in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003) 26.
^ Giles Constable, The Interpretation of Martha and Mary, in Giles Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995, pp. 1–114.
^ Calendar of the Entries in the Papal Registers, Papal Letters, volume 3, 1342–1362, p. 169
^ Selby, Walford Dakin; Harwood, H. W. Forsyth; Murray, Keith W. (1895). The genealogist. London: George Bell & Sons. pp. 30–31.

[1] Burke's guide to the Royal Family (1 ed.). London, Burke's Peerage. 1973. p. 197. ISBN 9780220662226.

[:0-2] Weir, Alison (1999). Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy. London, U.K.: The Bodley Head. p. 85. ISBN 978-0099539735.

[odnb-3] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g ^h ⁱ "Mary", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography; John Carmi Parsons, Eleanor of Castile, pp. 3–4.

[4] Orme, Nicholas (2017). From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530. Routledge. p. 63.

[kerr240-5] Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.240; Mary Anne Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest, vol.2, London, 1849, pp.404–442, at 409; A. Rutherford, trans., The Anglo-Norman Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet, unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1932; Nicholas Trivet, F. Nicholai Triveti, De ordine frat. Praedicatorum, Annales, English Historical Society, p.310; Laura Barefield, Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's Les Cronicles, in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003), pp.21–30

[6] Margaret Howell, Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England, p.300

[inflation-UK-7] UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.

[kerr115-8] Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, pp. 115–116; R. B. Pugh, ed., A History of Wiltshire, vol.3, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp.247–249

[kerr110-9] Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.110

[10] R. B. Pugh, ed., A History of Wiltshire, vol. 3, p.247

[kerr136-11] Berenice M. Kerr, Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England, p.136

[12] Everett Green, Lives of the Princesses of England, vol.2, p.421, p.431, p.434,

[13] The Medieval Manor of Leighton Alias Grovebury Archived 15 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine, Bedfordshire County Council

[14] Full title Les Cronicles qe frere N. Trevet escript a dame Marie.

[15] "Trevet, Nicolas", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

[16] Quoted by Laura Barefield, Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's "Les Cronicles", in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003) 26.

[17] Giles Constable, The Interpretation of Martha and Mary, in Giles Constable, Three Studies in Medieval Religious and Social Thought, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1995, pp. 1–114.

[18] Calendar of the Entries in the Papal Registers, Papal Letters, volume 3, 1342–1362, p. 169

[19] Selby, Walford Dakin; Harwood, H. W. Forsyth; Murray, Keith W. (1895). The genealogist. London: George Bell & Sons. pp. 30–31.

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@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
-{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2020}}
 {{short description|14th-century English princess and nun}}
+{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2024}}
 {{Infobox royalty
 | image =Mary of Woodstock.jpg
@@ Line 10: / Line 10: @@
 | birth_date = 11 March 1278
 | birth_place = [[Windsor Castle]]
-| death_date = before 8 July 1332 (aged 54)
+| death_date = before 8 July 1332
 |death_place=[[Amesbury Priory]]}}
 '''Mary of Woodstock''' (11 March 1278<ref>{{Cite book|title=Burke's guide to the Royal Family|publisher=London, Burke's Peerage|year=1973|isbn=9780220662226|edition=1|pages=197}}</ref> – before 8 July 1332<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|title=Britain's Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy|last=Weir|first=Alison|publisher=London, U.K.: The Bodley Head|year=1999|isbn=978-0099539735|pages=85}}</ref>) was the seventh named daughter of [[Edward I of England]] and [[Eleanor of Castile]]. She was a nun at [[Amesbury Priory]], but lived very comfortably thanks to a generous allowance from her parents. Despite a [[Periculoso|papal travel prohibition]] in 1303, she travelled widely around the country.
 ==Early life==
-Mary's grandmother, [[Eleanor of Provence]], had decided to retire to [[Amesbury Priory]] in Wiltshire, a daughter house of [[Fontevrault]].  She lobbied for Mary and another granddaughter, [[Eleanor of Brittany (abbess)|Eleanor of Brittany]], to become [[Benedictine Order|Benedictine]] [[nun]]s at the priory. Despite resistance from Eleanor of Castile,<ref name="odnb">"[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60121 Mary]", ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''; John Carmi Parsons, ''Eleanor of Castile'', pp. 3–4.</ref> Mary was dedicated at [[Amesbury Priory|Amesbury]] on Assumption Day 1285, at the age of seven, alongside thirteen daughters of [[nobility|noble]]s. She was not formally veiled as a nun until December 1291, when she had reached the age of twelve.<ref name="kerr240">Berenice M. Kerr, ''Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England'', p.240; Mary Anne Everett Green, ''Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest'', vol.2, London, 1849, pp.404–442, at 409; A. Rutherford, trans., ''The Anglo-Norman Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet'', unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1932; Nicholas Trivet, ''F. Nicholai Triveti, De ordine frat. Praedicatorum, Annales'', English Historical Society, p.310; Laura Barefield, ''Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's'' Les Cronicles, in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003), pp.21–30</ref>  Eleanor of Brittany had been veiled in March, while Eleanor of Provence did not arrive until June 1286.<ref>Margaret Howell, ''Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England'', p.300</ref>
+Mary's grandmother, [[Eleanor of Provence]], had decided to retire to [[Amesbury Priory]] in Wiltshire, a daughter house of [[Fontevrault]].  She lobbied for Mary and another granddaughter, [[Eleanor of Brittany (abbess)|Eleanor of Brittany]], to become [[Benedictine Order|Benedictine]] [[nun]]s at the priory. Despite resistance from Eleanor of Castile,<ref name="odnb">"[http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/60121 Mary]", ''[[Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]]''; John Carmi Parsons, ''Eleanor of Castile'', pp. 3–4.</ref> Mary was dedicated at [[Amesbury Priory|Amesbury]] in 1285, at the age of seven,<ref>{{cite book |title=From Childhood to Chivalry: The Education of the English Kings and Aristocracy 1066–1530 |first=Nicholas |last=Orme |publisher=Routledge |year=2017 |page=63 }}</ref> alongside thirteen daughters of [[nobility|noble]]s. She was not formally veiled as a nun until December 1291, when she had reached the age of twelve.<ref name="kerr240">Berenice M. Kerr, ''Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England'', p.240; Mary Anne Everett Green, ''Lives of the Princesses of England from the Norman Conquest'', vol.2, London, 1849, pp.404–442, at 409; A. Rutherford, trans., ''The Anglo-Norman Chronicles of Nicholas Trivet'', unpublished PhD thesis, University of London, 1932; Nicholas Trivet, ''F. Nicholai Triveti, De ordine frat. Praedicatorum, Annales'', English Historical Society, p.310; Laura Barefield, ''Lineage and Women's Patronage: Mary of Woodstock and Nicholas Trevett's'' Les Cronicles, in Medieval Feminist Forum 35 (2003), pp.21–30</ref>  Eleanor of Brittany had been veiled in March, while Eleanor of Provence did not take the veil until June 1286.<ref>Margaret Howell, ''Eleanor of Provence: Queenship in Thirteenth-Century England'', p.300</ref>
 Mary's parents granted her £100 per year for life (approximately £{{Formatnum:{{inflation|UK|100|1285|r=-3}}}} in {{CURRENTYEAR}});<ref name="odnb" />{{inflation-fn|UK}} she also received double the usual allowance for clothing and a special entitlement to wine from the stores,<ref name="kerr115">Berenice M. Kerr, ''Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England'', pp. 115–116; [[Ralph Pugh|R. B. Pugh]], ed., ''A History of Wiltshire'', vol.3, Oxford University Press, 1956, pp.247–249</ref> and lived in comfort in private quarters.<ref name="kerr110">Berenice M. Kerr, ''Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England'', p.110</ref> Her father visited her and Eleanor at the priory repeatedly: twice in 1286 and in 1289, and again in 1290 and 1291.<ref>R. B. Pugh, ed., ''A History of Wiltshire'', vol. 3, p.247</ref>  Eleanor of Provence died in 1291, and it was expected that Mary would move to Fontevrault. Certainly the prioress of Fontevrault wrote frequently to Edward I asking that his daughter be allowed to live there. Probably to prevent his daughter falling into French hands in the event of war with England, Edward refused, and Mary remained at Amesbury, while her allowance was doubled to £200 per year.  In 1292, she was also given the right to forty oaks per year from royal forests and twenty tuns of wine per year from [[Southampton]].<ref name="odnb" />
@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 Despite being a resident at the priory, Mary began to travel the country.  She visited her brother [[Edward II of England|Edward]] in 1293, and regularly attended court, spending five weeks there in 1297, in the run-up to her sister [[Elizabeth of Rhuddlan|Elizabeth]]'s departure to Holland.<ref name="odnb" /> By the end of the century, she held the post of [[vicegerent]] and visitatrix for the [[abbess]], with the right to authorise the transfer of nuns between convents.<ref name="kerr136">Berenice M. Kerr, ''Religious life for women, c.1100-c.1350: Fontevraud in England'', p.136</ref> In 1302, her £200 per year was replaced by the rights to several manors and the borough of [[Wilton, Wiltshire|Wilton]], all held on condition that she remain in England. However, she ran up considerable dice [[gambling]] debts while visiting her father's court, and in 1305 was given £200 to pay them off.<ref name="odnb"/><ref>Everett Green, ''Lives of the Princesses of England'', vol.2, p.421, p.431, p.434,</ref> She was also given [[Grovebury Priory]] in Bedfordshire to manage, holding this until her death.<ref>[http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/LeightonBuzzard/TheMedievalManorOfLeightonAliasGrovebury.aspx The Medieval Manor of Leighton Alias Grovebury] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110615093238/http://www.bedfordshire.gov.uk/CommunityAndLiving/ArchivesAndRecordOffice/CommunityArchives/LeightonBuzzard/TheMedievalManorOfLeightonAliasGrovebury.aspx |date=15 June 2011 }}, [[Bedfordshire County Council]]</ref>
-Mary was unsuccessful in obtaining high office in the order,<ref name="odnb" /> whereas Eleanor of Brittany became abbess at Fontevrault in 1304.<ref name="kerr136" /> The [[papal bull]] ''[[Periculoso]]'' was read at Amesbury in 1303, requiring nuns to remain within their religious establishments, but Mary's travels do not appear to have been affected. She went on numerous pilgrimages, including one to [[Canterbury]], and continued to visit court,<ref name="kerr115" /> with a retinue of up to twenty-four horses,<ref name="odnb" /> sometimes with fellow nuns.<ref name="kerr115" /> Soon after 1313, her role as visitor was removed. In 1317, Mary's brother Edward, by now King Edward II, asked Eleanor to restore her to the post, but his request was refused. But Mary persevered and obtained a papal mandate requiring her reinstatement, which Eleanor appears to have obeyed.<ref name="kerr136" />
+Mary was unsuccessful in obtaining high office in the order,<ref name="odnb" /> whereas Eleanor of Brittany became abbess at Fontevrault in 1304.<ref name="kerr136" /> The [[papal decretal]] ''[[Periculoso]]'' was read at Amesbury in 1303, requiring nuns to remain within their religious establishments, but Mary's travels do not appear to have been affected. She went on numerous pilgrimages, including one to [[Canterbury]], and continued to visit court,<ref name="kerr115" /> with a retinue of up to twenty-four horses,<ref name="odnb" /> sometimes with fellow nuns.<ref name="kerr115" /> Soon after 1313, her role as visitor was removed. In 1317, Mary's brother Edward, by now King Edward II, asked Eleanor to restore her to the post, but his request was refused. But Mary persevered and obtained a papal mandate requiring her reinstatement, which Eleanor appears to have obeyed.<ref name="kerr136" />
 ==Later life==
@@ Line 79: / Line 79: @@
 ==References==
+{{Commons category|Mary of England (1278–1332)}}
-{{Reflist|2}}
+{{Reflist}}
-{{Commons category|Mary of England (1278-1332)}}
 {{House of Plantagenet}}
 {{Authority control}}
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 [[Category:1278 births]]
 [[Category:1332 deaths]]
-[[Category:13th-century English people]]
+[[Category:13th-century English nuns]]
-[[Category:14th-century English people]]
+[[Category:14th-century English nuns]]
-[[Category:13th-century English women]]
-[[Category:14th-century English women]]
 [[Category:Benedictine nuns]]
 [[Category:English princesses]]
 [[Category:House of Plantagenet]]
-[[Category:14th-century Christian nuns]]
 [[Category:Daughters of kings]]
 [[Category:Children of Edward I of England]]