Taking Advantage of Chaos Via Forgery
Whenever a historical mystery wants to really capture the feel of the Middle Ages, they put in a forged document. It’s a clue in a Matthew Bartholomew mystery, and it’s the background to a whole series set in 1100’s.
I even use a pair of forged deeds in ‘Letters of Discontent.’
Why so much forgery? Because people, especially monks, loved forging stuff.
There was even a whole forgery ring in Westminster Abbey in the mid-1100's.
The Background
When William the Conqueror did his thing, a lot of chaos followed. He set up many earls, granted many people permission to build abbeys and monasteries, and he built a whole bunch of castles. Anglo-Normans and Europe in general shuffled these titles and lands orally: there might be some token that the king would give you as a symbol of his bond, and something called a writ might be read out publicly. But the writ, or note from the king, could then be lost to time as it was the dramatic reading that made the whole thing official.
More chaos ensued in England, and over time, administration was done more and more by officially writing out forms.
Charters were a big part of that written administrative work. If you read the biographies of the early English queens, 90% it is ‘we know she was in a place because she signed her name to a charter granting some place land in perpetuity at that place.’ These charters, essential to outlining what a monastery can and cannot do and where its boundaries are, had seals and were tied up in distinctive ways.
The problem was that a king, such as William I, may have handed a monk a writ giving a place to them for his abbey, but the legal rights were read out and then forgotten until a neighboring abbey or an irritated bishop brought them to court over something 100 years afterwards. At the court, the judges would want to see the charter that spelled out the abbey’s rights.
This is why you need to know history to be a judge: demanding a 100-year-old charter was a serious case of ‘presentism.’
The Players
Gervais de Blois, the abbot of Westminster between 1138 and 1157, and Osbert of Clare, a monk with a varied literary output from the same period, are the big names here.
Osbert of Clare first shows up in the records when he calls himself an outlaw and is hiding out in the monastery of Ely, after the current abbot booted him out of his place as elected abbot of Westminster. He eventually returned under Gervais and went to work writing hagiographies and legal documents.
Gervais and Osbert are known for campaigning to make Edward the Confessor a saint, but that did not stop them from forging charters for Westminster and other monasteries, such as Battle Abbey.
In fact, the charter from Edward the Confessor that Westminster Abbey bought at a Sotheby’s auction in the 1970’s was one of Osbert’s forgeries.
Gervais got to be abbot fairly young. The fact that he was the illegitimate son of King Stephen probably had something to do with that fact, though it certainly didn’t stop at least one pope from charging him to clean house. How much reform he did is uncertain, and when his dad died and Henry II came to power, he was dismissed from his position of abbot.
Osbert also was kicked out of the abbey again and forged a papal bull to undermine Gervaise. After Henry II came to power and Gervais was gone, he returned to Westminster.
Osbert was good at the forgeries, and he had at least two helpers whose names we don’t know. He had templates and seals all ready for the work. A study of the forgeries coming out of Westminster called their work “dazzling effrontery” and Westminster the locus of forgery in the 1100's.
The Results
Westminster did not always have smooth sailing; while it was always a place to crown the king, it didn’t always have a close relationship to him. During the mid-1100’s, the abbey struggled financially and was politically vulnerable. The first remodel wasn’t done until the 1200’s, it was rumored that the monks were barely staving off starvation. The faked charters definitely bought them time in the current king’s graces and brought in cash and good will.
And they were fulfilling a need. Often, monks could write up a fake ‘copy’ of a charter and insert it in a book called a cartulary, just a little note to confirm what they ‘knew’ was true from oral tradition and custom. But, as in the case of Battle Abbey, which claimed it had been given the same privileges as Canterbury, whole charters with faked seals would be worked up to present in a court case. In the case of Battle Abbey, seven faked charters were presented over a protracted legal battle. They won their case, even though people suspected their documents.
They got Edward the Confessor canonized with the faked biography called the Vita beati Edwardi, and dozens of monasteries claimed land rights using these dubious grounds.
Westminster forged its way into history, rewriting it in a way that served them and their clients. The forgeries created ceremonial records where there were none, and aggrandized abbots.
Conclusions
Write more white collar crime!
Ah-hem.
I mean, here is a writing idea.
Also, you may recall that forging charters are the tip of the ice berg, so to speak. I wrote another post about the fraud in chronicles and other formats. Do remember: the donation of Constantine, was a forgery similar to the ones Westminster was whipping out, in spirit if not in detail. Middle Ages: The Golden Age of Fraud | by Vivian Yongewa | Medium
So, tuck this thought in your brain: when, say, the Richard III fan club finds documents and starts waving them around, somebody should give them a hard second look.
Sources:
Uncovering the Legacy of Winchester Cathedral and Abbey: A Historian‘s Perspective — History Tools
46. Battle Abbey Forges Charters, Sussex, England mid 12th Century — True Crime Medieval