1The career of Master Vacarius (c. 1115/1120-c.1200) was first treated in detail by the German scholar C. F. C. Wenck in his Magister Vacarius, primus juris romani in Anglia professor (Leipzig 1820), after acquiring a manuscript containing his most notable work, the Liber Pauperum.1 It intrigued many other nineteenth-century German legal historians, latterly attracting the attention of Felix Liebermann,2 whose English friend F.W. Maitland also made a significant contribution by editing Vacarius’s Summa de Matrimonio,3 whilst another contemporary, T. E. Holland, collected the chronicle evidence for Vacarius’s career in England and wrote a brief account for the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography.4 In editing the Liber Pauperum, Francis de Zulueta summarised what was known about Vacarius by 1927.5 But his career has continued to fascinate those interested in the revival of Roman civil law in the twelfth century,6 as well as ecclesiastical historians and those of the first universities. Here important modern contributions have come from Sir Richard Southern and Leonard Boyle OP.7 But new facts continue to accrue about his career and the chronology, purpose and import of his various works are still being re-assessed.8

2Originally from Lombardy, Vacarius was trained in the schools of northern Italy, almost certainly at Bologna in the 1130s in the heyday of the Four Doctors who succeeded Irnerius, as his usual title of Magister implies and as references in recently-edited notes (lectura) that seem to reflect his teaching on the Institutes make clear.9 He then came to England and joined the household (familia) of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury at some point in the mid 1140s.10 Apart from short visits to the papal court and to France,11 he spent the rest of his long life in England, never gaining high office but making a respectable career as an ecclesiastical administrator and lawyer, an unusual cursus honorum but not, as we shall see, unique in his generation. He also produced other legal and theological tracts besides those already mentioned, suggesting a more prolonged period of formal teaching and study than can be precisely documented.12 Around 1159, by which time he had taken Holy orders,13 and certainly by 1162, he had transferred to the service of Roger de Pont l’Évêque, archbishop of York (1154-1181), whom he had known as archdeacon of Canterbury before his election.14 In 1164, he was in all likelihood the Master V. who was the archbishop’s messenger to Pope Alexander III, then in Paris, with a petition over Roger’s claim to consecrate the bishop of St Andrews in Scotland and other matters.15 It was Roger who provided Vacarius with his most reliable source of income when, before 1166-1167, he gave him one of the richest prebends in his gift, a canonry attached to the Collegiate Church of St Mary’s, Southwell in Nottinghamshire where the archbishop also had an important manor house. This prebend can safely be identified as that of Norwell Overhall and his tenure of this office will be the main focus of this short paper.16 But before turning to this theme, an outline of the rest of Vacarius’s career may be helpful.

3In 1171 he was a key intermediary in helping to clear Archbishop Roger of various charges arising from his alleged implication in the events which had led to murder of Thomas Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, whom Roger had constantly opposed.17 It is possible that Vacarius was one of the messengers that the archbishop sent to Rome where on 25 March they promised he would abide by the pope’s ruling.18 In writing on 23 October 1171 to Archbishop Rotrou of Rouen and Theobald, bishop of Amiens, to remit the suspension that had been placed on Roger, provided that he purged himself of the charges arising from his quarrels with Becket, Alexander III specifically asked them to accept evidence from Master Vacarius,19 and he was definitely with Roger in France in the autumn for the formal ceremony of absolution which occurred at Aumale in eastern Normandy on 6 December where Vacarius was present.20

4It seems very probable, in the light of later events, that it was as a result of renewed contacts with the pope over this business that Vacarius’s negotiating and diplomatic skills came to be more widely recognized. For the last decade of Alexander III’s life, the pope made considerable use of him as one of his judges-delegate in England. Usually he was appointed in tandem with others but occasionally authorised to act on his own, though this activity ceased once Alexander III was dead.21 The long vacancy which occurred at York after the near-simultaneous death of Archbishop Roger in 1181 and Henry II’s unwillingness, probably for financial reasons, to fill the position quickly until on his deathbed in July 1189 he offered it to his faithful but illegitimate son, Geoffrey,22 may have been important factors in restricting Vacarius’s wider responsibilities. But he was, of course, at now more than 60 years of age, an old man by contemporary standards. Nevertheless, he continued to serve Roger’s successor in the archdiocese of York until his own death by then at a very advanced age. The latest precisely-dated documentary reference to him is in a bull of Innocent III issued on 13 August 1198 authorising him to preach a crusade in the northern province,23 though he was to be assisted by a neighbour, the prior of Thurgarton, Nottinghamshire,24 and by a Hospitaller and Templar. He probably died around 1200, though the exact date remains unknown.

5Besides his modestly rewarded career as an ecclesiastical administrator, the main stages of which can be reconstructed with confidence as outlined above, Vacarius was also the author of several tracts, two already mentioned. Some of these, too, appear to date to the 1170s or early 1180s at the latest, when he may have also delivered more formal lectures in Oxford or elsewhere.25 One, the Liber contra multiplices et varios errores, is a refutation of the heresies of a former school-friend, Hugo Speroni, who was consul of Piacenza between 1165-7; perhaps they had renewed contact when Vacarius was in Italy in 1171? In any event Hugo’s manuscript was brought to Vacarius in England by one of his own nephews, Leonard.26 As Southern summarises the points at issue, essentially ‘Speroni’s heresies added up to an attack on the efficacy of the whole ecclesiastical structure and discipline of the Church’. Vacarius’s answers were ‘forbearing and good-humoured, though not without their spice of invective’ and Southern characterises him as ‘a thoughtful, well-read, orthodox man, who disapproved of modern novelties, so far as he knew about them, and retained, though without excessive emphasis, a predilection for Roman Law’.27 An earlier theological tract, probably written by the 1160s, the Tractatus de assumpto homine, was on the ‘manner of the union between the divine and human natures of Christ’, technically the hypostatic union, a contentious issue arising from controversial thinking by Gilbert de la Porée (d. 1154) on this subject, further publicised in the late 1150s by Peter Lombard.28 There was also his concise consideration of what constituted a valid marriage, the Summa de Matrimonio, which some authorities date to the mid 1150s, and others to the early 1160s, most agreeing that it must predate 1177 when a ruling of Alexander III resolved some of the issues that Vacarius discussed essentially from a civilian point of view rather than that of a canon lawyer.29 In practice, there is at least one case concerning marriage law that he was asked to adjudicate as a papal judge-delegate.30

6Vacarius’s most important work was his Liber pauperum, a guide in nine books to the essential texts of Justinianic law, made up of key excerpts from the Corpus Iuris Civilis. Arranged for poor students, who could not afford to acquire expensive complete volumes, it was certainly used as a textbook in the 1190s at Oxford where those who relied on it were called pauperistae.31 It briefly inspired what Peter Stein has described as a ‘Vacarian School’ of glossators, which he sees as influencing no less a figure than Bracton in the thirteenth century.32 But when that work was written and what the exact connection between Vacarius and the incipient University of Oxford may have been remain unresolved issues despite the best endeavours of some leading twentieth-century scholars. Was it Vacarius who introduced the study of Roman civil law into England (a position now generally accepted)?33 Did he specifically teach at Oxford (more debateable)? If so, when? And if not, where else may he have done so? Canterbury, Northampton and Lincoln have been suggested as alternatives and, as we shall see, perhaps Southwell should also be considered a possibility.34 Did he write the Liber Pauperum early in his time in England, or was it more likely the work of his maturer years, that very busy decade for him of the 1170s, though reflecting the teaching and ideas of his youth as Peter Stein has most forcibly argued?35 These are just a few questions that continue to receive differing answers.36 Nor can they be resolved here, in what can only be a footnote to the wealth of modern Vacarian studies, and one simply intended to place him more securely in his English locale than previous writers have done.37 It is offered in memory of a dear friend, with whom I once walked round the Minster at Southwell in which Vacarius held his prebend and visited the parish church of Norwell of which as a consequence he was parson, and the village where he was the main landlord.

7The origins of the prebendal system at Southwell are largely cloaked in obscurity before 1066. What is clear is that it was still evolving in Vacarius’s day and that he himself had a hand in shaping its future, though there is no direct evidence to confirm Southern’s bold assertion that he enjoyed ‘a position of considerable splendour as head of the splendid collegiate church of Southwell’.38 Nevertheless it serves to concentrate attention on the place where Vacarius, when not engaged in other business, administrative or academic, seems to have spent most of the last 40 years of his life. A fresh look at his activities in Southwell and Nottinghamshire may therefore be of some interest to determine what role he may have played in local society.

8 Since the mid tenth century, when King Eadwig made a grant of lands in and around Southwell to Oscytel, archbishop of York, in a charter that is traditionally dated to 956 AD, the minster church at Southwell had been subordinate to that of York, and Nottinghamshire had become part of the metropolitan diocese of York.39 On the analogy of minsters at Beverley and Ripon, which enjoyed a similar relationship to York and where collegiate foundations had also developed by the late Anglo-Saxon period, it used to be argued that the original establishment for canons at Southwell numbered seven though when the Chapter was first formed remains uncertain.40 Near-contemporary evidence suggests that it was Archbishop Ealdred (1061-9) who particularly encouraged the communis vita at Southwell by building a refectory, insisting on the observation of canonical regulations and purchasing with his own resources estates with which he endowed the Chapter. In doing so he appears to have been influenced by personal observation of reforms being carried out under Lotharingian influence by Archbishop Hermann of Cologne, whom he visited in 1054.41 Two successors, Archbishops Thomas (1109-1114) and Thurstan (1114-1140), were also particularly concerned to strengthen canonical life at Southwell,42 while Henry I confirmed various privileges for the canons. It was under Thurstan too that the major part of the still-surviving Minster was rebuilt on a magnificent scale in the Anglo-Norman style of Romanesque architecture, affording the Chapter a very impressive church in which to perform the Divine Office.43

9By the time the Chapter of Southwell reached its full complement in 1291, there were 16 canons or prebendaries, a number that remained constant until the abolition of the Chapter in 1841. Since the foundation of nine of those prebends can be documented in the post-Conquest period, it has usually been argued that the seven oldest must predate 1066. Among those for which no evidence of foundation survives are those of Norwell Overhall and Norwell Palishall, which most likely owe their existence to Archbishop Ealdred’s reforms.44 Although this is nowhere explicitly stated in contemporary sources, collateral evidence, explained in more detail below, indicates that it was Overhall, the richest of the Norwell prebends, that Vacarius held. By the time he received his prebend three additional ones had certainly been created since the early twelfth century, most recently that of Halloughton by Archbishop Roger c. 1162 for another Lombard clerk in his service, Roger de Capella.45 Nor was he the only fellow-countryman of Vacarius in the Chapter since at least three other Lombards can be identified as canons of Southwell in the late twelfth century.46

10A further expansion occurred towards the end of his life, initially at his own prompting, when between 1191 and 1194, Archbishop Geoffrey authorised Vacarius to share the revenues of his prebend with a nephew, Reginald. This allowed the unique creation of a third Norwell prebend, later simply called Tertia Pars, though one which was much poorer than Overhall and Palishall.47 At much the same time Geoffrey also authorised the division of another wealthy prebend of Southwell, that of (North) Muskham, in a parish adjacent to Norwell, to form a new one at South Muskham. He also confirmed the only lay endowment of a prebend, by Pavia de Malluvel and her son, Robert, at Rampton.48 Two further prebends were added by 1291.49

11As a result, for most of Vacarius’s tenure of Norwell Overhall, there should have been nine or ten other canons in the Chapter, rising by the end of his life or shortly thereafter to 14. There was also a growing body of resident chaplains and clerks serving the Minster; vicars choral are first mentioned in 1248, though they were probably already present in the late twelfth century.50 Moreover, since the medieval Chapter, apart from one brief period, did not have a Dean or Provost at its head,51 evidence from the thirteenth century shows that the prebendaries of Norwell Overhall and Palishall, together with Normanton,52 enjoyed considerable authority in running the Chapter’s affairs. They were jointly responsible, for instance, for the common fund and for supervising the collection of tithe.53 They may well have already done so in the time of Vacarius, but this cannot be demonstrated from surviving evidence.

12There is no doubt, however, that from early in his tenure, Vacarius took his part in the business of the Chapter, even though at first he must also have spent much time on Archbishop Roger’s affairs and possibly also spent time at Oxford or elsewhere teaching (since his learned writings seem inconceivable without at least occasional access to a well-stocked library and the cut and thrust of academic debate). Charters and other documents reveal him dealing with business from all over the huge archdiocese, and even if most of this was transacted in courts at York or Southwell, he must occasionally have visited far-flung places to complete cases.54 Although he was not present in Nottingham when a sentence he had drawn up with the prior of Bridlington in a case concerning the abbey of Rievaulx and Alan de Ryedale was delivered on 24 March 1176,55 he witnessed Roger’s confirmation of a grant by William de Heriz to Bradebusk hospital near the priory of Thurgarton, some five kilometres from Southwell, revealing the actions of the archbishop and his familia locally, probably in the late 1170s.56

13His growing importance as a papal judge-delegate involved him in business in the dioceses of Lincoln and Norwich as well.57 As noted already, he also occasionally went abroad: Liebermann was the first to suggest that the privileges granted to Southwell by Alexander III in July 1171 may well have been obtained through his intervention when he visited Rome earlier that year.58 Most of the surviving charter evidence, however, indicates that it is after Roger’s death in 1181 that Vacarius devoted himself much more regularly to the affairs of the Chapter at Southwell, or found himself in demand as a witness to charters being drawn up by laymen and women living in the parishes around the Minster.

14In this capacity, for example, he witnessed five charters relating to the Cistercian abbey of Rufford, which lay 15 kilometres north-west of Southwell.59 On three occasions, these were drawn up in the Chapter at Southwell and concerned land at Hockerton, Caunton or Kelham which lay between Southwell and the village of Norwell where Vacarius was parson. There is a large rectangular moated site to the south of the parish church here that still marks the location of Overhall prebendal manor.60 It is not impossible that Vacarius was himself responsible for its construction, since he clearly spent time in the village and took a close interest in its affairs (as we shall see in more detail below).61 In two Rufford charters, he is accompanied by his nephew Leonard, who brought Speroni’s tract to England in the 1170s. In what may well be the latest of the surviving charters that he witnessed, c. 1196 x 1200, once more for Rufford, land at Kelham was again concerned.62

15Although by then he no longer travelled far, towards the end of his life Vacarius appears to have acted as representative of the archbishop of York in several local Nottinghamshire cases, especially in connection with the Premonstratensian abbey of Welbeck. This lay about 25 kilometres north-west of Norwell and Southwell, beyond the road from Nottingham to Blyth.63 He was also fit enough to visit Lincoln (some 40 kilometres from Southwell or Norwell) around 1190 where he witnessed a charter of Hugh of Avalon, bishop of Lincoln, confirming to Malton priory, Yorkshire, possession of the churches of Ancaster and Winterton at opposite ends of the large county of Lincolnshire.64

16It was Liebermann who first drew attention to an entry in the Pipe Rolls for 1166-7 that showed the men of Norwell paying a fine of half a mark (6s 8d) on behalf of Master Vacarius, highlighting his position not only as prebendary but also as landlord.65 Further fines were levied on him in the 1180s, chiefly for infringements of Forest law which then applied to the lands which the archbishop of York possessed in the county of Nottingham as much as they did in the royal forest of Sherwood, estates which were particularly vulnerable to royal depredations because they were in the king’s hand during the long vacancy in the archbishopric between 1181 and 1189.66 Large parts of the parish of Norwell itself were indeed still wooded, especially to the west of the village where the land rises gradually towards the neighbouring parishes of Kneesall, Laxton and Ossington. From evidence contained in the Liber Albus, the White Book of Southwell, a cartulary of the Minster’s deeds, it seems likely that Vacarius and his fellow prebendary of Palishall had been encouraging the clearance of woodland though it is only around 1220 that this movement can be traced with any precision.

17A charter issued a few years previously by Alan de Ripon, canon of Southwell, mentions Palishall for the first time,67 as well as the ‘field’ of Norwell Woodhouse and half an acre in the ‘new meadow’ of Norwell, while his successor as prebendary of Palishall, Robert de Lexington (or Laxton), subsequently one of Henry III’s most distinguished judges, confirmed his predecessor’s grant shortly afterwards.68 Archbishop Walter Grey, in 1222 or earlier, likewise confirmed these grants by Robert de Laxton and another canon of Southwell, Henry de Nottingham,69 to Simon de Hougrave of lands in the vill and field of Norwell Woodhouse as well as in Norwell itself.70 Later charters in the Liber Albus and elsewhere show the process of colonisation continuing even at the end of the thirteenth century.71 New arable cut from heavy clay lands (Norwell lies in an area often simply called ‘The Clay’) was being brought into cultivation gradually over a long period of time. And it is in this light that we can already interpret the fines on Vacarius pro wasto boscorum suorum et transgressione assise in 1184-5 and subsequent years.72

18In this he was not alone: several other canons of Southwell were similarly fined in these years following Forest eyres, as were Vacarius’s neighbours the Knights Hospitaller of Ossington and Winkburn, and the Cistercians of Rufford. In 1186-7, for instance, other canons mulcted following a forest eyre by Geoffrey FitzPeter, included Gilbert, Alan de Pickering and Laurence, whilst Andrew owed the enormous sum of 40 marks for illegal hunting and receipt of venison (pro venatione recepta et contra prohibitionem remota), Roger de Derby owed 5 marks pro defalta et purprestura, though he was already dead, and William de Muskham owed another 5 marks but was in default.73 Presumably the profits to be made from increased rent rolls offset any penalties owing to the king in a period when population was rising quickly and the economy was booming, especially when it is also clear that the canons were able to procrastinate over paying their fines before finally persuading Henry II to ‘disafforest’ the archiepiscopal and prebendal lands of Southwell.74

19Other evidence connecting Vacarius particularly with Norwell itself can be seen in him witnessing the grant of Reginald, son of Sir Reginald de Collingham, to the Chapter of all his lands and appurtenances in Norwell in order to pay for three candles on the days when a Mass of the Virgin at Prime was celebrated in the Minster.75 More importantly, there are the arrangements he made for appointing a vicar at Norwell. The charter which records this has already been cited because it provides evidence for creation of the third Norwell prebend.76 At the same time, it also shows that Vacarius must have acted personally as rector or parson of Norwell, performing pastoral duties in the parish, even though his predecessors had appointed vicars to carry these out.77 Hence, too, his need for a manor-house in the village as well as his wish in old age to share his burdens with his nephew, Reginald. This provided a happy solution to two matters: ensuring future pastoral provision for Norwell as well as providing a living for one of his several nephews.78 Resulting from this division, subsequently the prebendaries of both Overhall and Tertia Pars retained the right to appoint a vicar so that two clerks served simultaneously in the parish church, an unusual arrangement that was eventually formalised in 1284.79 It remained in place until the early years of the eighteenth century when the two moieties were finally combined in one vicar, one of the most long-lasting legacies of Master Vacarius as parson of Norwell.80

20Finally, we can ask whether he left any still visible memorial testifying to his presence? Domesday Book (1086), records that:

21In Norwell, St Mary of Southwell had 12 bovates of land to the geld. [There is] land for 6 ploughs. There are now 2 ploughs in demesne; and 22 villans and 3 bordars having 7 ploughs. There is a church and a priest, and 1 mill [rendering] 12d. and 1 fishery, and 73 acres of meadow, [and] woodland pasture 2 leagues long and 1 broad. TRE worth £6; now 100s.81

22Nothing of the Domesday church, which was presumably a small wooden structure, now remains. However, some masonry, apparently dating to the early twelfth century, when the church was first rebuilt in stone has recently been identified. The south doorway, which displays two simple water-leaf capitals of comparable quality and style to work done in Southwell Minster and which may be dated c. 1150 x 1180, would certainly have existed in Vacarius’s time. It is just conceivable that a major enlargement of the church, beginning with construction of a new south aisle around 1200, may be attributable to his initiative.82 A century later, a successor at Overhall, Mr John Clarell, left money in his will for the repair and rebuilding of the Chancel that has resulted in the present impressive east window.83 Vacarius may have acted in a similar generous fashion, arranging for work to be done by masons usually employed at the Minster. There is also a fine, but broken, incised geometrical cross of c. 1200 that could conceivably have served as a gravemarker if he was buried in the church, though there is no way in which this can now be proved.84

23Such details may appear to be modest ones on which to end an account of the long and distinguished career of Master Vacarius, ‘an honest man, very learned in the law’ as Robert de Torigny, abbot of Mont-Saint-Michel put it.85 He had placed his many talents at the service of popes and archbishops, and had been acquainted with most distinguished and famous figures in church and state in Anglo-Norman and Angevin England during his lifetime including Thomas Becket, John of Salisbury and the saintly Hugh of Avalon. He had grappled with some of the most challenging intellectual issues of his day in law and theology, exercising learned academics in the schools of Bologna, Paris and Oxford, long after his own student days, leaving a considerable legacy of written work behind him which recent research has placed in context revealing its contemporary distinctiveness and originality.86 But his Norwell ties serve to remind us that he also had real concern for the pastoral welfare of his small flock of country parishioners, perhaps a community of around 350-400 people in his day,87 just as he well understood the needs of poor students for whom the Liber Pauperum was written.88 This occurred, in all likelihood, after he had already become parson of Norwell.89

Part of Foliate Cross c. 1200, St Laurence’s, Norwell, Notts. Photo: Michael Jones

Nottinghamshire at the end of the twelth century (showing places mentioned in the text).