APPENDIX

Traces of Games played by Novices and Boys in the Cloisters

It is only in the last thirty years that the curious reliques of games played in the Middle Ages by Novices and boys placed under the tuition and care of the Monks were observed by J. T. Micklethwaite, the late erudite architect of Westminster Abbey.

Several good examples of these game-boards occur in the Gloucester Cloister, especially in the Cloister Alley appropriated to the Novices.

The games in question generally were “Nine Men’s Morris” and varieties of the game of “Fox and Geese.”

Similar game-boards have been also found in the Benedictine Cloisters of Westminster Abbey, Canterbury, Norwich and Durham, and in the secular Cloisters of Chichester and of Salisbury.

These are generally found in what must have been the Novices’ quarters. In some instances, however, they exist in places where they were probably made by the builders of the walls or stairs, to play on during their leisure time. Examples of these latter have been discovered in Scarborough Castle and in Norwich Castle. An admirable example has been quite recently found by the writer of these Notes, on the stair of the South-Eastern turret of the S. Transept, Gloucester Cathedral.

There is little doubt but that in these game-boards we have reliques of the mediæval games of the fourteenth century and even of a yet earlier date. If careful search is made in Cloisters which have not been destroyed or restored, it is probable that other interesting examples will come to light.

A careful and exhaustive paper by Mr. Micklethwaite on these mediæval games will be found in the Archæological Journal, xlix.

S. PETRONILLA’S ALTAR

The earliest Historical Detail existing in connection with the Gloucester Abbey

The earliest detail connected with the Abbey of Gloucester that we possess is connected with this once famous but now well-nigh forgotten Saint. In the Historia Monasterii S. Petri Gloucestriæ, a very ancient collection of documents belonging to the great Benedictine House put together by Abbot Froucester, circa A.D. 1381, we find an entry which relates how Kyneburg, the sister of King Osric, who built the first Gloucester Church, after ruling the Religious House founded by her brother for twenty-nine years, was buried before the Altar of S. Petronilla in the year of grace 710.

Another entry in the same Historia tells us that Queen Eadburg, the widow of Wulphere, King of the Mercians, the second Abbess, A.D. 710 to A.D. 735, was buried by the side of Kyneburg before S. Petronilla’s Altar. King Osric himself, who built the first church and founded the religious House, and who died in A.D. 729, was also buried according to the same record “in ecclesia Sancti Petri coram altari sanctae Petronillae in aquilonari parte ejusdem Monasterii.”

Leland, the secretary of King Henry VIII, writing of his official visit to Gloucester after the suppression of the religious House, circa A.D. 1540—sums up the immemorial tradition in the following words—“King Osric (the founder) first laye in S. Petronell’s Chapel of the Gloucester Abbey.”

Professor Freeman, the historian, comments on these various notes and entries as follows: “It is certain that there was a church of some kind, a predecessor, however humble, of the great Cathedral Church of Gloucester that now is, at least from the days of Osric (circa A.D. 729). But more than that we cannot say, except that it contained an altar of S. Petronilla.”

Now who was this S. Petronilla who was thus intimately connected with our church in the earliest years of its existence?

We believe without any hesitation that she was the daughter of S. Peter, the Lord’s Apostle and follower. Modern scholarship, however, represented by Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, denies this, and asserts that the immemorial derivation of Petronilla from Petro (Petrus), is etymologically wrong, and that the name Petronilla is connected, not with Petro but with Petronius—the founder of the imperial Flavian family. Lightfoot then proceeds to suggest that Petronilla was a member of the Flavian House, and became an early convert to Christianity, and was subsequently buried with other members of the Flavian family in the Domitilla Cemetery, where her tomb was recently discovered by De Rossi, the Roman archæologist, to whose life-long labours we owe so much of the Catacomb lore which has excited so much interest in recent days.

Curiously enough, late Roman Catholic scholars and writers join hands here with Bishop Lightfoot in denying the paternity of the great Apostle, but on different grounds. Modern Roman Catholic theology shrinks from acknowledging that S. Peter had a daughter at all, preferring to believe that S. Peter was free from all family and home ties.

De Rossi, however, with other Italian scholars, sweeps away the etymological difficulty[30] pressed by Lightfoot, and while declining to give up the ancient “Petrine” tradition, maintains that Petronilla was a daughter, but simply a spiritual daughter of the Apostle, in other words merely an ordinary convert of S. Peter. This curious explanation of what later theology felt was a difficulty seems to have been first suggested by Baronius.

The etymological difficulty pressed by Bishop Lightfoot and other scholars, and the more important doctrinal question which has perplexed the later Roman Catholic theologians, in no way seems to have weighed with scholars and divines in earlier times; this will be seen from a brief examination of the estimation in which S. Petronilla has been ever held.

As early as the closing years of the fourth century, Siricius, Bishop of Rome, A.D. 391-395, built the important Basilica lately discovered in the Domitilla cemetery or catacomb on the Via Ardeatina, but although the Basilica in question contained the historic tombs of the famous martyrs SS. Nereus and Achilles, as well as the remains of S. Petronilla, Siricius dedicated the Basilica in question to S. Petronilla. Surely the Bishop of Rome (Siricius) would never have dedicated this important and very early church to a comparatively unknown member of the Flavian House, still less would he have called it by the name of a simple convert of the great Apostle. Petronilla in his days must have possessed some very especial title to honour.

In Siricius’ eyes there was evidently no shadow of doubt that the Petronilla for whom he had so deep a veneration was the veritable daughter of S. Peter, and as time went on the devotion which for many centuries was paid to her remains, is a clear indication of the view which was universally taken of her illustrious lineage. We will give some striking examples of this.

The Wanderings of the Remains of S. Petronilla

The sarcophagus which contained the body of S. Petronilla rested in its original position in the Basilica of Siricius until A.D. 787, when it was removed to one of the little Rotunda Chapels which once stood adjacent to the south side of the great Church of S. Peter on the Vatican Hill. The reason for this first translation is singularly interesting, and shows in a remarkable way the deep veneration in which the remains of the daughter of S. Peter were held. S. Peter was specially honoured by the Frankish nation, and S. Petronilla his daughter, sharing in this special devotion, was styled by Pope Paul I, circa A.D. 757, the “auxiliatrix” of Pepin, the king of the Franks, and when Pope Stephen II, circa A.D. 752, was on a visit to Pepin’s court, he promised as a pledge of the alliance between the Papacy and the Franks against the Lombards, to remove the body of S. Petronilla, who was evidently specially venerated by the Frankish people, of course owing to her illustrious parentage, from the Basilica of Siricius on the Via Ardeatina, where it was exposed to the profanities of Barbarian raiders, to the more secure shelter of the walls which protected the Church of S. Peter.

This promise was carried out by Paul I, the brother and successor of Stephen II, circa A.D. 757, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla was placed in the Rotunda Chapel above mentioned. This Rotunda Chapel contained the ashes of the wife of Honorius, Maria the daughter of Stilicho, and other Imperial remains, but after the translation of the remains of S. Peter’s daughter it was known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla, and it was especially placed under the care of the kings of France.

There the body of Petronilla rested until A.D. 1471, when in consequence of a restoration undertaken at the cost of Louis XI of France, the sacred sarcophagus was seen and the ancient simple inscription on it, “Aureliæ Petronillae fil dulcissimae” was copied. Early in the fourteenth century, when Old S. Peter’s was demolished, the Rotunda Chapel was pulled down, and the sarcophagus of S. Petronilla lay for many years neglected in the Sacristy of New S. Peter’s. It was subsequently ruthlessly broken up when so many ancient monuments perished in the building work of the New S. Peter’s, and the pieces of the sarcophagus were used as a pavement.

The remains, however, of the Saint were transferred to a new coffin and were eventually, circa A.D. 1606, placed under the altar where they now rest. The spot in question is known as the Chapel of S. Petronilla. It is in the extreme end of the right transept of S. Peter’s. Above the resting-place of the Saint is a large mosaic copied from Guercino’s picture of Petronilla raised from the tomb.

There is a curious custom belonging to this Chapel, bearing upon the ancient tradition connecting France and S. Petronilla. The French Ambassador, after presenting his credentials to the Pope, used at once to visit this Chapel of S. Petronilla in S. Peter’s.

Again reverting to the eighth century testimony above referred to in the case of the action of Popes Stephen II and Paul I, when the remains of S. Petronilla were translated from the Basilica of Siricius to the Rotunda Chapel by the great church—there was a striking witness to what was the general belief of that age in the parentage of the then famous Saint, in an inscription on an altar at Bourges dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary and other saints, an inscription attributed to Alcuin, the Minister of Charlemagne, circa A.D. 790. The inscription consists of eight hexameter lines. One line runs thus: “Et Petronilla patris praeclari filia Petri.”

In England, besides the famous reference to the Altar and Chapel of S. Petronilla in the ancient church of Osric at Gloucester, there is only one church known to be dedicated to S. Petronilla; it is at Whepstead, near Bury S. Edmunds, where her name is curiously abbreviated as S. Parnel.

The close connection between the Royal Mercian and Northumbrian family of Osric, the founder of the Abbey (Cathedral) of Gloucester, and S. Petronilla, the daughter of S. Peter, the Saint so strangely venerated by the Frankish peoples, is unknown.