The Order of Brothelyngham was a group of men who formed themselves into a fake religious order in the city of Exeter in 1348, perhaps as a satire against the Church, which was commonly seen as corrupt, with its priests not living according to their vows in the late 14th century. They named themselves after a non-existent place which would have suggested chaos, wretchedness or some similar context to their contemporaries. They dressed as monks and elected a madman as their abbot, who ruled the men from a theatrical stage. The Brothelynghamites caused much trouble in the city and its environs, regularly emerging from their base—which may have been some form of medieval theatre—and terrorising the populace of Exeter. Bearing their 'Abbot' aloft before them, they kidnapped locals whom they held for ransom and extortion, although it is likely that they saw themselves as theatrical players rather than criminals. The Bishop of Exeter, John Grandisson, issued instructions to his agents in Chudleigh to investigate, condemn and excommunicate the order, explicitly for their disobedience and debauchery. As one of the few such gangs known to modern historians, the order of Brothelyngham is considered historiographically significant for what it implicitly suggests of anticlerical activities and attitudes in England during this period. The name was probably a play on the Order of Sempringham, which was the target of contemporary gossip and rumour on account of enclosing both monks and nuns on the same premises.
Background
The order of Brothelyngham was a pseudo-religious order created in Exeter in 1348 for the purpose of satirising the clergy, with no less antipathy for the fact that it was said to have been non-violent. Such "fool societies" were rare in England, argues the scholar E. K. Chambers, and the Order of Brothelyngham is one of the few known to historians. Historian G. G. Coulton has noted that "medieval buffoons often parodied ecclesiastical titles", for example, the Boy Bishop, and ecclesiastical parodies were favoured for their societies. They were an early expression of what became known later as Sociétés Joyeuses, also known as an "Abbey of Misrule"—particularly, comments the medievalistKatja Gvozdeva, with its emphasis on "carnivalesque rituals".
Riotousness in Exeter
The Brothelynham gang was composed, as were English monasteries during the period, solely of men. On repeated, regular occasions, the gang disturbed the peace of the city with assaults and riots. On 11 June that year John Grandisson, the Bishop of Exeter, writing from Chudleigh, instructed his chief agents in Exeter—the dean, the archdeacon, and the rector of Exeter Cathedral—to investigate the order and its members, whom he referred to as "malign men". They were instructed to condemn the order the following Sunday by means of proclamations in Exeter Cathedral and all the other churches and chapels of the city. They were to emphasise that those who disobeyed would not only be excommunicated but met with physical force, as the bishop could—and would—call upon the assistance of the city militia. Grandisson believed that their "order, or rather error", as he phrased it, were comparable to "thorns and thistles" growing in the field of religion, which needed to be cut away so as to prevent the Church being "marred or disordered". The leader of the Order—whom the members idolised—was a known "lunatic and raver"; he was appointed the Order's abbot. He enthroned and carried around on a mock-episcopal chair: his followers, in a similar vein, wore monks' habits and used horns to fanfare their abbot, who ruled them as from a theatrical stage, an imitation of the bishop's dias. However, the bishop's use of the word theatre—theatrum—needs analysis, says the historian R. P. Chope, as Exeter possessed no such building in this period. The Brothelyngham monks paraded their abbot around the streets of Exeter on something akin to a litter, and, with their abbot enthroned above them, they proceeded to beat up and rob such citizens as they encountered. The medievalist Derek Brewer has argued that, to modern historians and commentators, "such sport is as much folklore as drama", but the members of the order seem to have considered themselves actors rather than villains. To the Church, though, they were a criminal gang who—expanding their operations from the city—invaded local towns and villages, where, says Chambers, they "beset in a great company the streets and places", many of them on horse. They then extorted money from the inhabitants when they met them. They also kidnapped many people, both the religious and laity, from whom they would demand ransoms. Grandisson noted that, although the gang called this ludus,—"under colour and veil of a game, or rather a farce", he says—simply, "it was sheer rapine". They may well have been debauched in their behaviour, suggests Gvozdeva, and a contemporary record describes them as "a pestilent sect, guilty of great excesses" in the city. They were certainly disobedient, and either of which would be sufficient to ensure the bishop's ire. They appear not to have heeded the bishop's edicts, for he subsequently excommunicated the order, calling the men "a threat to religion, the King and the Church": "not least", comments Luxford, "to the monks of Cowick and St Nicholas's and the nuns of Polsloe".
Name
Although the order claimed to be "of Brothelyngham", this was a fiction—there was no such place. However, the name was not without implication and would have had meaning to contemporaries. They would have understood the word to have meant brethelyng, brethel or brothel, meaning , 'chaotic' 'wretched' or 'foul', rather than a bawdy house. The VictorianantiquaryFrancis Charles Hingeston-Randolph, who edited Gradisson's Registrum, suggested that it is possible that the title was bestowed upon the gang by the bishop himself, in his indignation that people so worthless would "guilty laugh Holy Religion", as he put it. Hingeston-Randolph also understood the Brothelynghamites to be more in the manner of a dissenting sect of the Church than a criminal gang. He commented, "I must confess that I cannot understand this. There was no such Order, and I believe that there was no such place". The name Brothelyngham'' was probably a satirical nod towards Sempringham Priory, which in the Middle Ages was also known humorously as Simplingham. The scholar Ian Mortimer suggests that the Premonstratensian monastery of Sempringham was an obvious target for popular satire, as it was the only abbey in the country which housed both monks and nuns under the same roof: "sniggering in some secular quarters inevitable".
Later events
In 1351, in a similar outbreak of anti-clerical fake monasticism in the area, another group of pseudo-monks—describing themselves as an "order of hermits"—occurred in Townstal. The men "claimed power by a special papal privilege to hear confession and offer the sacraments" without Grandisson's permission, or, indeed, any theological training whatsoever. Exeter and its theatre would seem to have been a focus for sociopathic behaviour, and in 1353 Grandisson issued an order to close down a performance called Ludum Noxium, a satire against the city's cloth-dressing industry, which was causing disturbance. Performed by their rivals the leather sellers, Grandisson condemned their play as being composed "in contumely and approbrium".
Historiography
The historiographical significance for historians, says Gvozdeva, is not that the gang wanted to be proper monks, have an abbot or be part of a mendicant order, but that they took upon themselves the appearance and, in their eyes, the attitudes of one. The medievalist Julian Luxford has described it illustrating the extent of ill-feeling felt by the general population towards the perceived "abbatial greed and luxurious living" they suspected the religeuse of commonly indulging in against their Rule. Luxford has argued that for the modern historian, the significance of the order is what their own expressed beliefs reveal of their own—and likely more general—views of the priesthood: that, for example, "monks and nuns blindly followed leaders, were idolatrous, avaricious, even luxurious ". "The insinuation of this satire about grasping abbots", says the historian Martin Heale, "is hard to mistake". In her study of French late-medieval theatre, Gvozdeva has suggested that the order of Brothelyngham "demonstrates particularly well the ambiguous relationship between the play, ritual and theatre", noting the theatrical nature of the order's activities: the members celebrate the investiture of their abbot with horns, it takes place takes place on trestles and his character is clearly intended to be a burlesque.
