1915] on The Archives of Westminster Abbey 463 



leaving Bruges they entered Avignon, and the day following they 

 joined Master S )ntham. 



I turn aside for a moment to other documents, for Master 

 Southam had with him at Avignon another Westminster monk, 

 John Farnago, who becomes Colchester's paymaster and has left an 

 account * of what he laid out on his behalf. Here we get the date 

 of his arrival with the man Gerard— July 24— and the cost of their 

 bed and board till August 19. Farnago bought his brother-monk 

 a fresh outfit — cape, tunic and hood of black Benedictine cloth, a 

 scapular and cowl and a plain coUobium— bought, this last, from 

 Hagyuus, a Jew : probably his exact name was Hayyim. He also 

 bought him a horse for his journey from Avignon to Marseilles, 

 where he was to take ship, and gave him some cash in hand. So 

 Colchester turned his back on Avignon, hardly realizing perhaps that 

 when on August 14, five days before setting out, he had witnessed 

 the probate of Cardinal Langham's will, he had been concerned with 

 a document which was to exercise a vast effect on the development 

 of the church and the convent buildings of St. Peter, "Westminster. 



William Colchester omits to date his arrival in Rome, but we 

 can tell roughly the outside limit. He says that, having got there, 

 he had to move on to Anagni, about forty miles southward from 

 Rome on the road to Naples, and we know that Gregory XI., who 

 spent the summer of 1377 there, returned to Rome on-Xovember 17. f 

 No doubt our monk returned with him, for the first date that he 

 mentions is Xovember 20. But I shall leave him to retain his 

 various counsel, Italian and English, and to pay their fees, onlj^ 

 asking you to notice that we are still using his expressions — "retinuit 

 duos aduocatos" — and are not always innocent of his practices, as, for 

 instance, when he gives six florins to the valet — " cubicularius " — of the 

 Cardinal of Milan, with a view to his stirring up his master to sign 

 a certain document ; he did so, he explains, for greater security, 

 because at the moment there was a fierce altercation between the 

 parties to the suit. 



But the expenses rose suddenly, for Gregory XI. died on 

 March 27, 1378, and there can have been few more exciting 

 experiences for an observant traveller than the election J which set 

 Bartolommeo Prignano, Archbishop of Bari, upon what Colchester 

 calls the "apex of the chief apostolate." The choice must have 

 pleased our monk, for the new Pope was a protege of the French 

 Cardinal of Pampeluna, the friend and executor of our Cardinal 

 Langham. Bat the actual effect was disastrous. Urban YI. ruled 

 with "Neapolitan fire." "Inter Papam et Cardinales," says Colchester, 

 " magna oriebatur discordia." Many Cardinals and curials fled secretly, 

 and among the latter the two advocates whom he had retained. But, 



* ^lun. 9228. t Pastor, Geschichte, i. p. 113. 



X Pastor, Geschichte, i. p. 118 ; Creighton, History of the Papacy, i. 61 f!. 



2 H 2 



