Fourteenth Century evidence for the Cult of St Clement in north-east Somerset

In earlier posts I have discussed the Cult of St Clement and its supposed connection with the adoption of the Clement hereditary surname in England.  At that time I was unable to find any evidence for the Cult of St Clement in Somerset during the medieval period.  The purpose of this article is to correct this omission by considering a fourteenth century image of St Clement that has been on public display in north-east Somerset for over six hundred years. As a consequence of its prominent position it seems reasonable to think it was available to, and perhaps known by, generations of the Clement family who lived locally during that period.

The area of north-east Somerset in which the I-Y33765 Clement family originate is today within the Church of England Diocese of Bath & Wells which is centered on the medieval Bishops Palace and  Cathedral church in the City of Wells.  Wells is an ancient religious site (Rodwell, 1987). This is evident to the east of the present Gothic Cathedral where a group of natural springs, or wells, may have been venerated during the pre-Christian period and from which the settlement takes its name.  Near these springs archaeologist have found a late Roman mausoleum and a mid-Saxon Christian chapel together with the foundations of the first Cathedral which was built before the Norman invasion of England.  Inspite of this early Christian heritage Wells was never a monastic site and after 1088 the Bishop's seat was moved to the Abbey of the monks at nearby Bath.  However Wells has always been a focus for pilgrimage with many chantries which, together with its ownership of estates within the region, gave it both wealth and influence particularly after the Cathedra was eventually restored to Wells in 1274.

The Gothic Cathedral, which is broadly the structure we see today, was built between 1175 and 1490 (Harvey, 1987) and concurrent with this extended period of construction, between 1274 to 1347, we have documentary sources (South West Heritage, DD/HI/A/47 and DD/HI/A/48) that record the Clement family living about 19km (12miles) to the north, on the Wells to Bristol road, at Temple Cloud.  It was during this time, in the first half of the fourteenth century that the Lady Chapel was built and the Quiore extended (Ayres, 2004).  As part of these works the new windows were glazed with leaded stained glass.  Some of this medieval glass has survived the ravages of the intervening six centuries.  Among this group, a window now designated "South II" or "SII", situated in the upper celestory of the quoire, on the south wall at its eastern end, contains a named image of St Clement (see Figures 1 & 2).

Figure 1: The position of the St Clement image at Wells Cathedral. (a) External view looking at the south elevation of Wells Cathedral showing the celestory window, South II (SII) arrowed at the eastern end of the building (right). (b) Internal view of the quiore at Wells Cathedral with the celestory window SII arrowed, above and to the right of the High Altar.  (c) Plan of the eastern end of Wells Cathedral showing the six celestory windows in relation to the High Altar.  Windows NII & SII contain images of six Martyrs and windows NIII & SIII contain images of six Confessors. At Wells during medieval times, of the five Martyrs who are identified in Windows NII & SII, the Feast of St Clement, celebrated on the 23 November was the most important being celebrated by a service of nine lessons. 

According to Ayres (2004) the clerestory windows in the three new eastern bays of the Quiore were installed in the early 1340's.  In the most eastern bay, windows NII & SII contain almost complete medieval glass images of six named Martyrs.  Two show former Popes, St Clement and an unidentified martyred Pope.  Two are of beatified Anglo-Saxon Kings, St Oswald and St Ethelbert.  One is St George, England's patron saint and the final saint is St Blaise.  In the next bay, the stained glass images in windows NIII & SIII illustrate six Confessors, Pope Gregory, Abbot Giles, Bishop Richard, Bishop Brice, Father Andrew and an unidentified Bishop.  All the images show the figures standing under an ornate architectural canopy and originally all had their names inscribed as white capital letters in a box on the plinth at their feet.  Some of these names have been damaged to an extent that prevents the subject being identified with certainty.

Figure 2: Celestory window SII.   The window contains three stained glass panels each showing a full-length figure of a martyr standing beneath an ornate canopy with pinnacles. In order, left to right, the saints are; St Clement, St Oswald and St Ethelbert. 

The image of St Clement shows him dressed in mass vestments, wearing a conical papal crown and holding a cross attached to a staff in his right hand.  In his left hand he carries an inverted gold and white anchor, which in his iconography is a symbol representing the method of his martyrdom when he was supposedly thrown into the Black Sea tied to a ships anchor. 

Figure 3: Stained glass image of St Clement in Wells Cathedral created circa 1340.  The saint is shown dressed in mass vestments and wearing a conical papal crown.  He is carrying a green staff capped with a cross (left) and an inverted gold coloured anchor (right).

What seems to me particularly interesting about the St Clement window at Wells is its significant position within the Cathedral and the date at which it was commissioned and made.  

The location and associations of the saint's representation suggest that his cult was important to those members of the fourteenth century Cathedral community who commissioned his glass image to be made.  We can see that these worthy clerics chose St Clement to be in a group of six Martyrs who are positioned looking down upon the high altar of the Cathedral.  This group are placed to watch over the altar as eternal witnesses to the central Christian sacrament and ritual of the mass; that miracle of faith in which the bread and wine of the Last Supper are transformed into the body and blood of Christ.  The medieval Cathedral community placed St Clement in this privileged group along side two Saxon kings of England and facing a fellow martyred Pope, St Blaise and England's patron saint.  

Clearly we might expect that his image was included in this special location at a time when his cult was most popular in England.  However, according to Professor Crawford (2008), author of the definitive volume on the Cult of St Clement in England "the cult [of St Clement] faded in it's popularity in the thirteenth century......certainly there was a gap from about 1200 to maybe 1400 when the cult went into decline" (Crawford, 2019).  So, these comments make it noteworthy that in 1340-5, when the Quiore stained glass windows were installed, St Clement's cult was less popular in England and hence it may seem strange that the saint's image should be incorporated at that time in such a significant position within an important Cathedral. 

One explanation may be the springs after which Wells is named and the strong association between St Clement's cult and watery places.  However the springs at Wells are associated with St Andrew to whom the Cathedral itself is dedicated  and it consequently seems to me that this would be a rather tenuous connection when seeking to justify the prominent and significant position in which St Clement's image is displayed.  Another possibility is that St Clement's cult was particularly venerated in the area administered by the Bishop of Bath and Wells.  But, if this were so then surely there would be more evidence.  It seems to me very hard to make such a claim without some supporting evidence from Somerset parishes.  The only other pre-reformation stained glass image of the saint in the county is within the Rose Window at All Saints Church, Langport.  But this glass dates to the "revival" phase of St Clement's cult, circa 1450, and the saint's image is just one of the ten larger saints images portrayed in that window.  Similarly the Guild of Mariners chapel dedicated to St Clement in Bristol was founded in 1455 and so it too dates to the period of his later cult revival. Lastly an even later medieval statue of St Clement, circa 1500, is sited on the east elevation of the tower of the parish church dedicated to The Blessed Virgin Mary, Isle Abbots, Somerset. 

Whatever the true reason for commissioning St Clement's image in Wells Cathedral circa 1340, it seems to me reasonable to think that this beautiful example of medieval glass-work illustrates an active belief in the Cult of St Clement within the fourteenth century Christian tradition of north Somerset.  Having evidence that the cult was active in this area of the county at that time is important for our I-Y33765 Clement narrative since it is not until this date that hereditary surnames become common among the lower classes in England (Berg, 2019). 

In north Somerset our earliest evidence for the use of Clement as a family name agrees well with this timescale.  We have the name used by witnesses to a marriage settlement apparently dating from 1274 (South West Heritage, DD/HI/A/48/4) and to a land grant dated 1283 (South West Heritage, DD/HI/A/47/8).  Both witnesses are members of an extended Clement family who then lived at Temple Cloud, a settlement on the Bristol to Wells road, that abuts the Domesday Manor of Clutton.  The lord of this manor in 1060 was a Scandinavian thegn, Thorkel the Dane, and as I have explored in an earlier article, the Cult of St Clement had particular significance for the seafaring societies of Scandinavia.  In England and Denmark this was particularly the case during the reign of Cnut the Great (Crawford, 2008).  

So it seems possible that, bearing in mind the Scandinavian origins of our I-Y33765 clade, our Clement patrilineal family name could have become adopted because, even in the restrictive feudal society of thirteenth century Somerset, an active Christian faith and belief in St Clement's cult was able to evoke some subliminal folk memory of a distant ancestral homeland. On the other hand, it might seem more logical and safer to explain this interesting association of hagio-geography, Y-DNA and hereditary surname as an example of simple coincidence.

References

Ayres, T. (2004), The Medieval Stained Glass of Wells Cathedral, No.4 Corpus Vitrearum Medii Aevi, Great Britain, OUP / British Academy, 838pp

Berg, A. (2019), An Economic Theory of Surnames (July 11, 2019). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3418074 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3418074

Crawford, B.E (2008) The Churches Dedicated to St Clement in Medieval England: a Hagio-geography of the Seafarer's Saint in 11th Century North Europe, 237pp. Axioma, St Petersburg.

Crawford, B.E (2019)  The cult of St Clement and excavations at St Clements Church in Trondheim.  A lecture given on 18 February 2019 at the St Andrews Institute of Medieval Studies.  Sound recording available at https://soundcloud.com/user-37693948/barbara-crawford-excavations-at-st-clements-church-trondheim

Harvey, J.H. (1987), The Building of Wells Cathedral, Chapters 3 & 4, 52-101, In: Wells Cathedral, a History, Ed. LS Colchester, Open Books Publishing Ltd, Wells

Rodwell, W. (1987), The Anglo-Saxon and Norman Churches at Wells,1-23, In: Wells Cathedral, a History, Ed. LS Colchester, Open Books Publishing Ltd, Wells