Saturday 18 February 2017

17th September 1456 - Francis Lovell`s birthday?

The question when Francis Lovell`s birthday was is one that can, perhaps, no longer be answered with complete certainty, but an educated guess can be made.

There is no primary source in which his birthday is mentioned, and speculations vary by as much as three years. In the Inquisition Post Mortem for his father, John Lovell, Francis was described once as seven years old and once as nine years old at his father`s death on 9th January 1465.

However, this was both incorrect; the CPR contain a reference to him on 19th February 1477 as "a minor", meaning under the age of 21, and for 6th November of the same year, the license to enter his lands usually granted when majority was attained. Francis`s birthday was therefore almost certainly between 19th February and 6th November 1456.

The possibility that it was the 17th September is supported by several pieces of evidence, first and foremost by the fact that the day must have meant something to Francis. We know this because in February 1483, Francis and William Waynflete, Bishop of Winchester, settled a dispute that had been going on between them for several years about the possession of several manors. Among the terms of this settlement was that masses for Francis and his wife Anne  were to be read annually on 17th September.

There is no mention in any of the primary sources which give a reason for this choice. It was not his father`s deathday, which was on 9th January, nor his mother`s, which was the 5th August, nor his wedding anniversary, which was in February, nor the day on which the terms between Francis and Wayneflete were settled. Therefore the reasons for his choice must have been elsewhere, and a clue as to what they were is found in the calendar of saints, which marks 17th September as one of the minor feast days for St.Francis of Assisi.

Since "Francis" was not a Lovell or Beaumont family name at all, and in fact there was a rigid naming system for the sons of barons Lovell in which the first boy was named John, the second William, and the third Robert, which the Lovells had kept to for three hundred years and which had also been followed in the case of Francis`s fathers and uncles, it can be assumed that his parents must have had a reason not to follow it. Since in the Middle Ages children were usually named after their parents, as indeed Francis`s sister Joan was, after their godparents, or after a saint, that argues he was named after a saint - the saint on whose feast day he was born.

Giving more credence to this theory is the fact that while it was a feast day for St. Francis, it was not the main one, which was, and remains, 4th October, so that Francis choosing that day for his namesake saint is unlikely. That leaves, logically, the theory that the reason for his interest in the day was his birthday. And that his birthday was the reason for his name, which broke 300 years of family tradition, although if this was because of special piousness of his parents` or because the baby was thought to be in special need of heavenly protection, perhaps due to being born early or sickly, is a question that can no longer be answered.

2 comments:

  1. That's an interesting thought about the minor St Francis feast day.But according to Wikipedia that feast (of his stigmata) only entered the calendar in 1585 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi#Feast_day
    I know the 17th September is the feast of St Lambert, which is an odd coincidence!
    F's grandfather asked to be buried in the Oxford Greyfriars church so perhaps there was a family devotion to St Francis?
    Keep blogging!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for your nice answer!
      I don`t exactly trust that wikipedia article, as it gives no source, and this site and its sources seem to contradict what it says. http://medievalist.net/calendar/sep.htm#17
      I thank you for pointing it out though!
      It`s quite possible there was a family devotion there - and Francis`s youngest sister was called after the patron saint of Oxford!

      Delete