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E X E T E R C A T H E D R A L

Since the donation relics by of King Aethelstan in the 10th century, Exeter had held one of the most important collections of spiritual possessions in the West Country. These had been added to over the years. Bishop Bruere apparently brought a number of relics back from the Holy Land in 1227, including hairs of Christ and St. Peter and other relics of Ss. Stephen, Demetri and Katherine. Dean Bartholomew St. Lawrence acquired a major portion of St. Brannoc, from nearby Braunton, in the early 14th century; and St. Sidwell appears to have been translated from the church dedicated to her on the edge of the City, though details are sketchy. Certainly Exeter was a major medieval pilgrimage centre. Pilgrims' donations made the Cathedral rich, while prayers to the saints apparently made the pilgrims healthy, as recorded in a number of miracle cure stories.

After the Lechlade murder, the Bishop had been given permission to enclose the cathedral close by a high wall, with seven gates, to protect his community. Houses were gradually built there for the canons, and halls for annuellars and vicars choral. These latter offices were introduced in the early 15th century, when the original canonical community of twenty-four were becoming increasingly involved in secular administrative work. King Henry IV granted the cathedral a charter establishing the Vicars Choral at Exeter in 1401. They were able to relieve the canons of many of their religious duties and were later joined by chantry priests or annuellars. These were paid, through wealthy bequests, to pray for the souls of great patrons and their families. Exeter once had as many as twenty chantry chapels for this purpose. The King stayed in the close only two years later, while escorting his second wife, Joan of Navarre, to their wedding in Winchester.

The close was always under the complete jurisdiction of the Church and its new walls did nothing to dispel the discord which this caused with the city authorities. Things reached a peak during the conflict of the 1440s between the Bishop Edmund Lacy and Mayor John Shillingford. The latter's men tried, unsuccessfully, to arrest a servant of the Cathedral Chancellor in the middle of an Ascension Day procession; and a tenant of the Bishop, named Hugh Lucas, was chased into the very cathedral by city sergeants with daggers, swords and other "invasive weapons" drawn. Despite the service in progress, the clergy ran from the quire to defend him - also armed with cudgels and long knives! The city officers barely escaped alive and both authorities made appeals to the Lord Chancellor.

The Wars of the Roses had a direct impact on the cathedral and the city of Exeter through the sympathies of both the West Country gentry and clergy. Edward IV's sister-in-law, the Duchess of Clarence, set up Court in the Bishop's Palace in 1470, during her husband's phase of Lancastrian support. Bishop Booth moved north to one of his Surrey manors and escaped the subsequent siege. Later, the Yorkist, Richard III travelled to the City, in 1483, to stamp out hostilities, particularly from Bishop Courtenay and his brother. They both fled while the King declared them outlaws from the Bishop's own Palace where he was lodging.