In 1955, Susan Wood published English Monasteries and Their Patrons in the Thirteenth Century. In the intervening half century much has changed in our understanding of medieval monasteries and the aristocracy that patronized such monasteries. Hence, another look at monastic patronage has surely been overdue, and Karen Stöber has now rectified this omission. Based on Stöber's PhD thesis, this book starts in 1300, where Wood left off; it also includes both Welsh and English examples, in contrast to the exclusively English focus of earlier scholarship.

There were three kinds of monastic patrons—royal, ecclesiastical, and lay—and this book examines only the lay. As Stöber convincingly puts it, post-1955 arguments by Christopher Haigh, Eamon Duffy, and fellow travelers concerning the vitality of pre-Reformation lay religiosity should surely encourage scholars to reexamine lay monastic patrons and to question whether or not such people really were uninterested in their monasteries. Also, now that we are more highly attuned to the different forms that lay religiosity could take, it might be possible to see that just because a late medieval lay patron related to a monastery in a way that differed from that of an earlier medieval patron this need not mean that the late medieval patron was a “bad” patron. After all, by the late Middle Ages most lay patrons were hereditary patrons and so had not founded the monasteries themselves; hence, they might be excused for being less than interested in their inherited monastic charges. Such is one aim (ably achieved) of this book—to improve the reputation of the late medieval lay patron.

As the medieval centuries progressed, many monasteries fell into the hands of the crown and increasingly fewer remained with lay patrons. This diminution in lay patronage is an important backdrop to the study, but, even so, lay patrons remained in the majority and Stöber identifies about seven hundred monasteries under lay patronage between 1300 and 1540. Chapter 1 includes general points about the rights and responsibilities of patrons and also examines the history of patronage with reference to the different monastic orders. We learn that the shift from lay patrons to royal patrons appears most often in the Augustinian order—but, then again, the Augustinians began with more lay patrons, so it is easier to see the change here. On the other hand, the number of lay patrons of Premonstratensian houses did not decline. In general, it was the rich houses that ended up with royal patrons; in other words, lay patrons possessed the less wealthy houses. Chapter 2 explores the different ways that patrons and monasteries interacted: patrons gave benefactions and assented to elections of abbots and abbesses, while monasteries gave prayer and hospitality; monasteries stored patrons’ valuables, while patrons spoke up for monasteries in disputes with third parties; monasteries memorialized patrons in stained glass and heraldic paintings, and occasionally patrons became members of the monasteries. Of course, there was sometimes conflict between patron and monastery, but even this shows that patrons were interested in their monasteries. Certainly, from the fourteenth century onward there was competition from the chantries and thus patrons did not put all their efforts into cultivating relationships with their monasteries, but, even so, patrons did not neglect their monasteries. Presumably, then, patrons must have found something in their monasteries that they could not find in their chantries.

As Chapter 3 shows, one thing particularly important to the patron was burial within the monastery. Again, although families had other options for burial (colleges, chantries) and although patronal burial in monasteries was less common than it had been in the preceding centuries, the practice did not die out. Families often had multiple monasteries within their patronage (in the sixteenth century, one-quarter of patrons had multiple houses) and therefore decisions had to be made. Which house would a patron be buried in, and why in this house? Sometimes a certain house was chosen in order to continue a family burial tradition. Carthusian houses, which were recent additions to the monastic scene, attracted burials, no doubt because the patrons in these instances were often the founders and so retained the enthusiasm that typified the first generation of patrons.

Stöber points out that lay monastic patronage is a large topic and that her book is an overview. The appendix includes a list of seven hundred houses of canons, canonesses, monks, and nuns (other religious establishments—e.g., chantries, hospitals, colleges, houses of friars—are omitted from the study) in England and Wales in the late Middle Ages and names the founder of each house as well as the patron of each house in 1300 and at the Dissolution. Some houses are discussed more than others. Good use is made of the Croxden Abbey chronicle, as well as the Tewkesbury Abbey founders’ book, thus providing insights into these particular monasteries and their patrons. Chapter 4 examines a well-chosen selection of five noble families and their monasteries, again including analysis of burial choices: the Montagues in the south; the Berkeleys in Gloucestershire; the de Clares, who held lands in the west, in Ireland and in Wales; the Howards in East Anglia; and the Scropes in Bolton.

The final chapter studies patronal families’ reactions to the Dissolution. Looking from the perspective of the monasteries, we learn that by the sixteenth century some monasteries did not even know who their patrons were, which suggests that in these cases patrons had had very little to do with their monasteries. Looking from the perspective of the families, we learn from their letters to Cromwell that patrons were worried about losing access to their family tombs. Once again, then, the importance of burial and memorialization appears. Overall, Stöber is cautious in reading the sixteenth-century evidence (or lack thereof)—she reminds us that most monasteries in lay hands leave no evidence whatsoever about the patrons’ reactions to the Dissolution. Notwithstanding this point, it is clear that significant evidence does remain concerning the relationships between lay patrons and their monasteries in the late Middle Ages, and scholars of British monasticism, nobility, and gentry will be grateful to Stöber for illuminating these interactions.