Robert of Knaresborough

Saint Robert of Knaresborough
Bornc. 1160
Residencea cave at Knaresborough
Died1218 (aged 57–58)
Knaresborough, North Yorkshire
Venerated inCatholic Church
Major shrineKnaresborough
Feast24 September
Attributesa bearded monk holding a book

Robert of Knaresborough (St Robert, born Robert Flower, c. 1160 – 24 September 1218)[1] was a British hermit who lived in a cave by the River Nidd, Knaresborough, North Yorkshire. His feast day is celebrated on 24 September, although he has not yet been officially canonised. Robert was born in York to wealthy parents but shunned this life for that of religious adherence. He is noted in the town of Knaresborough for creating a holy order in the town belonging to the Trinitarians.

Life

He was born Robert Flower (Floure or Fleur) in York, the son of Touk Flower, mayor of York, in 1160.[1][2]

Very early in his life he became a sub-deacon and a novice at the Cistercian Newminster Abbey, but he stayed there only a few months.[1]

Seeking a life of solitude, he visited a knight-hermit who lived in a cave by the River Nidd at Knaresborough, hiding from Richard I. On the death of the king, the knight returned home to his family leaving Robert on his own. The cave had a small chapel dedicated to St Giles built around it. He continued to live there for some years, until a wealthy widow, Juliana, offered him a cell at St Hilda's Chapel in nearby Rudfarlington. There, he developed a reputation as a wise and holy man who cared for the poor. He stayed just a year before his hermitage was destroyed by bandits. Robert, dispossessed of his home, lived for a time under the church wall at Spofforth, and then he tried living with the monks at Hedley, near Tadcaster, but he found them far too easygoing for his style of life. By this time, the area had calmed down and he returned to Rudfarlington.[1]

Robert was well known for his charity to the poor and destitute. His favorite form of charity was to redeem men from prison. For a time, Robert prospered, having four servants and keeping cattle, but he was soon in trouble again, this time with William de Stuteville, the constable of Knaresborough castle, who accused him of harbouring thieves and outlaws.[3] Having his hermitage destroyed for the second time, this time by the forces of law and order under William de Stuteville, Robert returned to the cave at Knaresborough, where he stayed for the rest of his life.[1]

As a hermit, Knaresborough lived on a diet of herbs, roots and water.[4] Although living as a recluse, his piëty soon attracted followers and gifts from local benefactors, gifts that included land alongside the river. A number of stories of St Robert exist both in Latin and early English verse. One concerns his complaining about the King's deer eating his crops. Sir William, making fun of the saint, invites Robert to catch the offending beasts. Robert manages not only to herd the deer into his barn as if they were a tame flock of sheep but also harnesses them to his plough and sets them to work.[5]

Robert died on 24 September 1218.[6] Before his death, St Robert established an order of Trinitarian Friars at Knaresborough Priory, but he warned them that, when his time came, the monks of Fountains Abbey would try to carry his body away to their own establishment. He urged his followers to resist them, which they did, and so St Robert was buried in his chapel cut from the steep rocky crags by the river, where, it was said, a medicinal oil flowed from his tomb; pilgrims came from near and far to be healed by it.[7]

St Robert's Cave

Main article: St Robert's Cave and Chapel of the Holy Cross

Robert lived in various places in the vicinity of Knaresborough before taking up residence in a cave by the River Nidd (then known as St Giles' Priory). It is said that King John visited him and Trinitarian friars also venerated him.[8] His brother Walter, then Mayor of York, came and paid for some new buildings, including a chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross. The floorplan of this can still be seen alongside Robert's cave in Knaresborough.[5]

St Robert's Well

Michael Calvert's History of Knaresborough (1844), describes St Robert's Well as being near the York Road, about one mile from the town. Calvert also writes that prior to 1791 it had been an open well about two feet deep, but in 1791 bathing facilities were built at the well because of its value as a cold bath.[9] An 1850s OS map marks a "Cold Bath" near the York Road, as described by Calvert, and this site was connected by a track to St Robert's cave and chapel 400 m (1,300 ft) to the south-west.[10]

The Monkswell business park was built on the site of St Robert's well or Cold Bath, where a well shaft preserves the site of the spring that fed it. Visitors drop coins (as well as litter) through the metal grid that covers the wellshaft.[7]

Cult

During his time living in Spofforth, began attracting large crowd who praised him. At first fearful of this attention, he fled to Headley Priory. Upon returning to the wilderness, taking residence in Rudfarlington, he grew a small community of hermits. This community grew following his relocation to Knaresborough, and it began to be attested the he could perform miracles and tell prophecies.[11]

Towards the end of his life, pilgrims flocked to see Robert to seek spiritual guidance and to be healed of physical ailments.[12] Although Robert was not a Trinitarian,[13] his following originated a Trinitarians community in Knaresborough.[14] By the time of his death, this following had become a cult, afterwhich management was adopted by the Trinitarian Order,[15]

Veneration

The earliest religious order to venerate Robert was likely the Cistercians, recorded in the thirteenth century text MS Harley 3775.[16] The Trinitarian Order too venerated Robert, as well as recording his life multiple times. The three records known were written in Latin prose, Latin verse and Middle English verse,[13] Both orders portrayed his life uniquely based on his ties to their own tradition: the Cistercians emphasising Robert's hermetic nature; the Trinitarian emphasising his charismatic nature.[17] Trinitarians recorded two separate interpretations of Robert's life: the first meant to be circulated internally within the order, minimising his care for the poor and emphasising his spirituality; the other intended to be circulated outside of the order, emphasising his charity work, and encouraging others to take up a similar lifestyle.[18]

St Robert's feast day is on 24 September although he was never officially canonised. Seven stained-glass panels of his life, originally from Dale Abbey, survive at St Matthew's Church in Morley, Derbyshire.[1]

Legacy

The cave, carved into a limestone cliff, can still be visited by the public. A small chapel and evidence of a small living area are all that remain.[12]

In North Yorkshire, churches are dedicated to St Robert at Knaresborough,[1] Pannal, and Harrogate.[19]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Hayward, John. "St. Robert of Knaresborough". Wilfrid.com. Parish Church of St. Wilfrid, Bognor. Archived from the original on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  2. ^ Goulding, Brian (23 September 2004). "Robert of Knaresborough". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/23733. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  3. ^ Clay, Rotha Mary (22 September 1914). "The hermits and anchorites of England". London : Methuen – via Internet Archive.
  4. ^ Nichols, John. (1812). Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, Volume 3. London. p. 723; Fletcher, Joseph Smith. (1899). A Picturesque History of Yorkshire. London. p. 227
  5. ^ a b "strobertschurch.co.uk". strobertschurch.co.uk.
  6. ^ Wheater, William (1907). Knaresburgh and Its Rulers. Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co. p. 304. OCLC 1109773205.; Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. Liturgical Press. p. 517. ISBN 978-0-8146-3186-7.
  7. ^ a b "Yorkshire Holy Wells". www.halikeld.f9.co.uk.
  8. ^ Maurice Turner A Brief History of Knaresborough 1990
  9. ^ Calvert, Michael (1844). The History of Knaresbrough, Etc. [With Plates.]. W. Parr. pp. 104–105.
  10. ^ "Georeferenced Maps - Map images - National Library of Scotland". maps.nls.uk. Retrieved 12 April 2024.
  11. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 78. Robert moved to Spofforth, where his zealous devotions gave rise to rumours of his extraordinary holiness. Crowds gathered to praise him, causing the holy man, fearful of vanity, to flee and take up residence with the Benedictines at Headley Priory. Rejected by them on account of his austere way of life, however, Robert returned to the wilderness and St Hilda's chapel. Here he engaged in devotional activity while managing a small eremitic community consisting of four servants dedicated to agricultural work and poor relief... Robert fled to a new site: a cave on the northern bank of the River Nidd by Knaresborough. His brother Walter financed the building of a chapel adjoined to this new hermitage, where Robert continued to attract a following on account of his devotions, miracles, prophecies and charitable activities.
  12. ^ a b Council, Harrogate Borough (6 October 2023). "St Roberts Cave, Knaresborough". www.harrogate.gov.uk.
  13. ^ a b Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 77. The Trinitarians penned at least three versions of Robert Flower of Knaresborough's life in the Middle Ages (one in Latin prose, one in Latin verse, and one in Middle English verse), all of which are preserved in single copies, alongside histories of the Trinitarian Order and further devotional materials pertaining to Robert, in a late fifteenth-century manuscript from Knaresborough Priory, MS Egerton 3143. Despite this juxtaposition of material, Robert was not a Trinitarian himself.
  14. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 80. Thus, while comparison of the two vitae is limited by the fragmentary state of the Harley text, Robert's work on behalf of the poor is emphasized in the Trinitarian prose vita, which, as Joshua Easterling has demonstrated, simultaneously presents the hermit as a devotee of the Trinity and (through clever rhetoric and compilation) as a natural spiritual patron and point of origin for the Trinitarian community at Knaresborough.
  15. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 79. The cave-chapel became a site of pilgrimage, although Robert's relics were later translated to the nearby Trinitarian priory of Knaresborough, which inherited the site in the middle of the thirteenth century, along with all the land King John had given to Robert during his lifetime. Henceforth, Robert's cult was managed by the Knaresborough Trinitarians, who adopted him as their spiritual patron
  16. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 79. Moreover, whilst the majority of Robert's extant cult literature bears marks of Trinitarian authorship, the Trinitarians were not the first order to venerate him: a fragmentary version of Robert's life is preserved in British Library MS Harley 3775 and was perhaps authored by the Cistercians.
  17. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 81. The Harley vita emphasizes the eremitic tradition to which Robert belongs, which would certainly have been of interest to a Cistercian audience ideologically invested in that same lineage, while the Trinitarian prose hagiographer chooses to emphasize Robert's entrepreneurial spirit and active charity at the expense of his eremitic purity.
  18. ^ Hunter Blair, Hazel J. (June 2021). "Trinitarian Hagiography in Late Medieval England: Rewriting St Robert of Knaresborough in Latin Verse". Studies in Church History. 57: 95. The Egerton manuscript thus seems to be bookended by two radically different late medieval versions of Robert's life: one in Latin verse, which minimizes Robert's care for the poor and seems to have been intended for internal consumption at Knaresborough Priory, offering a more spiritual interpretation of the Trinitarian raison d'être; the other written in the vernacular, also in verse, and intended for circulation outside the priory, to elaborate Robert's story for a secular audience of would-be patrons who might be inspired to imitate Robert's exemplary active charity and to support the Trinitarian cause financially.
  19. ^ "Our Lady Immaculate and St Robert's Catholic Church | Harrogate". www.strobertsharrogate.co.uk. Retrieved 25 June 2023.

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