Plate 3.38: Chimney Piece in the Bishop’s Palace at Exeter (Original Explanatory Account)

The monks of the order of St. Anthony wore a black habit with the letter T of a blue colour on the breast. This may sufficiently account for the appearance of that figure among the ornaments of Bishop Courtenay’s arms. The following extract from Stow’s Survey of London may serve to explain the appendant Bell².

“The Proctors of this hospital were to collect the benevolence of charitable persons towards the building and supporting thereof. And among other things observed in my youth I remember that the officers charged with the oversight of the markets in this city did divers times take from the market people pigs starved, or otherwise unwholesome for men’s sustenance: these they did slit in the ear. One of the Proctors of St. Anthony tied a bell about the neck, and let it feed among the dunghills, and no man would hurt it, or take it up; but if any gave them bread, or other feeding, such they would know, watch for, and daily follow, whining till they had something given to them; whereupon was raised a proverb, ‘such a one will follow such a one and whine as it were an Anthony pig;’ but if such a pig grew to be fat, and came to good liking, as oft times they did, then the Proctor would take him up to the use of the hospital.”

These monks, with their importunate begging, were so troublesome, that if men gave them nothing, they would presently threaten them with St. Antony’s fire, so that many simple people out of fear or blind zeal every year used to bestow on them a fat pig or porker (which they ordinarily painted on their pictures of the saint), whereby they might procure their good will, prayers, and be secure from their menaces³.

“The knights of this order [of St. Antony] wore a collar of gold, with an hermit’s girdle, to which hung a crutch and a little bell⁴.” See in the Gentleman’s Magazine for the year 1750, the plate of the orders of knighthood, where T, whether a letter or crutch, is given to the order of St. Antony of Ethiopia.

The saint is always represented with this appendage in Missals, and on Monuments, the T hanging from his girdle, and the bell from the neck of the pig at his feet.

¹See Cleveland’s History of the Courtenays family, p. 284.
²P. 190. Newcourt, Repert. Vol. I. p. 282.
³Newcourt, ibid.
⁴Chamber’s Dict. v. ANTONY.

Above the centre compartment is the mitre, with the arms of the see, and a label inscribed

    Colompne ecclesie veritatis p’conie [Column of the Church of Truth p’conie]¹;
and here the T is thrice repeated.

The moulding of the arch is charged with the portcullis and foliage alternately; and on the point are the royal arms in a garter, and supported by two greyhounds.

The T with the bell appendant occurs on the sides of the centre coat; also the T single and abels, and over the top of the chimney the T and P C for Peter Courtenay.

The three Sickles and the Sheaf in the angles of the three compartments are the badges of the barons of Hungerford.

The bishop was third son of Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, knight, (fifth son of Hugh Courtenay second earl of Devonshire), who died 1463, by Elizabeth his wife daughter to Walter lord Hungerford, who died 1449; but when she died is not known.

He was educated at Exeter College, Oxford; made archdeacon of Exeter 1453; dean of the same church, 1477. He died 1491, and was probably buried in the chancel at Powderham, where is an effigies of a bishop inlaid in brass². He built the North tower of Exeter cathedral, and placed in it a great bell, called after him Peter’s bell, with a clock and dial: he built also the tower and good part of the church at Honiton (which before was only a chapel, now the chancel). In the windows of the tower are the arms of his parents, now lost; but his paternal arms are on the pillars of the chancel³.

R. G. [Richard Gough]

¹The bishop’s motto was, Quod verum tutum. [What [is] true [is] safe]
²Cleveland, p. 286.
³Polwhele’s Devon, II. p. 281.