Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c.1300-1540 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

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Studies in the History of Medieval Religion VOLUME XXIX

LATE MEDIEVAL MONASTERIES AND THEIR PATRONS England and Wales, c.1300–1540 Lay patronage of religious houses remained of considerable importance during the late medieval period; but this is the first full-length study dedicated to the subject. Based on a wide range of medieval documentary sources, including wills, monastic registers, inquisitions post mortem, cartularies and episcopal registers, this book traces the descent of these later patrons and assesses their activities, in particular their bequests and benefactions, their involvement in the affairs of their houses, and their burials in the conventual churches; and it argues that the ties which bound the two parties together, whether amicable, indifferent or abusive, continued right up until the Dissolution brought monastic life in England and Wales to an end.

Studies in the History of Medieval Religion ISSN 0955–2480 General Editor Christopher Harper-Bill

Previously published titles in the series are listed at the back of this volume

LATE MEDIEVAL MONASTERIES AND THEIR PATRONS England and Wales, c.1300–1540

KAREN STÖBER

THE BOYDELL PRESS

© Karen Stöber 2007 All Rights Reserved. Except as permitted under current legislation no part of this work may be photocopied, stored in a retrieval system, published, performed in public, adapted, broadcast, transmitted, recorded or reproduced in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the copyright owner The right of Karen Stöber to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988

First published 2007 The Boydell Press, Woodbridge

ISBN 1 84383 284 4

The Boydell Press is an imprint of Boydell & Brewer Ltd PO Box 9, Woodbridge, Suffolk IP12 3DF, UK and of Boydell & Brewer Inc. 668 Mt Hope Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, USA website: www.boydellandbrewer.com

A catalogue record of this publication is available from the British Library

This publication is printed on acid-free paper Printed in Great Britain by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn

Contents List of Figures and Tables

vi

Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

xi

Introduction

1

1

Monasticism and Patronage in England and Wales: Continuity and Change

9

2

Manifestations of Monastic Patronage in the Later Middle Ages

65

3

The Burial Preferences of Monastic Patrons in the Later Middle Ages 112

4

The Monastic Patronage of Five Noble Families

147

5

Patrons at the Dissolution

190

Conclusions

206

Appendix: Late Medieval English and Welsh Monasteries and their Patrons

209

Select Bibliography

251

Index

271

Figures and Tables Figures 1.1

Patrons of English and Welsh monasteries from foundation to dissolution

28

1.2

Patrons of English and Welsh nunneries from foundation to dissolution

29

1.3

Patrons of Benedictine monasteries from foundation to dissolution

37

1.4

Patrons of Augustinian monasteries from foundation to dissolution

45

1.5

Distribution of wealth among religious orders in England and Wales, c.1535

60

Tables 4.1

Religious houses under the patronage of the Montague family

150

4.2

Religious houses under the patronage of the Berkeley family

158

4.3

Religious houses under the patronage of the de Clare family

164

4.4

Religious houses under the patronage of the Howard family

174

4.5

Religious houses under the patronage of the Scropes of Bolton

184

FOR SUNI, WERNER AND VIEBKE

Publication of this book has been made possible by a grant from the Scouloudi Foundation, in association with the Institute of Historical Research

Acknowledgements This project would not have been possible without the generous help, advice and support from my friends and family, as well as countless other people, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all. First and foremost my thanks must go to Michael Hicks, who first drew my attention to this project, who supervised the PhD thesis on which this book is based, and who has been an unfailing source of support and encouragement during those years and beyond. I am grateful to King Alfred’s College (now Winchester University), who supported my research with a generous studentship. Very special thanks go to my friends and colleagues at the Department of History and Welsh History at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, who have been extremely supportive throughout in every possible way. I have moreover profited greatly from the helpful comments and the expertise of many others, notably Janet Burton and Martin Heale, who have seen different sections of this work, and who have allowed me to benefit from their knowledge of the subject. I am extremely thankful to Leslie Boatwright for very kindly sending me, and letting me use, an unpublished translation of the Croxden Chronicle, to Julian Luxford, who sent me drafts of several chapters from his work on the patronage of art in Benedictine monasteries, and to Huw Pryce, whose about-to-be-published chapter on the patrons of the Welsh Cistercians has been a valuable source of information. Many others have generously shared their knowledge with me, and for this I thank especially David Smith and Brian Golding, who examined my thesis, Christopher Holdsworth, Nigel Saul, Maureen Jurkowski and Barbara Yorke. The Scouloudi Foundation has supported this project with a generous grant, for which I would like to express my appreciation. I am also indebted to the staff of the archives and libraries to which my research has taken me during the past few years. Many thanks to my friends for their encouragement, especially to Gigi Bormann, Mandy Richardson, Kirstine Då, Rachael Kay, Ryan Lavelle, Richard Brown, Martyn Powell, Julia Reid, Graeme Davies and Melanie Wagner. I would also like to say ‘diolch o galon’ to Patrick Carlin, who has played a special part during the past years and who has helped in so many ways. Finally, I owe a very special debt to Andrew Priest for his support and his infectious enthusiasm, and also for the fine food he delivered to my office during hectic times. My parents, Suni and Werner, and my sister Viebke, however dispersed, have always been there for me, and for this I want to thank them more than I can say. This book is for them. Aberystwyth, February 2006 Karen Stöber

Abbreviations Ant. Fun. Mon. BL Brut

J. Weever, Antient Funeral Monuments (London, 1767) London, British Library Brut y Tywysogion or The Chronicle of the Princes, ed. T. Jones (Cardiff, 1955) Cal. Inq. ad quod Calendarium Rotulorum Chartarum (John–Edward IV) et Dampnum Inquisito ad quod Damnum (Edward II–Henry VI), ed. J. Caley (London, 1803) Cal. IPM Calendarium Inquisitionum Post Mortem sive Escaetarum, 4 vols, ed. J. Caley (1806–12) Coll. Anglo-Prem. Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, ed. F.A. Gasquet, 3 vols (London, 1904–6) CPL Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. W.H. Bliss, 15 vols (London, 1893–1960) CPP Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope, AD 1342–1419, ed. W.H. Bliss (London, 1896) CPR Calendar of Patent Rolls (Edward II – Edward VI) (London, 1894–1929) CPW Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales, ed. W. Rees (Cardiff, 1975) DW Derbyshire Wills 1393–1574, ed. D.G. Edwards, Derbyshire Record Society, xxvi (1998) GEC G.E. Cokayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, 14 vols (London 1910–98) LP Calendar of Letters and Papers Foreign and Domestic of Henry VIII (1862–1910) Mon. W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, ed. J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, 6 vols (London, 1817–30) MRB Monastic Research Bulletin (York, 1995– ) MRH D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (London, 1971) NCW J.W. Clay (ed.), North Country Wills: being abstracts of wills relating to the counties of York, Nottingham, Northumberland, Cumberland and Westmorland at Somerset House and Lambeth Palace, 1383–1558, Surtees Society, cxvi (1908) Sep. Mon. R. Gough, Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain (London, 1786) TBGAS Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1876– )

xii TE TV VCH

ABBREVIATIONS

Testamenta Eboracensia, ed. J. Raine and J. Raine jr, Surtees Society, vols 4, 30, 45, 53, 79, 106 (Durham, 1836–1902) Testamenta Vetusta, ed. N.H. Nicolas, 2 vols (London, 1826) The Victoria History of the Counties of England (London, 1900–, in progress)

Introduction During the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, several hundred houses of monks, canons and nuns in England and Wales were in the patronage of lay folk. These patrons, men and women, ranged in status from the most powerful English magnates to the minor country gentry, just as the monasteries ranged from large, considerably prosperous abbeys to small, impoverished, obscure establishments. And just as varied as the patrons’ rank and status was the degree of their involvement with the religious houses under their patronage. Some fifty years ago Susan M. Wood suggested, in her authoritative study of the monastic patrons of thirteenth-century England, that monastic patronage was a neglected topic.1 Late medieval monastic patronage, moreover, was for a long time a neglected area within this neglected topic.2 In the half century since Wood’s work first appeared, a number of scholars have set out to remedy this neglect, and to push back the chronological boundaries of her study. Important work has since been done on later medieval monastic patronage, notably on issues of patronage within a regional context,3 on particular types of religious houses,4 on individual houses,5 or on certain aspects of monastic patronage,6 but what has been lacking so far is a full-length study dedicated to the hereditary lay patrons of late medieval English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries. 1 2

3

4

5

6

S. Wood, English Monasteries and their Patrons in the Thirteenth Century (Oxford, 1955), p. 3. Earlier medieval monastic patrons, on the other hand, have continued to attract some extent of scholarly attention. Note, for instance, E. Cownie’s work on Anglo-Norman monastic patronage, Religious Patronage in Anglo-Norman England, 1066–1135 (London, 1998); E. Mitchell, ‘Patrons and Politics at Twelfth-Century Barking Abbey’, Revue Bénédictine, 113 (2003), pp.347–64; and E. Jamroziak’s Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, 1132–1300. Memory, Locality, and Networks (Turnhout, 2005). E.g. B. Thompson, ‘Monasteries and their Patrons at Foundation and Dissolution’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society iv (London, 1994), pp.103–23; C. Cross, ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Yorkshire Church in the Sixteenth Century’ in J.C. Appleby and P. Dalton (eds), Government, Religion and Society in Northern England 1000–1700 (Stroud, 1997), pp.159–71, and ‘Yorkshire Nunneries in the Early Tudor Period’ in J.G. Clark (ed.), The Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England (Woodbridge, 2002), pp.145–54. Note M. Heale’s work on the English dependent priories, The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries (Woodbridge, 2004), M. Oliva, The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1998) on nunneries, or H.M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford, 1951) and J.A. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 2001) on the Premonstratensian order. E.g. J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, Borthwick Paper no.86 (1995), or R.K. Morris and R. Shoesmith (eds), Tewkesbury Abbey. History, Art & Architecture (Logaston, 2003). See for example A.D. Brown, Popular Piety in Late Medieval England – the Diocese of Salisbury 1250–1550 (Oxford, 1995).

2

LATE MEDIEVAL MONASTERIES AND THEIR PATRONS

This book intends to be just that. It examines the subject of monastic patronage during the later Middle Ages, more specifically during the two and a half centuries between the beginning of the fourteenth century, which is where Dr Wood ended her survey, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century. It does so from the point of view of the laity rather than from the angle of the church, and it takes as its focus only the hereditary lay patrons of the later medieval English and Welsh abbeys and priories.7 Patrons are here defined strictly as the heirs of the original founders of religious houses, into whose hands the advowson of the monastery or nunnery had passed by the fourteenth century and beyond. They include both the male and the female patrons, although for purely stylistic reasons they are here normally referred to simply as ‘patron’ and ‘he’. The present definition of ‘patron’ does not comprise any other benefactors of monasteries, such as local notables, neighbours of religious houses, or other members of the lay community who chose to support a religious community not of their foundation, to give grants of land or property and other gifts to the house, and who might be granted burial in the precincts thereof. These men and women sometimes feature more prominently in the records of a monastery or a nunnery than the actual patron, if the relationship between the benefactor and the religious community was amicable and active. A generous benefactor, after all, was more useful to a community of monks or nuns than an absent or uninterested patron, even if descended from the original founder. However, to consider the benefactors as well as the hereditary patrons of all religious orders all over England and Wales would have stretched this study far beyond manageable dimensions. It would also, more importantly, have distorted the primary concerns of the present work for the simple reason that, unlike the patrons, who were the founders’ heirs, monastic benefactors involved themselves voluntarily with the religious communities they chose to support. One of the crucial issues regarding late medieval hereditary monastic lay patrons, in contrast, is precisely the fact that theirs was an involuntary attachment; they had not normally chosen this role, but attained it, in most cases, through no active initiative of their own. 8 Yet while this study is concerned with the patronage of the laity, it specifically excludes the greatest layman of all, the king. The relationship of the king with the over two hundred houses of religious men and women, of which he held the patronage by the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the sixteenth century, was necessarily in most instances very different in nature to that which developed between a religious house and a patronal family. The study of monasteries and nunneries under royal patronage, therefore, involves a whole range of

7

8

Only the regular orders (as well as the female houses of Franciscans and Dominicans, who led a regular, enclosed life) have been included here, that is Benedictine, Cluniac and Cistercian monks and nuns, Carthusian monks, Augustinian, Premonstratensian and Gilbertine canons and canonesses/nuns, as well as the orders of Fontevrault, Tiron and Grandmont, the Trinitarians, the Bonhommes, the Minoresses or Poor Clares, and one house each of Dominican nuns and Bridgettines. Houses of male friars have been excluded in this study. Special circumstances, including purchase of advowsons by sale, excepted.

INTRODUCTION

3

issues which would exceed the scope of the present work, and which therefore deserves separate attention.9 The intention of this book is to provide an overview. It is not exclusive, and does not claim to be. It chooses a national rather than a regional approach in order to give a broad, comparative view, and in order to avoid the large-scale duplication of work already undertaken on those parts of medieval England for which ample documentation fortunately exists, even for the later period.10 The aim is here to present the widest possible picture of late medieval lay patronage of religious houses whilst simultaneously allowing regional comparisons. Such an approach has its disadvantages. A study of the present scale has to be selective and cannot consider all the evidence relating to all the monasteries and nunneries of late medieval England and Wales for the entire period. However, the countless charters, letters, wills and random documents which have not yet been assessed or included here can only strengthen the hypotheses of this study and, if anything, amplify the examples of lay patronage, active or otherwise, which are cited here. One of the main aims of this book, finally, is to challenge some longstanding views and in turn suggest a reassessment of the evidence. This book is in some ways an attempt to improve the reputation of the late medieval monastic lay patrons, who have suffered some bad press from past historians, who have accused them of lacking interest in and neglect of the religious houses under their patronage, and who have therefore, until recently, remained largely on the periphery of monastic studies and of studies of the preReformation church alike. This shortcoming shall here be addressed. It is now generally recognised that monastic patronage had a deeper significance to those who held it than the simple ownership of a noteworthy property, or than the stewardship of a wealthy estate. On the meaning of monastic patronage for the lay community, Colvin has noted that there is abundant evidence of the importance which the medieval aristocracy attached to the patronage of religious houses, from the forty-sixth chapter of Magna Carta11 to the texts of honorial surveys, in which manorial profits and monastic advowsons are listed and valued together as equally characteristic features of a baronial income.12

Echoing Colvin’s words, Dr Wood has emphasised the meaning of monastic patronage for the laity, which went far beyond a perhaps inevitable material interest: 9

10

11

12

On royal patronage of religious houses see for example J. Burton’s section on the Scottish kings and the Augustinian canons in Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000–1300 (Cambridge, 1994), pp.52–54. Cf. e.g. B. Thompson, ‘Monasteries and their Patrons’, or R. Gilchrist and M. Oliva, Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia: History and Archaeology c.1100–1540, Studies in East Anglian History I (Norwich, 1993). Magna Carta, 46: ‘All barons who have founded abbeys, concerning which they hold charters from the kings of England, or of which they have long-continued possession, shall have the wardship of them, when vacant, as they ought to have.’ Colvin, White Canons, p.291.

4


A religious house could be far more to its patron even at a mundane level than an establishment which occasionally applied to him about its election, which rendered rent or service, and to which he sent a bailiff in vacancies.13

And: at the back of the hospitality and odd services from a house to its patron lay a personal relationship; it was part of his countryside and social circle.14

In her book, Dr Wood made it clear that she considered ‘the comparative daylight’ of the thirteenth century to be the period when monastic patronage was in many respects at its peak.15 The evidence she cited suggests that in many ways and on many levels the relationships between religious houses and patrons were at their most active and at their most pronounced during these years, and hence, frequently, at their most noteworthy. During the thirteenth century, as Wood has shown, there were high levels of contact between monasteries and their patrons. Patrons were fulfilling their roles of protector and advocate, of supporter and lord of their religious house. They endowed and visited the monasteries and nunneries under their patronage, they confirmed newly elected heads of their abbeys and priories, and they chose their own houses for their family mausolea. They, their sons or their daughters, frequently took the habit themselves and entered their abbeys and priories as members of the religious community. They moreover had custody over the house and its estates during vacancies. The religious communities, on the other hand, referred to them as their fundator, their advocatus or their patronatus. The monastic patron was recognised in canon law, and he was often keenly aware of the benefits which the patronage of a religious house entailed for him. In some cases the bonds thus forged between a patron and a monastic community or its head developed into genuine affection and friendship. It was during the thirteenth century that the wave of monastic foundations in England and Wales reached its peak and so, Wood claimed, did the practice of monastic patronage. Discussing the intentions and motives of early medieval patrons of religious houses, she proceeded to assess the changing perceptions of patronage over time. As time progressed, she argued, the character of this relationship changed, following a ‘golden age’ of patronage in the thirteenth century. Partly responsible for this were the changing proportions of patrons who were the king, a bishop, or a member of the aristocracy, as the pattern of patronage was undergoing fundamental changes. The advowsons of some English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries had by this stage passed either into the hands of the king, or, less commonly, into the hands of an ecclesiastical patron (either a bishop or another monastery), or to the heirs of the original founders of the religious houses – either to their descendants or, through co-heiresses or more distant relatives, to different branches of the family or to different families altogether. 13 14 15

Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.101. Ibid., p.122. Ibid., p.3.

INTRODUCTION

5

The temporal distance between the original foundation of a religious community in the twelfth or thirteenth century, and the patronage thereof in the later Middle Ages, frequently brought with it some lessening of the ties which bound monasteries and their patrons together, at least in some cases. As Wood asserted in her book, These later lords would regard [the monastery] as a piece of property, exploit it, sell it, or bestow it on kinsmen and followers. But as long as it remained a genuine monastery it was likely to be something less or something more than simple property: something whose very existence was resented by its lord and therefore precarious, or a matter of family pride and piety.16 When the patronage [of a religious house] went out of the [founder’s] family, the new patron could hardly have the same feeling about it: could not easily appropriate to himself the founder’s anxiety for the souls of his ancestors and heirs, nor feel pride and affection for the entries in the martyrology of successive generations of the same family.17

Dr Wood’s discussion of monastic patronage focused very specifically on the earlier period, when these ties had been recently wrought. In many cases they were strong and, importantly, well documented in early charters and chronicles. The fact that the thirteenth century so often represented the most successful period of interaction between religious houses and the lay community cannot be denied. Yet this observation should not conceal the fact that patronage remained part of the monastic scene in the two and a half centuries which followed the period that Wood illuminates. The nature of monastic patronage had surely changed, but it had not ceased to matter. And although some of these later patrons were such only nominally, there were many others who, just like their predecessors some hundred years previously, took their role as patrons of a religious house very seriously indeed. In the past their role on the stage of medieval monastic patronage has been little appreciated, little researched, and, consequently, little understood. Dr Wood’s results have generally been accepted among those who have worked on aspects of monastic patronage. Her argument was repeated several years ago by Marilyn Oliva, notably in a paper at the conference on Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England held at the University of York in September 1999. Discussing the patronage of female religious houses in late medieval England, Dr Oliva stated that by the later Middle Ages [. . .] connections between founders’ families and monasteries rarely applied because the later generations had either died out or lost interest. Monasteries in general, moreover, had ceased to attract the patronage of the wealthy and powerful whose religious philanthropy had turned toward estab-

16 17

Ibid., p.2. Ibid., p.24. Note also Brown’s view that ‘certain religious houses had benefited greatly from a close association with founding families: the interest of later families, once patronage had changed hands, could not be as great’ (Popular Piety, p.46).

6


lishing private foundations, like chantries and chapels, or to the large and relatively new monasteries, like Syon Abbey and the Charterhouse.18

Judging by such pronouncements, it appears that the monastic patrons of later medieval England and Wales have not always received the most favourable press from historians. But, on the other hand, there are those who have attributed to them an altogether more sympathetic position. In 1936, on the four hundredth anniversary of the first wave of the dissolution of English and Welsh monasteries, Geoffrey Baskerville argued for the continuation of the ties which connected monastic patrons with their religious communities right up to the Dissolution, and he suggested that through the many rights held by patrons, their impact on the religious houses was considerable, even during the later Middle Ages.19 Much more recently, Andrew D. Brown and Martin Heale have echoed this sentiment, noting that the reduction of patronal activity and the decrease in surviving documentation were not indicative of the way patrons regarded their monasteries.20 Even the weighty voice of David Knowles, when commenting on the kinds of connections which theoretically existed between religious houses and their patrons, noted the change in the nature of monastic patronage, rather than its demise, which Knowles linked to the changing society to which these monasteries belonged. 21 That the relationship between monasteries and their patrons changed between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries seems irrefutable. How it changed, however, is less well established, and it is one of the aims of this present work to scrutinise the validity of the above generalisations, positive and negative, and to assess whether lay patronage of monasteries and nunneries in late medieval England and Wales had really, as Oliva has argued, ‘become passé among medieval England’s social elite’.22 The revisionist historiography of the English (and, by extension, Welsh) Reformation and pre-Reformation church has come a long way from the days of 18 19

20

21

22

M. Oliva, ‘Patterns of Patronage to Female Monasteries in the Late Middle Ages’ in Clark (ed.), Religious Orders, p.155 ‘The founders or patrons of a monastery transmitted a large number of rights of interference to their descendants, and all the way down to the dissolution they exercised a profound influence on the internal affairs of the houses of which they were patrons. Nor could these rights die out, for they could pass to other families by grant from the crown, or by sale’ (G. Baskerville, English Monks and the Suppression of the Monasteries (London, 1949), pp.45–6). Heale has noted that although ‘it is much easier to trace the aristocratic contacts of religious houses in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries when regular benefactions were being made, [. . .] it should not be assumed that the drying up of grants of land to monasteries in the later Middle Ages was necessarily a symptom of apathy towards them’ (Dependent Priories, p.199). His statement echoes that of A.D. Brown, in whose opinion ‘the decrease in landed accession does not necessarily indicate a waning interest in the religious’ (Brown, Popular Piety, p.47). ‘[The range of contacts between the two parties], which tended to become less spiritual and more social and economic as the years passed, wove the monasteries, and especially perhaps the lesser monasteries, more and more into the social fabric and rural pattern of the countryside’ (Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, ii, p.287). Oliva, ‘Patterns of Patronage’, p.155.

INTRODUCTION

7

A.G. Dickens et al., and has opened the way to paying the religiosity of ‘ordinary people’ the attention it deserves.23 Increasingly the assessment of formerly neglected sources, especially those relating to less well documented religious institutions (and people), as well as the growing number of regional studies have allowed a significant reassessment of the religious behaviour and preferences of the late medieval laity in England and Wales, and, consequently, of the nature of the pre-Reformation church. Thus in recent years Eamon Duffy has highlighted the vitality of lay religiosity in pre-Reformation England, a view which had been pioneered by Christopher Haigh and upheld by J.J. Scarisbrick and others, whose revisionist approach has largely dismantled Dickens’s view of the English Reformation as a popular act of liberation from an inherently corrupt, outdated and malfunctioning Catholicism.24 Duffy not only stressed the need to reassess lay people’s attitudes to religion in sixteenthcentury England,25 but also argued against an alleged ‘wide gulf between “popular” and “élite” religion’.26 Qualifying the revisionist model, Andrew Brown, Beat Kümin and Ethan Shagan, among others, have taken the debate beyond the accomplishment of conversion and the degree of success of Protestantism in England and Wales, onto a different level of discussion, which sees the English Reformation ‘not in globalising terms, but as a more piecemeal process in which politics and spiritual change were irrevocably intertwined’.27 The religious orders have received mounting attention in the wake of this approach.28 Thus James Clark, in his introduction to The Religious Orders in

23 24

25

26 27

28

A.G. Dickens, The English Reformation (New York, 1965); G.R. Elton, Reform and Reformation: England 1509–58 (London, 1977). E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars (Cambridge (Mass.), 1992); C. Haigh, The English Reformation Revised (Cambridge, 1987) and more recently, English Reformations: Religion, Politics, and Society under the Tudors (Oxford, 1993). Note also J.J. Scarisbrick, The Reformation and the English People (Oxford, 1985), esp. pp.19–39, and R. Whiting, The Blind Devotion of the People: Popular Religion and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 1989). Our understanding of the religion of the late medieval gentry and aristocracy has benefited greatly from the work of Jeremy Catto (‘Religion and the English Nobility in the Late Fourteenth Century’ in H. Lloyd Jones (ed.), History and Imagination (London, 1981), pp.43–55); Christine Carpenter (‘The Religion of the Gentry in FifteenthCentury England’ in D. Williams (ed.), England in the Fifteenth Century (Woodbridge, 1987), pp.53–74); Nigel Saul (‘The Religious Sympathies of the Gentry in Gloucestershire, 1200–1500’, TBGAS, xcviii (1980), pp.99–112); Colin Richmond (‘The English Gentry and Religion, c.1500’ in C. Harper-Bill (ed.), Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1991), pp.121–150) or Rowena Archer (‘Piety in Question: Noblewomen and Religion in the Later Middle Ages’ in D. Wood (ed.), Women and Religion in Medieval England (Oxford, 2003), pp.118–140). Duffy, Stripping of the Altars, p.2. E.H. Shagan, Popular Politics and the English Reformation (Cambridge, 2003), p.7. Indeed, the revisionist model presented by Haigh and Duffy, in Shagan’s view, ‘remains no less imprisoned than its predecessor in a paradigm defined by the phantasmagoric goal of “national conversion” ’ (Shagan, Popular Politics, p.5). See also Brown, Popular Piety, and B. Kümin, The Shaping of a Community: The Rise and Reformation of the English Parish c.1400–1560 (Aldershot, 1996). For a reassessment of the state of pre-Reformation monasticism in England, see especially J. Greatrex, ‘After Knowles: Recent Perspectives in Monastic History’ in Clark (ed.), Reli-

8


Pre-Reformation England, noted the ‘continued vitality’ of pre-Reformation monasticism in England.29 Within this debate, however, the issue of monastic patronage has so far failed to claim more than tangential consideration. The behaviour and the preferences, pious and otherwise, of monastic lay patrons at the close of the Middle Ages can be meaningfully accommodated within this wider context of pre-Reformation discourse. The actions of the late medieval patrons of English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries underscore much of the post-revisionist view of pre-Reformation religiosity. Indeed, and for those reasons, the issue of ecclesiastical patronage belongs at the heart of any such debate.

29

gious Orders, pp.35–47, as well as the other contributions in that volume. The great range of relations between the laity and some religious communities in late medieval England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales is explored in the essays in J. Burton and K. Stöber (eds), Monasteries and Society in the Later Middle Ages (Woodbridge, forthcoming), which illustrate the vigour of the many types of interaction between the two parties during the final three centuries of their existence. J. Clark, Religious Orders, p.13. Cf. also Brown, Popular Piety, pp.26–48. Brown, assessing the number of bequests to religious houses by the laity, found that while the religious communities in 1530s England ‘no longer led society spiritually and intellectually’ (ibid., p.26), the benefactions they continued to receive from lay benefactors declined only gradually.

Monasticism Patronage: Continuity and Change

1 Monasticism and Patronage in England and Wales: Continuity and Change

The houses of monks, canons and nuns which once were, and in many respects still are, such a characteristic feature of the European countryside, have generated a strong fascination and interest among laymen and laywomen ever since their first appearance in the fourth century. From their earliest beginnings, monastic communities were inevitably linked to the lay communities from which they sprang, and from which they were aiming so strongly to distance themselves in order to pursue a life dedicated as far as possible to a purely spiritual existence. From the start the lay community looked up to these groups of pious men and women, some with suspicion, but others with genuine admiration for their lifestyle of contemplation, self-denial and physical mortification, the perceived effectiveness of their prayers and their charitable acts, and they recognised the potential that these holy communities afforded for the salvation of their own souls, or rather the souls of those members of the lay community who had the financial means to afford monastic endowment. In England and Wales, as in the rest of Christian Europe, monasteries and nunneries were an essential part of the medieval landscape and of medieval society. Just as elsewhere in western Christendom, the local lay community was involved with communities of religious men and women on several levels. Laymen supplied the recruits for the many and multiplying communities, they endowed them, and they traded with them. The religious, on the other hand, provided essential services for the lay community. They buried their dead, prayed for their souls, and they provided acceptable careers for their younger sons and for their daughters who had a religious vocation. The contacts between the religious and the laity were many and varied, and equally many and varied were the ways which connected the communities of monks and nuns with their lay patrons.

Spread and development of religious orders in England and Wales England The Norman Conquest of England – and subsequently Wales – brought about fundamental changes in monastic expansion as well as in monastic patronage. The initial wave of new religious foundations following the Conquest saw the

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addition of numerous further Benedictine houses, and the establishment of several Cluniac priories. The new Norman landholders who had been granted estates in the conquered territories by William I were often patrons or benefactors of religious houses in their home countries, and when they settled in England many of them decided to establish daughter-houses dependent on, and with monks brought over from, their monasteries in France. The Cluniac order in particular had enjoyed great popularity in France during the years leading up to the Conquest, and the foundation of a Cluniac monastery, or of a cell of a reformed Norman monastery, on his new lands was in many cases the obvious choice of a nobleman.1 Within a generation, however, the monastic preferences of lay founders had changed. The popularity and predominance of the older orders, which had attracted the patronage of royalty and of the uppermost levels of the nobility during the century and a half following the Norman Conquest, were challenged by the arrival of new religious groups from the closing years of the eleventh century onwards, in particular of Augustinian canons, Cistercian monks and, later, the different orders of friars. With the appearance of these new orders, lay patronage in England and Wales became less exclusive. Augustinians and Cistercians offered for the first time a real option for less prosperous laymen and laywomen who intended to found a religious house. The cost of an Augustinian foundation could be comparatively low, unlike that of a Benedictine or Cluniac house, in that a founder could donate property which had little actual value to himself.2 These orders thus represented a new opportunity for layfolk in possession of more modest fortunes to build and endow their own monastery. Augustinian communities were frequently endowed with parish churches, and because they had control over the parochial revenues they did not require an enormous initial investment by the founder, while at the same time a future income was thereby guaranteed. As a result, many a moderately prosperous layman seized the opportunity for affordable pious investment and established a community of canons; he had thus taken care of his soul in the next world without disregarding his needs, or those of his heirs, in the present one. A meagre initial endowment, however, which is all that some of the new lay founders were able to offer their new communities, did not always set a monastery off to a good start, and many of these rather modestly endowed foundations never developed into great houses in either wealth or importance; in fact, some barely survived. Problems of discipline were a frequent complaint by bishops during their visitations, particularly during the later years of their existence. The peak for the founda-

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On the expansion of the Cluniacs in England, note especially B. Golding, ‘The Coming of the Cluniacs’, Proceedings of the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies IV, 1981 (Woodbridge, 1982), pp.65–76 and 187–95. Cf. R.W. Southern, Western Society and the Church in the Middle Ages (Harmondsworth, 1970), pp.245–7. Southern’s views have recently been challenged, and the evidence shows that some English Augustinian houses were indeed well endowed. The Yorkshire priory of Bridlington, for instance, founded in the early twelfth century by Walter de Gant, was a reasonably prosperous foundation of the order (MRH, p.149).

MONASTICISM PATRONAGE: CONTINUITY AND CHANGE

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tion of houses of canons was the mid-twelfth century, when some 180 houses were established in England and Wales, 56 of which were founded during the reign of Henry I alone.3 More than fifty Augustinian monasteries came into being during the following century, but only a few, usually re-foundations of failed communities, were founded as late as the fifteenth century.4 The Augustinian canons were closely followed by the Cistercians, or White Monks, who had arrived in England in c.1128 to establish their first house at Waverley in Surrey.5 Like the Augustinians, the Cistercian monks embodied hitherto unknown opportunities for potential founders, who now increasingly included men and women of lesser social status. And just as communities of Augustinians, once granted the initial endowment of a church and living quarters, could largely support themselves from the tithes and revenues from their properties, so Cistercian and Savignac monks, with the help provided by the conversi or lay brethren living in their communities, became the most successful wool merchants in England and Wales and lived off the profits from their agricultural activities, as well as from trading wool and running mills.6 Their search for solitude made the Cistercians choose remote sites, as a result of which they rapidly became popular with lay patrons of the lesser nobility for whom this ascetic religious order offered a comparatively inexpensive opportunity to see to the salvation of their souls. By granting sites of marginal land of little current value to themselves, laymen and laywomen could provide for a community of Cistercian monks or nuns to found a monastery of a religious order which had the added advantage of being perceived to be particularly austere and consequently particularly spiritually effective. 7 Furthermore, for potential twelfth-century monastic founders, the regular 3

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D.M. Robinson, The Geography of Augustinian Settlement in Medieval England and Wales, 2 vols, British Archaeological Review, British Series, lxxx (1980). See also the Appendix below. St Tudwal’s Island in Caernarfonshire was founded in 1417 on an ancient Celtic foundation, and Warbleton in Sussex was established in 1413 by Sir John Pelham following the destruction of the priory of Hastings by the sea. For the early history and spread of the Cistercian order, see for example D.H. Williams’s The Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages (Leominster, 1998). David Robinson’s book The Cistercian Abbeys of Britain: Far From the Concourse of Men (London, 1998) includes a summary of the history of the Cistercian order in Britain, as well as an excellent gazetteer of Cistercian abbeys. An altogether different view of the Cistercian order is provided by C. Berman, The Cistercian Evolution: The Invention of a Religious Order in Twelfth-Century Europe (Philadelphia, 2000). For some regional studies see D.H. Williams, The Welsh Cistercians (Leominster, 2001) and C.J. Holdsworth, ‘The Cistercians in Devon’ in Studies in Medieval History presented to R. Allen Brown, ed. C. Harper-Bill, C.J. Holdsworth, and J.L. Nelson (Woodbridge, 1989), pp.179–90. The arrival of the Cistercians coincided with that of monks of the order of Savigny. Houses of Savignac monks, which bore many similarities with those of Cîteaux, merged with the Cistercian order in 1147, and will consequently be treated here as Cistercian monasteries. See C.H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism (London, 1989), p.156. In some instances, Cistercian monasteries were established on existing settlements, at the expense of the secular community living there. For the particularly notorious examples of the foundations of Revesby Abbey (Lincs.) and Meaux Abbey (Yorks.), and for Wales, that of Valle Crucis, see Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, pp.72–3, 132.

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canons as well as the White Monks were a new and fashionable addition to the monastic assortment, and it was for all these reasons that both the Cistercians and the Augustinian canons rapidly gained considerable popularity among founders of monasteries.8 Twelfth- and thirteenth-century patrons often made their decision in favour of one or the other of the new orders rather than to found another house of Benedictine or Cluniac monks and, within the relatively short space of a century, more than 245 monasteries of Augustinian canons and Cistercian monks were founded in England and Wales.9 The arrival of new religious communities, quite apart from being a novel and fashionable option for pious investment, thus simply meant greater choice for founders. And as the centuries went on, this choice kept increasing. Augustinian canons and canonesses and Cistercian monks and nuns preceded the arrival of another new religious phenomenon, that of the mendicant friars and their entirely new concept of monasticism, by about a hundred years. Dominican friars had established themselves in England by 1221, and the Franciscans arrived some three years later, and not unlike the regular orders they struck a chord with those sections of the lay community intent on religious investment and value for money.10 The Cistercians and Augustinians were not the only regular orders to have a significant impact on the monastic landscape of England and Wales, and on the options available to potential monastic founders. Around the same time, Gilbert of Sempringham began to establish religious houses of what was to become the Gilbertine order, and monks from the order of Tiron, alongside the White Canons of the order of Prémontré, were arriving on British soil.11 The only significant order native to England, the Gilbertines originated as a double order for male and female religious when the Lincolnshire priest Gilbert of Sempringham founded the priory of St Mary in Sempringham at the instigation of a small group of local girls wishing to pursue a religious life, around the year 1139.12 The – mostly local – popularity of the new order grew steadily, and by the mid-fourteenth century there were ten Gilbertine double houses in England, as well as twelve houses for Gilbertine canons. 13

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However, the often moderate initial endowment of Cistercian monasteries by the aristocracy meant that many houses suffered very real hardship at the start. Cf. MRH, pp.112–15; 137–45. Friars, however, have not been dealt with in the present study. MRH, p.190. The main authority on the Premonstratensians in this country is still Colvin, White Canons. For a more recent study of the order in late medieval England, see Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order. For the most exhaustive and authoritative – and most recent – study of the order see B. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (Oxford, 1995); cf. also R. Graham, St Gilbert of Sempringham and the Gilbertines (London, 1901) and Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p.98; MRH, pp.24–5. Houses of the Gilbertine order enjoyed the privilege of exemption from episcopal visitations, and much has been made of the Gilbertines’ relative freedom from episcopal and from lay interference. Wood’s claim that the order possibly did not recognise lay patrons at all (Monasteries and their Patrons, p.4) has been refuted by Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, p.311.


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The monks of the order of Tiron, not unlike those of Cîteaux and Savigny, began their history as a Benedictine reform movement in the early years of the twelfth century. The first community of the order arrived in England, shortly after establishing their first monastery in France, with the foundation of the priory of Hamble (Hants.) in 1109. However, no more than seven houses of monks of Tiron ever existed in England and Wales, and, of these, four were sold to Winchester College in 1391.14 Religious order followed religious order in twelfth-century England. Barely three decades after the first English Premonstratensian abbey church was consecrated, and Gilbert of Sempringham had settled his first communities in Lincolnshire, the Carthusians had made their way across the Channel from France.15 The success of the English Carthusian monks was slow to begin with. Not until the fourteenth century, in the wake of the Black Death and at a time when other religious orders had practically ceased to establish new houses, did England experience a modest wave of Carthusian foundations. Carthusian monasteries offered new options for potential founders and benefactors, notably the possibility of founding not an entire monastery, but rather one or several of the monks’ individual cells, making the Charterhouse a corporate foundation. At the Carthusian monastery of Coventry, for instance, monks’ cells were donated by a number of individual benefactors.16 Another late arrival on the British monastic map were the Trinitarians, whose first English house was founded as late as c.1224 at Moatenden in Kent.17 The order, which was popular with lay patrons and benefactors, had established nine further houses in England before the end of the fourteenth century.18 Wales To the west of Offa’s Dyke, the monastic tradition encountered by the Normans was in many respects unfamiliar to them. The new nobility which had settled in the Welsh Marches did not let much time pass before establishing a religious foothold alongside their new castles. As early as 1086, Wihenoc of Monmouth (de Monemue), who held the castle there for William I, granted an existing church in Monmouth, in close proximity to his castle, to Benedictine monks from Saumur (which community, incidentally, he is said to have joined in later

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These were Andwell Priory and Hamble Priory, both in Hampshire, St Cross on the Isle of Wight and Titley Priory in Hereford. For some studies of the order, see E.M. Thompson, The Carthusian Order in England (London, 1930), or, more recently, G. Coppack and M. Aston, Christ’s Poor Men: The Carthusians in England (Stroud, 2002). For a list of founders of Coventry’s individual cells, see Mon. VI, p.15. Mon. VI (iii), p.1562; VCH Kent II, p.205; MRH, p.206. The sources disagree on the identity of the founder, who was either Sir Robert de Rokesley or Sir Michael de Ponin. By the fourteenth century the patronage appears to have been with the de la Warre family, with whom it remained until the sixteenth century. The fourteenth-century additions to the order were Ingham in Norfolk, Newcastle upon Tyne in Northumberland and a re-foundation of the older monastery at Oxford.

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life, upon his return to France).19 A year later, in 1087, Hamelinus de Barham set about founding a Benedictine priory at Abergavenny, the patronage of which was with the lords of Abergavenny for many generations until it passed to the crown.20 These new foundations tell us much about the movements and settlement patterns of the Normans in Wales.21 By c.1098 Arnulf of Montgomery, newly titled earl of Pembroke, had pushed further into Welsh territory and established a castle and colony in Pembroke, to which he then added a Benedictine priory, whose community came from the abbey of St Martin Séez in France. The same abbey also provided monks for the new Benedictine abbey at Shrewsbury in 1083x1086.22 The later earls of Pembroke, Walter and William Marshal, confirmed and added to the founder’s initial endowments when the patronage of the priory passed to them. 23 The early twelfth century saw great activity in the Welsh Marcher lordships, and this is reflected to no small degree in the monastic foundations which sprung up all along the March. By c.1110 there was a Benedictine priory in Brecon, a daughter house of Battle Abbey (Sussex), founded by Bernard de Novo Mercato, or Newmarch, one of the most prominent of the Marcher lords, alongside his castle there.24 Bernard was not alone among the greater of the Marcher lords in establishing a Benedictine monastery. Robert fitz Hamo founded a small priory in Cardiff after he had established his castle in the town.25 William Fitz Osbern, another very prominent name in Marcher politics, and subsequent lords of Chepstow, were responsible for the foundation of Chepstow Priory or Strigoil, again situated in close proximity to their new castle at Chepstow.26 Around the year 1113, Robert de Chandos established a small Benedictine house in Goldcliff in Monmouthshire, which was to have an eventful and often troubled history and which ended its days as a dependent priory of Tewkesbury in the mid-fifteenth century.27 Altogether there were nine 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Mon. IV, p.595; MRH, p.71. For Wihenoc de Monemue’s foundation charter see Mon. IV, p.596. Mon. IV, p.613; MRH, p.58. On Abergavenny Priory see also Williams, The Welsh Church, pp.153, 230–32, 353, 359. On these southern Welsh foundations, see also F.G. Cowley, Studies in Welsh History – The Monastic Order in South Wales, 1066–1349 (Cardiff, 1977). MRH, p.76. Mon. IV, p.320; MRH, p.73. Mon. III, p.259. Cardiff Priory was founded as a dependency of Tewkesbury Abbey, of which Robert FitzHamo was also the founder. See also Mon. IV, p.632. MRH, p.62. Goldcliff Priory seems to have experienced a particularly troubled time at the hands of quarrelsome and oppressive neighbours, among them the nearby Cistercian abbey of Tintern. In the 1320s the priory was embroiled in the repercussions of rebellion against the king, and in the 1330s a long drawn-out dispute regarding the succession to the position of prior disturbed the peace of the community. During these years Goldcliff’s priors repeatedly petitioned the king for help following a number of break-ins and robberies by the rebels, who carried off the monastery’s valuables, as the Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales tell us ‘Ralph de Ronceville and one William le Walsh of Llanwern with others, by force and arms, broke the treasury of the priory, closed with two locks, and carried off chalices, basins, cruets and censers of silver-gilt and several muniments which were


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Benedictine foundations in Wales, all established well before the twelfth century was over. Due to their status as dependencies of English or French monasteries, these Benedictine foundations represented an alien element in Wales, and in the eyes of the native population they remained to some extent associated with foreign intrusion and conquest. The dominance of the Benedictine order in Wales, if we can call it that, however, was relatively short-lived. Less than two decades after the first Benedictine monastery was established in Monmouth, Wales’s monastic map underwent some drastic changes as a result of the arrival of firstly the Augustinian canons and then the Cistercian monks on Welsh soil. Under the patronage of Hugh de Lacy, Augustinian canons had established a priory in Llanddewi Nanthodnu or Llanthony, later known as Llanthony Prima, in the Black Mountains (Monmouthshire) by 1108.28 Eight further houses of the order came into existence in Wales during the three centuries which followed, many of them established in the thirteenth century on sites of ancient former monasteries, as on Bardsey and at Beddgelert, both in Caernarfonshire, at Penmon on Anglesey or on Puffin Island just off the coast of Anglesey. In terms of their patronage, these small houses remain largely obscure. The original founders of the Welsh Augustinian houses are often known and crop up occasionally in later documents, but, beyond this, information is somewhat scanty. Fortunately, considerably more is known about the founders and later patrons of Wales’s most prominent religious order, the Cistercians. They were present in the region from 1131 (or from 1130, if houses of Savignac origin are included), and by the beginning of the thirteenth century, there were no fewer than thirteen abbeys of the order in Wales, as well as two – less welldocumented – nunneries. The landscape and remoteness of Wales was in many ways ideal for Cistercian communities, as both the native and the Anglo-Norman nobility recognised. The abbeys at Cwmhir (Radnorshire), Conwy (Caernarfonshire), Cymmer (Merioneth), Llantarnam (Monmouthshire), Strata Marcella (Montgomeryshire) and Valle Crucis (Denbighshire) were all founded by Welsh princely families, although not all remained in Welsh hands for very long.29 Strata Florida Abbey in Cardiganshire, on the other hand, was founded, in 1164, by Robert FitzStephen, but passed into the

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within, and likewise the common seal of the place, closed with four locks’ (p.118). The troubles of Goldcliff Priory culminated in the 1330s in the falsification of bulls by a monk from Tintern in the wholly unmonkish attempt to replace Goldcliff’s prior, leading to the imprisonment of the prior by the rebels. In 1332, Philip, the prior of Goldcliff, stated in a petition that one ‘William Martel, monk of Tintern, fell upon the priory by force and arms and robbed [the prior] of all his goods, chasing him away, after which by false bulls shown to the king and by false representations and testimony of Sir John Inge who witnessed that the said bulls were true, though they were found to be false in the Chancery’ (ibid., pp.65–6). For these and other, similar complaints, see the Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales, ed. W. Rees (Cardiff, 1975). Goldcliff Priory was granted, in 1451, to Eton College, but was once again very briefly in the hands of the abbot of Tewkesbury before it failed. Cf. Heale, Dependent Priories, p.151. Mon. VI, p.569; MRH, p.164. For the founders of these abbeys see the Appendix below.

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hands of the Lord Rhys soon afterwards when Ceredigion was retaken by Welsh forces.30 The Lord Rhys gained a reputation as involved patron of religious houses and under his patronage the community prospered. The southern Cistercian abbeys, Neath, Margam, Tintern and Grace Dieu, on the other hand, owed their existence to the initiative of the Anglo-Norman nobility and became largely associated, in the eyes of the native population, with this part of society.31 Foundations of other religious orders in Wales were sporadic and remained on the whole marginal, with the exception of houses of the order of Tiron, which was in fact more successful in Pembrokeshire than it ever was in England.

The Later Middle Ages By the fourteenth century, over a thousand monasteries had been founded in England and Wales. Many of them had been short-lived and had already failed by this time, which saw a sudden halt of new foundations and some closure of existing houses which had begun as early as the 1220s. Few religious orders added new foundations during the fourteenth century, an interesting exception being the English Carthusians, who established six of their nine houses during the second half of the fourteenth century. The cost for religious foundations went up, as the value of land in the fourteenth century increased sharply, while at the same time income was reduced. The ‘rising price of piety’ was undoubtedly felt by potential lay patrons and meant that founding a monastery was once again no longer an affordable option for many a layman. The crown moreover imposed restrictions upon grants of land and property to the church with the enactment of the Statute of Mortmain in 1279.32 The great monastic patrons such as the king, bishops and the upper levels of the nobility were already in charge of a plurality of religious houses and may have felt that their souls were sufficiently taken care of by those existing foundations. Bishops and other wealthy patrons were more inclined to invest in other, newer, more fashionable types of establishments, such as educational institutions, chantry chapels and hospitals. Several existing foundations, in fact, were acquired by

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Mon. V, p.632 erroneously names the Lord Rhys as founder of the house. On Strata Florida see also D. Robinson, ‘Strata Florida Abbey’, Cistercian Abbeys of Britain, pp.176–7 and Williams, The Welsh Cistercians, p.6. It has become customary to differentiate between the ‘Welsh’ communities of north and mid-Wales, and the ‘Anglo-Norman’ Cistercian communities of the south. This convenient division, however, has to be treated with some caution as it has emerged that the distinction was in reality much more blurred than has often been argued. Although direct documentary evidence for this is often sparse, the archaeology, including heraldic tiles and burials, provides some indication that the division was not as clear-cut as has often been stated. On the Statute of Mortmain, note especially S. Raban, Mortmain Legislation and the English Church 1279–1500 (Cambridge, 1982).


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bishops for the foundation of their new university colleges.33 Monastic possessions, in this way ‘recycled’, provided a convenient endowment for these new educational institutions by bishops and kings – less so, however, for the laity, to whom the university colleges did not have the same appeal. The familial circumstances of hereditary lay patrons had also changed by the fourteenth century. Many important families had since been united in marriage or else become extinct, so that the number of potential monastic patrons among the laity had decreased and was indeed decreasing still further. In addition, the fourteenth century saw the outbreak of the Black Death, which reduced the numbers of religious drastically,34 in a few instances wiping out an entire religious community.35 The decrease in population following the Black Death resulted in a marked dwindling in the number of novices seeking entry into monastic houses of all orders except the few houses of Carthusian monks, whose very strict regime and austere lifestyle obviously appealed to post-plague English society. The demand for new foundations in fourteenth-century England and Wales simply no longer existed, while at the same time the more opulent of the religious houses endeavoured to restrict the number of brethren in order to maintain a high standard of living in an increasingly expensive society. Evidently, investment in piety by lay folk continued, apparently involving a wider section of society, but not, however, in monastic foundations. Yet despite the social, demographic and economic changes which took place during the fourteenth century, the bond between monasteries and their patrons persisted, at least theoretically, until the Dissolution, when regular monasticism in England and Wales came to an end. However, the later medieval patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries were obviously no longer the men and women who had first conceived the ideas for their foundations, who had personally chosen the religious order, the site of the house, and even the mother house from which to found their own new communities. Instead, the patrons of the monasteries during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the heirs of these original founders, and as such in some respects 33

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The process of systematic recycling of monastic property for this purpose was pioneered by Walter de Merton (d.1277), bishop of Rochester and founder of Merton College, Oxford. Another notorious example is Bishop Waynflete’s closure of the Augustinian priory of Selborne in Hampshire in 1484, apparently ‘in a hopeless state’, for the endowment of Magdalen College, Oxford. Equally notorious was the seizure of numerous monasteries by Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s, who thus endowed his new collegiate foundations at Oxford and Ipswich. See also V. Davis, William Waynflete, Bishop and Educationalist (Woodbridge, 1993), esp. pp.146–7. As regards the reduction of numbers of religious men and women as a result of the Black Death, it has been suggested that these fell by up to a third, from approximately 17,000 to c.10,000 during this period. Estimates, however, vary. Cf. C. Harper-Bill, ‘English Religion after the Black Death’ in The Black Death in England, ed. M. Ormrod and P. Lindley (Stamford, 1996), p.97; MRH, p.47. As at Ivychurch in Wiltshire where twelve of the thirteen brethren fell victim to the epidemic, at the Benedictine nunnery of Foulkeholme in Yorkshire, the failure of which in 1349 is attributed to the Black Death, or at the Cistercian abbey of Newenham in Devon, where all but three monks succumbed to the plague. See also Harper-Bill, ‘English Religion after the Black Death’, p. 97.

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necessarily more remote than their predecessors had been, particularly where their principal landed interests lay elsewhere. As the centuries went by, the personal connection which had bound the original founder and the original religious community together was fading, and the ties between the monasteries and their patrons often weakened and became pure formalities. However, these ties never disappeared entirely. Every monastery and every nunnery still had a patron, right up until the day of its dissolution in the sixteenth century or before. But what did the patronage of a house of monks, canons or nuns mean to a layman or a laywoman during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries? How important was this role for them? And to what extent was monastic patronage as it had been understood by their predecessors, the original founders of the monasteries and nunneries of England and Wales, maintained and actively practised by the later medieval aristocracy? And, finally, who were the patrons of the late medieval English and Welsh abbeys and priories?

Identifying lay patrons Trying to establish who the patrons of the monasteries in late medieval England and Wales were is not always entirely straightforward or unambiguous. Information regarding the identities of late medieval lay patrons can be found in a very wide range of sources, at times clearly and unequivocally, at other times rather by default. In many cases, evidence remains either inconclusive or, worse still, does not survive at all.36 Where patrons do appear in the records this might include an entry in the annals of a religious house on the occasion of an election or a patron’s marriage or death, or any other instance of contact between the two parties which happened to be recorded: an endowment for instance, or a visit. So, for example, under the year 1320, the chronicle of the Cistercian abbey of Croxden (Staffs.) mentions the baptism of Margaret, daughter of Thomas Lord Furnival, the patron of Croxden Abbey.37 Similarly, in the 1520s the Register of Thetford Priory (Norfolk) noted numerous visits by its patron, the duke of Norfolk, and members of his family.38 In other cases, patrons of monasteries are simply mentioned in the records of episcopal visitations, or in the genealogies of founding families.39 Needless to say, these types of records vary greatly in their accuracy and their reliability. The range of documentary sources used to identify patrons and their actions

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For the present purpose, where they could be identified, the names of founders and later patrons have been compiled in a survey (Appendix below). BL MS Faustina vi, ff.80v–94v. Cambridge University Library Add. MS 6969; The Register of Thetford Priory, ed. D. Dymond, 2 vols (Oxford, 1995–6), p.522. Bishop Redman’s visitations of the English Premonstratensian monasteries in the late fifteenth century, for instance, makes note of both the original founder and the current patron, where known. See the Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, ed. F.A. Gasquet, 3 vols (London, 1904–6).


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includes those composed both in the monasteries and externally. The latter include much formal documentation, particularly papal letters and petitions,40 the various bishops’ registers of late medieval England,41 and miscellaneous royal records.42 Internal records are equally diverse, comprising monastic cartularies,43 monastic chronicles,44 other formal documents such as household accounts and inventories,45 as well as letters and letter books.46 And finally, 40

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A large number of papal documents relating to England and Wales can be found in PRO SC7 (Special Collections, Papal Bulls). For printed editions, see e.g. J.E. Sayers (ed.), Original Papal Documents in England and Wales from the Accession of Pope Innocent III to the Death of Pope Benedict XI, 1198–1304 (Oxford, 1999); Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. W.H. Bliss, 15 vols (London, 1893–1960) and Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Petitions to the Pope, AD 1342–1419, ed. W.H. Bliss (London, 1896). As sources of information about lay patrons and their monasteries, the papal registers have proven to be disappointing. There are some instances of patrons appealing to the pope for permission to appropriate churches etc. to their monasteries. A lay patron might petition the pope for reasons of greater security, or else because he had already unsuccessfully approached the responsible bishop. The main incentive for patrons to approach the pope on behalf of their monasteries was to obtain licence for appropriations of churches to monasteries, usually where these were allegedly suffering from poverty caused by external factors such as floods or other natural disasters, or raids by soldiers or, as in the case of Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, ‘marauding Scots’. Cf. D.M. Smith, Guide to Bishops’ Registers of England and Wales, Royal Historical Society (London, 1981). The many thousands of miscellaneous letters and charters under PRO SC1 (Special Collections, Ancient Correspondence) relate mainly to English monasteries and nunneries, but also include correspondence with Scottish and Welsh houses. Relevant also are the petitions collected under PRO SC8 (Special Collections, Petitions to the King) and, among the printed material, the Calendars of Close Rolls, 1227–1509, 62 vols (HMSO, 1902–1963) and the Calendars of Patent Rolls, 1216–1509, 55 vols (HMSO, 1901–1916). The original documents are at the PRO (PRO C54; PRO C66). For a range of miscellaneous letters and inquisitions, see the Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem and other Analogous Documents preserved in the Public Record Office, 14 vols (London, 1904–1952), the Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), 7 vols (London, 1916–69), and the Calendar of Letters and Papers Domestic and Foreign of Henry VIII, 22 vols (1862–1910). For Wales, see also the Calendar of Ancient Petitions Relating to Wales, ed. W. Rees (Cardiff, 1975) and the Littere Wallie. Preserved in the Liber A in the Public Record Office, ed. J.G. Edwards (Cardiff, 1940). PRO E315/29–54. There are numerous surviving monastic cartularies. Cf. G.R.C. Davis, Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain – A Short Catalogue (London, 1958) and amendments and additions thereto by P. Hoskin in MRB, ii (1996), pp.1–12, by N. Vincent in ibid., iv (1998), especially pp.6–11, and in ibid., v, pp.26–7, and by R. Hayes in ibid., pp.4–22. Monastic chronicles, where they survive, have the unique advantage that they are likely to record events and occasions which had some importance for the particular house, and which might not be noted in any other source. They might thus include more mundane events. An outstanding example of this is the chronicle of the Cistercian abbey of Croxden in Staffordshire (BL Cotton Faustina vi, ff.72–93v; Bodleian Library, Dodsworth 78, ff.120–121v). Occasionally this type of record contains considerable of information about patron– monastery relationships. Note especially the registers of Thetford Priory, Cambridge University Library Add. MS 6969. For a printed and annotated edition of this register see Dymond, Register. For collections of monastic letters see e.g. Literae Cantuariensis, ed. J.B. Sheppard, 3

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there were the records of the laity,47 among them, notably, wills48 and licences.49 Together these records combine to create a sufficiently detailed picture of elements of interaction between monastic communities and the wider society of which they were a part. In reality, unfortunately, the survival of a full set of records of any monastic house is exceptionally rare. This is due in part to the events of the Dissolution, which had disastrous consequences for the contents of the archives and libraries of English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries, most of which were dispersed or destroyed. Before their destruction, the archives of wealthy abbeys and priories, like those of the crown, contained a wealth of miscellaneous material, of which, fortunately, vast quantities of original documents relating to religious houses have survived. The survival rate of relevant records from houses with lay patrons, many of which were small and impoverished, in contrast, is rather low. Monastic archives are more likely to survive where the churches continued in use after the Dissolution, as at cathedral priories like Durham or Canterbury; but these were normally houses under the patronage of the crown or the church. The nearly five hundred years which have elapsed since the Dissolution have also taken their toll. Much of what had initially survived the turmoil of the royal commissioners’ activities in the 1530s was subsequently lost, and in many cases we depend almost entirely upon early copies of the original records which have since vanished. Survival of document material of any kind is uneven, and the predominance of records relating to better-known people or places seems to emphasise this.

47

48

49

vols, Rolls Series (1887–89); Christ Church Letters, ed. J.B. Sheppard, Camden Society (1878). Letters composed by the laity occasionally mention the religious houses of which these men and women were patrons. See, for example, The Plumpton Correspondence, ed. Th. Stapleton (Sutton, 1990) or Kingsford’s Stonor Letters and Papers, ed. C. Carpenter (Cambridge, 1996), etc. Travel logs and itineraries might also describe or mention a religious house. Men like Gerald of Wales, William Worcester and John Leland all visited and wrote about monasteries. The antiquary William Worcester reported seeing calendars or chronicles of several English abbeys and priories on his travels in the last quarter of the fifteenth century. The works he mentions specifically include calendars of Tavistock Abbey (Devon), ‘a martyrology owned by Newnham Abbey [Beds.], registers at St Benet of Hulme [Norfolk], and chronicles at Thetford [Norfolk], Hyde [Hants.] and Glastonbury [Somerset]’. See William Worcestre, Itineraries, ed. J.H. Harvey, Oxford Medieval Texts (Oxford, 1969). Small numbers of wills survive from as early as Anglo-Saxon times, and fourteenth-century and later wills have been preserved in large quantities. From c.1379 wills, including those of laymen and laywomen of lesser social order, were most commonly preserved in the probate registers. Unfortunately, many of these served purely administrative purposes and are unregistered or intestate, and in many cases the text was not copied into the register at the probate. Moreover, registrations were uneven, and not all wills proved were copied. However, they survive in great numbers, and, significantly, they include many wills of identified lay patrons. Perhaps more than any other formal type of document, wills grant an invaluable, and often deeply personal, insight into a lay patron’s mind. Many of these are at PRO C66 (patent rolls) and C53 (fine rolls).


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The other main problem regarding the sources is the fact that nearly all the surviving evidence consists of formal information and relates to the professional side of the patron–monastery relationship, that is, endowments, appropriations and elections. There is a significant lack of more personal material, such as chronicle entries or letters recording personal sentiments of patrons or religious communities, as the vast majority of the surviving documents are by definition designed for a specific purpose, be it to record a property transaction or the proceedings of an election. Yet, despite its deficiencies, the existing source material goes a long way towards showing the range of contacts which once existed between the two parties, while hinting strongly at what no longer exists today.

The Rights and Duties of Monastic Patrons Every religious house, regardless of its order, size or status, had a patron from the day of its foundation to that of its dissolution.50 The patron of an abbey or priory was the heir or heiress of the original founder of the house.51 Theoretically he was the founder’s direct male heir, but just as commonly, and increasingly as time went by, he was a more distant relative or a member of a different family altogether who might have acquired the patronage of a religious house by royal grant, by marriage, or through the division of the heritage between co-heirs. What patronage of a monastery or nunnery meant to a patron varied greatly, not only from religious order to religious order, but also from century to century, from country to country and, importantly, from monastery to monastery. Nonetheless, the patronage of a religious house was a concept integral to its existence, and one which had many manifestations. The meaning and expressions of monastic patronage, like monasticism itself, changed and evolved over time. Likewise, the concept of monastic patronage, especially as far as the laity was concerned, became gradually more clearly defined in canon law.52 Janet Burton has observed that ‘the thirteenth century

50

51

52

The patron of a monastery or nunnery was in most cases also the feudal lord of the house, unless the advowson of the house had not been passed on together with the lordship. This might be the case, for example, where a patron’s overlord owned the land granted to a house, or where the advowson of a house had been sold to a new patron. Wood noted that where the patronage of a monastery or nunnery was passed on through the direct family line, it was often regarded as a special privilege by the medieval nobility in thirteenth-century England. Cf. Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.6: ‘for many of the nobility, patronage of religious houses was an important interest’, and ibid., p.7: ‘patronage was an interest in which the baronage felt some solidarity’. Canon law to this effect was elaborated at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the Second Council of Lyons (1274), when attempts to protect the interests of the church without offending those of the laity resulted in the clearer definition of the boundaries of lay patrons’ rights with regard to their religious houses. Cf. Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, pp.16–17, who also elaborates on the differences between the continental ‘advocate’ and the English ‘patron’ of a religious house.

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saw a move towards the greater definition of patronage, while in the twelfth it was a more fluid concept’.53 A fluid concept, that is, within the parameters of which many monastic patrons were nonetheless acutely aware of their rights and duties. These rights and duties, obviously, varied, as did the reasons which prompted a king or a bishop, a knight or an aristocratic widow, to found a religious house in the first place. The establishment of a religious community by a layman could be a more or a less premeditated undertaking.54 But whether the result of an act of charity, or the fulfilment of a vow, or an act of penance, or indeed a calculated investment in spiritual benefits, whatever the motive behind it, the foundation of a religious house in medieval England and Wales was never accidental.55 The ways in which the various elements of patronage were applied to individual monasteries and nunneries, on the other hand, might differ greatly. Perhaps the most obvious variation in monastic patronage was the extent of patronal involvement with different religious orders, in particular between exempt and non-exempt orders,56 although the passage of time blurred this distinction somewhat. By the fourteenth century the patrons of all monastic orders, to a greater or lesser extent, enjoyed both the spiritual and the material benefits which the patronage of their religious house(s) allowed them. In its fullest extent, monastic patronage included rights ranging from the patron’s custody of monastic lands during vacancies and his involvement in elections of abbots and priors, via ‘feudal dues and services’, to a patron’s entitlement to the house’s hospitality during his lifetime and beyond, and the care for his soul after his death.57 In return the patron was expected to support, endow and protect the house and its community. Yet the reality of monastic patronage varied considerably from case to case. 58 53 54

55

56

57

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Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p.212. ‘The foundation of a monastery might be haphazard at first, or elaborately planned from the start; it might begin with a landlord sending supplies to wandering monks who turned up in his woods, or more probably with business-like negotiations for a nucleus of monks to be sent from an existing house. But it involved at some stage the solemn setting aside of lands and men’ (Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.1). Whereas a religious community, on the other hand, might form and grow, initially uncoordinated and unplanned, around a hermit, as in the case of Llanthony I (Monmouthshire), or a priest, as did the first Gilbertine community at Sempringham. Therefore the centralised orders, i.e. the Cistercians, Premonstratensians and Carthusians, enjoyed, at least theoretically and during the earlier period, relative freedom from both lay and episcopal interference. Colvin remarked that ‘it would appear, therefore, that, strictly speaking, the patron of a Premonstratensian abbey could claim only spiritual benefits as the privilege of his status’ (White Canons, p.296). In reality, however, and with the passage of time, no monastic order could claim to be free from lay interference, not even the houses of Gilbertines, despite Wood’s claim that ‘it is possible that the order did not recognize any patrons at all’ (Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.4). Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.3. However, as Colvin has rightly pointed out, ‘it is not easy to give a precise answer [to the question ‘what did it mean to be the hereditary patron of a religious house’], for curiously little has been written about the rights and privileges which the status of “founder” conferred’ (Colvin, White Canons, p.292). Thus ‘the king’s dealings with his ancient and famous abbeys’, Wood noted, ‘would differ from his dealings with a remote and obscure priory whose advowson had escheated to


23

The relationship between a patron and his or her abbey or priory might be formal and professional or friendly and personal, or, worse, indifferent or, worse still, hostile and abusive – or virtually anything in between. The extent to which patrons, both greater and lesser, were inspired and driven by genuine pious motivation is now impossible to ascertain. Certainly, if their foundation charters and their wills are anything to go by, all their foundations were acts of piety and charity, ultimately conceived out of the founder’s concern for his own soul and for those of his nearest and dearest.59 But while spiritual benefits were undoubtedly one of the main driving factors behind the foundation of a religious establishment, it seems clear that this was not the only reason. For those who could afford them, monasteries represented impressive physical manifestations of their status – often recently acquired – and, after death, very fine mausolea indeed. Especially in border regions, they might help to root a new lord more firmly and authoritatively in his new estates. Such was the case in the Welsh Marches where the foundations of small, often dependent priories near the lords’ castles allow us to some extent to trace the Normans’ movements into Wales.60 In addition, these foundations, as Martin Heale has pointed out, ‘provided a spiritual focus for the [feudal] honour’.61 Monasteries might moreover be responsible for the compilation and safekeeping of the founding family’s genealogy and other important documents and serve for the safe storage of such papers and other valuables. 62 And then there were other, more directly lucrative, advantages the patron of a monastery might rightfully profit from. Hospitality and the custody of the

59

60

61 62

him, and both would differ from a country knight’s relations with a small priory occupying a corner of his manor’ (Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.3). Note, for example, Robert de Ferrer’s typical mid-twelfth-century foundation charter of Merevale Abbey (Warwicks.), reproduced in the Monasticon: ‘Rogero Cestriæ episcopo, et omnibus filiis sanctæ ecclesiæ, Robertus comes de Ferrariis, salutem. Sciatis me concessisse pro anima Roberti comitis de Ferrariis patris mei, et pro salute animæ meæ, Deo et beatæ Mariæ, et ecclesiæ de Miravall, ad construendam abbathiam ordinis Cisterciensis, totam forestam meam de Ardena’ (Mon. V, p.482). Thus the foundations of the priories at Chepstow (–1071), Monmouth (1086), Abergavenny (c.1087–1100), Cardiff (?–1106), Brecon (c.1110) and Ewenny (–1131) coincided with the establishment of their respective lords in the honour. See also Davies, Age of Conquest, p.181. Heale, Dependent Priories, pp.48–9. The so-called Founders’ Book of Tewkesbury Abbey is one such example (on this manuscript see especially J.M. Luxford, ‘The Founders’ Book’, ed. R.K. Morris and R. Shoesmith, Tewkesbury Abbey. History, Art & Architecture (Logaston, 2003), pp.53–64); note also the correspondence between the prior and patrons of Thetford Priory in the 1530s in which the safekeeping of certain of the patron’s items in the priory is mentioned (D. Dymond (ed.), The Register of Thetford Priory, 2 vols (Oxford, 1995–6), p.735). On the function of religious houses as compilers and safekeepers of documents and other valuables in general, see pp.76, 180 below. Cf. also D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, 3 vols (Oxford, 1948–59), ii, p.287: ‘[A patron] might even demand a loan from the house, which he also treated as a bank and safe-deposit for charters, testaments and valuables of every kind.’ Note also M. Hicks, ‘English Monasteries as Repositories of Dynastic Memory’, unpublished conference paper, Harlaxton Medieval Symposium, 26 July 1999, and Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p.228.

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house during vacancies were among the rights mentioned by Wood.63 As well as being among the most popular and most jealously guarded of a patron’s rights, these were also the ones which were most easily, and hence most often, abused and most frequently caused conflict to erupt between a religious house and its patrons – especially its later patrons.64 On a more positive note, some patrons, and particularly the original founders of religious houses, both men and women, as well as their relatives, decided, sometimes as late as on the deathbed, to make their stay in their abbey or priory permanent, with or without joining the religious order of the community. Others might use the privilege of entering their religious communities not for themselves, but instead to make appointments of their choice to their houses. Importantly, the patron’s right to appoint extended to his influence, at least notionally although increasingly also actually, in elections to heads of religious houses. Patrons made varying use of this authority, both throughout the earlier period and during the later Middle Ages. As far as the religious communities were concerned, however, it is certainly true that, in the words of Susan Wood, ‘for houses of all orders [. . .] the patron was in some degree someone to be reckoned with’.65 Along with a patron’s rights and benefits came, inevitably, his duties in relation to his religious house. Although it was nowhere specifically stated, or indeed clearly defined, the patron of a monastery or nunnery was expected, above all, to provide support to his or her religious community,66 support both material and protective. Apart from the original endowment by the founder and later confirmation thereof and additions thereto, the material aspect normally included a whole range of bequests and donations, formal or more personal, ranging from cash or books to lands and property. The wealthier and more generous the patron, the more frequent and substantial his gifts tended to be, although a prosperous and powerful patron could be a curse as much as a blessing for a religious community, depending on the relationship between the two parties, and the degree of patronal involvement. 67 Material support aside, the patron of a monastery was also expected to protect his house against external interference and molestation. Again, an influential patron, ideally with connections to the royal household, might be a great asset to a religious house in times of trouble involving third parties. He could be a useful ally at court, both royal and ecclesiastical.68 The flipside of 63

64 65 66 67

68

The patron’s right of custody over the monastic lands during a house’s vacancy was recognised, and protected by English law. Cf. Statutes of the Realm, 11 vols (London, 1810–28), i, pp.91–2. See Chapter 2. Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.6. See also Wood’s chapter on Protection in ibid., pp.136–60. Some religious orders, particularly the Cistercians, Carthusians and Premonstratensians, but also the Gilbertines, were more directly protected against the unwanted interference of both lay and episcopal patrons. As Baskerville has noted, patrons of monasteries ‘were useful to the houses of their foundation in many ways. They could use their influence at court to enable the religious to circumvent the mortmain laws and to acquire further lands. They could get the busi-


25

this was that in the case of a quarrel between the religious community and its well-connected patron, the monks, canons or nuns had to look elsewhere for help against their powerful patron, who might make their lives very difficult indeed.69 Under such circumstances it was normally to the pope that a monastic community turned for help.70 How differently monastic patrons responded to the various rights and duties that went with their position, and how their attitudes and their behaviour changed over time, is the subject of the following chapters.

Founders and Patrons There were three main categories of patrons of medieval religious houses. The largest and most powerful was the crown, patron of a multitude of religious houses including almost all the pre-Conquest Benedictine foundations. The king, as the greatest single patron, was responsible for the establishment of most of the old, venerable, often prosperous, foundations, and of abbeys and priories from all other religious orders. As well as being instrumental in the foundation of religious houses, the crown moreover accumulated the lands and estates, and with them also the monasteries and nunneries, of great families by inheritance, while also being the beneficiary of escheats, and especially forfeitures. Monasteries, once in the hand of the king, tended as a rule to remain under royal patronage, except in those rare cases where the king, by royal grant, gave the advowson and estates of a religious house to a member of the nobility.71 The patronage of a powerful royal patron, however, was not always entirely advantageous for a religious house. Patrons tended to expect something in return for their generosity, and for a patron who, like the king, was in a position to make large-scale endowments, this expectation might be of equally large scale. At best this might be reflected in the demands made of the religious community in terms of the spiritual services to be provided for the king, his family and his favourites. At worst, however, the community might be expected to provide extensive hospitality for parts of the royal household, sometimes to the extent that the house’s resources, as well as its tranquillity, might be put under considerable strain.72 In times of conflict with neighbours or other reli-

69 70

71

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ness of their house expedited in the royal courts, or in the courts of the bishop, the archbishop or the pope’ (Baskerville, English Monks, p.47). Cf. also Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, pp.143–5. Fortunately, instances of serious conflict between religious houses and their patrons were relatively rare. See Chapter 2. In 1335, for instance, the prior elect of Bourne Abbey (Lincs.), one Simon, petitioned Pope Benedict XII for confirmation of his appointment as prior, and for support against Thomas Wake, lord Liddell, patron of the abbey, who opposed the election. Cf. CPL, ii, p.523. On occasion the king granted the advowson of a monastery or nunnery to a layman or laywoman, as at the Premonstratensian abbey of Leiston (Suffolk), or the Benedictine abbey of Walden (Essex). The Premonstratensian abbey of Titchfield (Hants.), an episcopal house, was consider-

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gious houses, on the other hand, nothing could beat the support of a patron as powerful as the king himself. The second category of monastic patrons encompasses ecclesiastical patrons, the bishops of the various dioceses of England and Wales, as well as heads of existing monasteries who were responsible for the establishment of dependent priories from their own houses.73 Large, successful monasteries of the stature of St Albans or Durham were responsible for the foundation of numerous daughter houses, many of which remained closely associated with, and dependent on, the mother house, often throughout their entire history.74 Like the king, bishops often held numerous religious houses and were generally consistent in their patronage in the sense that this tended to be passed on to their successors to the bishopric, rather than to a relative who might try to profit from the revenues, or lose the patronage, or sell it on. For a monastery this generally meant a greater degree of stability and thus security in the patronage. Houses founded by bishops tended to remain in episcopal hands until the time of their suppression. Whether or not it can be argued that a bishop’s motive for the foundation of a monastery was different from that of a secular patron, royal or otherwise – that is, whether a bishop’s inspiration might have been genuinely pious rather than acquisitive – remains debatable. What is certain is that religious houses which had been founded or acquired by bishops could enjoy the relative stability of their patronage, but were at the same time at their mercy during times of elections and vacancies. The third category of monastic patrons, and the focus of this study, constitutes the laity, more specifically, the nobility and the upper levels of the gentry. The few religious houses which had been founded by lay folk prior to the Norman Conquest were mostly absorbed by the crown at that time, or came into the hands of the new bishops. Abbotsbury Abbey in Dorset, for instance, founded c.1044 by Orcus and his wife Thola, was under royal patronage from the Conquest onwards for the remainder of its history.75 Nearly all the pre-Norman Benedictine houses in England that survived into the fourteenth century and beyond were royal or episcopal foundations. The Norman Conquest changed this picture and within a generation or two lay foundations had overtaken those established by the crown or the church. By the thirteenth century, lay foundations outnumbered those of the crown by nearly seven to

73 74 75

ably burdened by frequent and prolonged visits from royalty and nobility alike, culminating in the marriage between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou in 1445, during which celebrations in the abbey the new queen was presented with a live lion (Colvin, White Canons in England, pp.310–11). See also Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, p.134. The same was true for corrodians of royal houses. According to Knowles, ‘many an abbey was saddled with aged and infirm huntsmen, grooms and cooks, sent down from Westminster or Windsor with a royal letter, and resolved to set up their rest in the abbey precinct’ (Religious Orders in England, ii, p.287). On episcopal patronage, see for instance J. Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, pp.223–32. For an authoritative and exhaustive study of the dependent priories of England and Wales, and also of their patrons, see Heale, Dependent Priories. VCH Dorset II, p.49.


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one, and those of the church by almost six to one. By this time, the religious houses of England and Wales were as popular with lay patrons and benefactors as they were numerous. While around a thousand houses of religious men and women were in existence by the end of the thirteenth century, few new monasteries or nunneries were added to the existing number after the mid-thirteenth century, and fewer still between the fourteenth century and the sixteenth. Moreover, several houses failed before the sixteenth century, usually because of poverty or destruction. Thus the small Benedictine priory in Cardiff (Glamorgan), suffered at the hands of Owain Glyn Dwr during his 1403 campaign, to the extent that the community never recovered and the house ultimately failed, allegedly as a consequence of the assault.76 The Augustinian priory of Chetwode (Bucks.) was by the mid-fifteenth century reportedly so poor that the house, unable to maintain itself, was annexed as a dependent cell to Notley Priory.77 And at Bicknacre Priory in Essex, also Augustinian, the death in 1507 of the last prior, who was at that time also the last remaining resident in the house, marked the end of that monastery, which was later granted to St Mary’s Hospital in London.78 Overall, however, the monastic map of late medieval England of Wales did not undergo the kind of drastic change that had affected the picture of monasticism so notably in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Yet by the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the proportions of patronage had changed markedly, as Figure 1.1 illustrates. 79 The changes in monastic patronage between the eleventh and the sixteenth centuries merit some reflection. Overall, the total number of functioning houses of male religious during this period remained largely stable (column 1). Stable, too, were those monasteries which were under the patronage of the church, either a bishop or their own mother house (column 3). The number of unidentified patrons unsurprisingly increased as time passed and sources became scantier (column 5). Perhaps the most striking development among patrons of religious houses, however, is the advance of the crown (column 2) at the expense of the laity (column 4).80 Numbers of houses with lay patrons were waning considerably between the original foundation and the fourteenth

76

77 78 79

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CPR, 1405–1408, p.264; MRH, p.62; W. Rees, ‘Cardiff Priory’ in South Wales and Mon. Rec. Soc.ii (1950), p.139; G. Williams, ‘The Church in Glamorgan from the Fourteenth Century to the Reformation’ in Glamorgan County History, III, The Middle Ages, ed. T.B. Pugh (Cardiff, 1971), p.149. MRH, p.153; Heale, Dependent Priories, p.151. MRH, pp.147–8. In the following graphs, the first category, entitled ‘foundation’, includes those English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries which were founded before the year 1300, and which were still flourishing in the fourteenth century. The second section encompasses the religious houses which existed in 1300, as well as fourteenth- and fifteenth-century foundations; and the third section includes the houses which existed up to the 1520s, thus including houses closed by Cardinal Wolsey, while excluding all those monasteries which failed before 1520. On the ‘striking upward mobility’ of monastic patronage in medieval England, note also Thompson, ‘Monasteries and their Patrons’, p.120.

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Figure 1.1: Patrons of English and Welsh monasteries from foundation to dissolution

century, and further between c.1300 and the Dissolution, even if unidentified patrons, believed to be in most cases laymen, are added to identified lay patrons (column 6). Houses of nuns and canonesses followed a comparable pattern (Figure 1.2). The developments illustrated in Figures 1.1 and 1.2 show that a significant number of lay foundations came to the crown at some point during the period. Religious houses might pass to the crown by different means, most commonly by escheat, forfeiture or inheritance. When, during the later Middle Ages, a number of earldoms fell to the crown, the king acquired the advowson of the religious houses pertaining to these earldoms and became patron of such monasteries previously held by the earls and dukes of Chester, Cornwall or Warwick. By the time of the suppression of the monasteries, the crown had acquired the earldom of Chester (1237), the earldom (later duchy) of Cornwall (1306), the duchy of Lancaster (1399), the duchy of York (1461), the earldom of Warwick (1487) and the duchy of Buckingham (1521) among others, and this accounted for a large number of religious houses passing from the nobility to the king. Through the duchy of Cornwall alone, the crown acquired the Benedictine priories of Deerhurst (Glos.), Eye (Suffolk), Snape (Suffolk), and Tywardreath (Cornwall), the Cistercian abbeys of Hailes (Glos.) and Rewley (Oxon.), the house of Bonhommes at Ashridge (Bucks./Herts.), the Benedictine nunnery of Redlingfield (Suffolk), and the house of Augustinian canonesses at Burnham (Bucks.).81 Where a family failed without heirs, their possessions also came to the king, who sometimes subsequently passed them on to a member of the laity. The Cistercian abbey of Garendon in Leicestershire, founded in 1133 by Robert le Bossu, earl of Leicester, had passed to the crown via the duchy of Lancaster in 1399. In the sixteenth century, however, the king 81

Cf. Appendix below.


29

Figure 1.2: Patrons of English and Welsh nunneries from foundation to dissolution

issued a royal grant by which Elizabeth, countess of Oxford, came to hold the patronage of the abbey ‘for life’.82 Other houses were temporarily taken into the king’s hand during the minority of the rightful patron, as at the Augustinian priory of Launde in Leicestershire, where, in 1388 the king ‘controlled the patronage’ during the minority of the patron Richard Basset.83 A similar situation arose in Wymondham in Norfolk when the son and heir of the house’s patron, Sir Robert Tateshall, was a minor at his succession to the patronage in the early years of the fourteenth century, and the crown, in his place, seized possession of the advowson for a time.84 The Benedictine priory of St Guthlac’s in Hereford, established as such by Walter de Lacy in 1101,85 had become neglected and impoverished by the fourteenth century and was taken into the king’s hands in 1322.86 Of not dissimilar nature were the experiences of the 82

83 84 85 86

When Drs Legh and Layton visited the abbey in 1535, they noted that Elizabeth, wife of John de Vere, fifteenth earl of Oxford, was ‘patroness for life by grant from the crown’ (Mon. V, p.329). VCH Leicester II, p.11. Mon. III, p.325; VCH Norfolk II, p.338. Mon. III, pp.620–1; MRH, p.67. See Dugdale for Edward II’s order to seize the patronage of St Guthlac’s Priory. St Guthlac’s, ‘de advocatione et fundacione alterius quam dictorum progenitorum nostrorum, et nostra, clamat tenere, tam gravis contentio mota existit, quod per contentionem illam prioratus prædictus, in tantum destructus est et depauperatus, quod bona eiusdem sufficere non possunt ad dicta onera et pietatus opera manutenenda, per quod dicta onera et opera, pro parte, cessant, et totaliter adnullari formidantur, nisi per nos remedium super hoc citiùs apponatur: nos sustinere non valentes, sicuti nec debemus, onera, et pia hujusmodi opera, pro animabus antecessorum nostrorum et nostra ordinate, taliter adnullari, tibi præcipimus, quod dictum prioratum, cum omnibus suis possessionibus, et pertinentiis tam mobilius quam immobilius sine dilatione capias in manum nostrum, et ea salvo custodias quousque de custodia eorundem ordinaverimus, vel aliud à nobis inde habueritis in mandatis’ (Mon. III, pp.623–4).

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Augustinian house of Wormegay in Norfolk, which was eventually refounded as a cell of Pentney Priory in 1468.87 Around the year 1388 during the minority of Wormegay’s patron, Thomas Bardolf, the patronage was temporarily with the king,88 as was the case with the Cluniac nunnery of Arthington in Yorkshire, where the patron, Robert, son of Warin de Insula, had succeeded as a minor in the early fourteenth century, and the king momentarily held the patronage of the house.89 In the case of religious houses affiliated to a mother house in France, the English crown regularly seized the patronage during times of war with France, as did Richard II, when he claimed the patronage of the Benedictine Priory of Eye (Suffolk) in 1385. 90 There were, then, numerous ways in which the king might acquire the patronage of a monastery or nunnery which had formerly been held by his subjects, and gradually, over a number of centuries, more and more religious houses passed out of the hands of the laity and into the hands of the crown. Yet despite these trends, the majority of religious houses, male and female, albeit a decreasing majority, remained under the patronage of lay folk. Notably, though, those houses which continued in the hands of aristocratic patrons were not normally among the most prosperous or prestigious in the country, remarkable exceptions like Tewkesbury Abbey (Glos.) or St Augustine’s, Bristol, aside.91 While there was a clear trend of lay foundations passing to the king during this period, occasionally the reverse was the case, when the patronage of a monastery passed from the crown to a member of the laity by royal grant. The Benedictine house of Walden in Essex is one such example. Walden had been founded by Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, probably around the year 1140.92 In 1190 the house’s status was raised to abbey and the patronage came temporarily to the crown, whence it was granted by King John to the heir of the Mandevilles, Geoffrey FitzPeter, earl of Essex.93 The advowson of the abbey remained with the heirs to the earldom of Essex, the Bohun family, who were active, if not always amicable, patrons of the abbey, until the house passed to the duchy of Lancaster and thence became royal once more in 1399.94 Simi-

87 88 89 90

91

92 93 94

Heale, Dependent Priories, p.151. VCH Norfolk II, p.407. VCH Yorks. III, p.187. ‘Supplicarunt nobis dilecti nobis in Christo prior et conventus prioratus de Eye alienigenæ, in manu nostra occasione guerræ inter nos et adversaries nostros Franciæ motæ existentis’ (Mon. III, p.408, no. XI). Tewkesbury Abbey, in lay hands until 1487, was a sizable and prosperous house after its re-foundation by Robert FitzHamo and his wife Sibyl in 1102. The number of monks in the abbey in the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries lay between 37 and 58 (MRH, pp.77–8), and the annual income c.1535 was in the region of £1598 (ibid., p.57). St Augustine’s Abbey in Bristol was under the patronage of the Berkeley family. The house was neither as populous nor as wealthy as Tewkesbury, but could nonetheless record up to 24 canons in 1498 and 18 in 1534 (MRH, p.150). The annual income of the house in 1535 was over £670 (ibid., p.138). MRH, p.57: 1136–44. VCH Essex II, p.111. Mon. IV, p.133; VCH Essex II, p.111; MRH, p.79. Several members of the Mandeville and


31

larly, Torksey Priory in Lincolnshire, originally founded by King John in the late twelfth century, was in lay hands during the fourteenth century, having been granted by the king to John Darcy in 1344.95 The Cambridgeshire priory of Barnwell, originally founded by Picot lord of Bourn and Madingley, sheriff of Cambridgeshire, in around 1092, also subsequently passed to the king, who granted it with the barony of Bourn to Pain Peverel, who in turn re-founded the priory at a new site.96 At the death in 1278 of Eve, widow of Hamo Peche and patroness of the house, her son and heir Gilbert bestowed the patronage of Barnwell upon King Edward I and his queen Eleanor, and the priory once more became a royal house. Little Dunmow in Essex fared similarly. Juga Baynard, lady of Little Dunmow, had founded the priory around the year 1106, when her son and heir Geoffrey had a community of canons placed there. In 1111 the current patron, William Baynard, lost the barony ‘per infortunium et feloniam’ to the crown.97 Henry I subsequently granted the whole barony, including the patronage of Little Dunmow, to Robert FitzRichard, ancestor of the FitzWalter family, with whose successors the patronage remained until the Dissolution. A further example is Leeds Priory (Kent), another lay foundation, attributed to Robert de Crepido Corde in 1119.98 Robert’s heirs, to whom the patronage of the priory had passed, retained the advowson of the house until it passed from the Crevequer family to the crown in the late thirteenth century. Between 1318 and 1326 the patronage was again vested in a layman, one Bartholomew de Badlesmere,99 before ultimately passing to the bishops of Norwich, who supported the indebted house in the time of Henry VII.100 An interesting case is that of the Premonstratensian abbey of Leiston in Suffolk. Founded by Sir Ranulph de Glanville c.1182,101 the house passed to Guy de Ferre whence, at his death without issue, the patronage escheated to the crown.102 In 1350 the advowson of the abbey was granted to Robert de Ufford, earl of Suffolk, who was subsequently regarded as re-founder of the abbey. An active patron, he was responsible for the erection of new, larger buildings for the community at a different site, further from the sea and less prone to flooding, in 1363, from which time onward the old abbey came to be regarded as a cell. 103 It was not only laymen – and bishops – who could profit from such a royal grant. So, too, could other monasteries. In the case of Alcester Priory in Warwickshire, founded c.1140 by Ralph Pincerna (le Boteler) of Oversley104

Bohun families were buried in Walden Abbey during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. See Mon. IV, pp.139–41. 95 VCH Lincs. II, p.170. 96 MRH, p.146. 97 Mon. VI, p.147. 98 MRH, p.163. 99 VCH Kent II, p.162. 100 Mon. VI, p.215. 101 Mon.VII, p.879; MRH, p.190. 102 VCH Suffolk II, p.117. 103 Mon.VII, pp.879–80. 104 MRH, p.58.

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and still with his direct heirs in 1307,105 the patronage of the then impoverished priory and its last remaining resident was granted by Edward IV to the abbot and monks of Evesham in 1465, of which abbey Alcester thus became a dependency.106 As well as being subjected to external, normally royal, intervention, religious houses could also be part of straightforward business transactions between two lay parties, and as such bought or sold. This is what happened to Birkenhead Priory in Cheshire, from its foundation in c.1150 in the hands of the Massey family of Dunham.107 In 1361 Roger Lestrange bought the advowson of the priory from the heirs of Hamon de Massey. His family did not retain the patronage of Birkenhead for very long, however, as it was sold by John Lestrange some thirty-six years later in 1397 to John Stanley of Lathom, whose descendant Thomas Lord Stanley was created earl of Derby in 1485, and with whose successors it remained until the end.108 Patrons might sell the advowson of a monastery for a number of reasons. It might pertain to a manor, or be situated on lands which were subject to a sale. This was the fate of the Premonstratensian abbey of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire. Welbeck Abbey was founded c.1153x1154 by Thomas of Cuckney and passed to his three granddaughters, all of whom confirmed all their ancestors’ gifts.109 In the year 1329, however, John Hotham, bishop of Ely, bought the whole manor of Cuckney including the advowson of the abbey, which was henceforth under the patronage of his successors in the bishopric of Ely.110 Despite these trends, several families succeeded in retaining the patronage of their religious houses from their foundation right up until the Dissolution. Members of the Gresley family, for example, were patrons of the Augustinian priory of Church Gresley in Derbyshire from its foundation in the first half of the twelfth century111 to the suppression of the house in 1536.112 The Gresley family’s caput lay in immediate proximity of the monastery, and the physical closeness of the family home to the priory certainly contributed to the strength of this link. Similarly, the patronage of the Cistercian abbey of Hulton in Staffordshire also continued in the hands of the same branch of the founder’s family. Founded by Henry de Audley in 1219,113 his heirs of the same name were still patrons of the house at the Dissolution, several of them choosing to

105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113

In that year, the patron was William le Boteler (Mon. IV, pp.172, 174; VCH Warwick II, p.59). VCH Warwick II, p.36. Mon. IV, p.239. ‘Patron of Birkenhead [in 1536], the earl of Derby’ (LP, x. 364). See also VCH Cheshire III, p.130. VCH Nottingham II, p.130. Knowles gives 1153 as year of foundation (MRH, p.192). Mon. VII, pp.874–5. The sources are at variance about the foundation date of Church Gresley: MRH, p.139: post 1135; VCH Derby II, p.56 and Mon. VI, p.550: t. Henry I. See the Appendix below. MRH, pp.113, 120.


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be buried in the abbey.114 The Talbots of Goodrich, earls of Shrewsbury, were another family who held on to the patronage of their monastery, Flanesford Priory in Herefordshire, until the Dissolution. Theirs, however, was one of the few fourteenth-century foundations among the English Augustinian houses, so the ties between the patrons and the religious community were still comparatively recent in the sixteenth century, and this undoubtedly accounted, at least partly, for the continued relationship between the two parties. Flanesford Priory had been founded by Richard Talbot of Goodrich Castle as late as 1346.115 His descendants still held the advowson some two hundred years later when the house was suppressed in 1536. Ranton Priory in Staffordshire, another house of Augustinian canons, founded in the middle of the twelfth century by Robert FitzNoel,116 had as its patrons in the fourteenth century successive members of the Harcourt family.117 At the time of the priory’s closure c.1536 the patron was the very active Sir Simon Harcourt, who left a prominent mark in the dissolution documents, thanks to his illustrious correspondence with Thomas Cromwell on behalf of his monastery.118 In a similar manner the advowson of the priory of Woodspring in Somerset, founded by William de Courtenay in 1210, and thus another relative latecomer among the English Augustinian canons, remained with the Courtenays until its dissolution with the lesser monasteries in 1536.119 It must be stressed that very few families were in the position of passing the patronage of a religious house through the male line from foundation to Dissolution, due to aristocratic families becoming extinct after as little as three generations on average. K.B. McFarlane, investigating the rate of extinction of noble families in England between 1300 and 1500, has calculated an average extinction rate of 27.17% over that period, according to records in The Complete Peerage.120 However, the endurance of collateral male and especially female lines was far more common, indeed almost universal.

114 115

116 117

118 119 120

TV, p.114; VCH Staffs. II, p.236. The Monasticon gives 1347 as date of foundation and reproduces the following licence by Edward III: ‘Sciatis quod cum dilectus et fidelis noster Ricardus Talebot, caritatis et devotionis fervore succensus, quondam prioratum canonicorum regularium, ordinis sancti Augustini, in quadam placea vocata Flanesford, infra dominium ipsius Ricardi de Castro Goderici, in honore Dei et sanctæ Mariæ virginis, ac præcipuè beati Johannis Bapt. fundare disposuerit, Domino suffragante’ (Mon. VI, p.534). See also MRH, p.157. Richard Lord Talbot himself was buried in the priory in 1356 (GEC XII, p.614). MRH, p.171 Mon. VI, pp.257–8. See p.258, no.VIII for a genealogy of the Harcourt family, patrons of Ranton Priory from the time of the founder’s father Noel t. William I to Sir Robert Harcourt (d. before 1509). See also VCH Oxford XII, p.275. LP, x. 613. Mon. VI, p.414. G.E. Cockayne, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, ed. H.V. Gibbs et al.,13 vols (London, 1910–59); K.B. McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England (Oxford, 1973), p.172.

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Patrons of Multiple Monasteries There was during the later Middle Ages in England a group of laymen and laywomen who held and maintained the patronage of one or several religious houses over many generations. Some families, the Berkeleys for instance, or the earls of Salisbury, have left a substantial record, both written and archaeological, of their activities as monastic patrons over several centuries. A number of these people were, or came to be, patrons of more than one monastery, indeed in some cases of considerably more than one monastery, and as such they represent a very significant element in late medieval monastic patronage. Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland, was one of these patrons who had inherited a multitude of monasteries from different religious orders by the 1530s. Among his religious houses were the Augustinian priories of Carham in Northumberland, Kirkham in Yorkshire, Pentney in Norfolk and Warter in Yorkshire. He moreover held the advowson of two Cistercian abbeys, Rievaulx in Yorkshire and Warden in Bedfordshire, and of the Benedictine priory of Belvoir in Lincolnshire.121 The earl of Rutland was not alone as a lay patron of several religious houses during this period. Among the just over one hundred individuals who have been identified as patrons of English and Welsh monasteries and priories during the sixteenth century, nearly a quarter, that is twenty-two of them, were patrons of more than one house. Some of them held the patronage of no more than two or three monasteries. Thus Sir Peter Edgcombe was patron of two religious houses in Devon, namely the Benedictine priory of Totnes and the priory of Cornworthy for Augustinian canonesses.122 Henry Norres, similarly, is recorded as patron at the Dissolution of the Augustinian priory of Shelford and the Cistercian abbey of Rufford, both in Nottinghamshire.123 Other more prestigious laymen were patrons of considerably more houses. By the Dissolution, Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, held the advowson of at least nineteen monasteries from six religious orders, comprising the Benedictine priory of Tynemouth in Northumberland, several houses of the Cluniac order, namely Castle Acre, Lewes (Sussex), Sleves Holm and Thetford Priory in Norfolk, as well as Wangford in Suffolk, the Cistercian abbeys of Byland (Yorkshire) and Tintern (Monmouthshire), the Carthusian house of Axholme (Lincs.), eight houses of Augustinian canons, namely Chacombe (Northampshire), Dodnash (Suffolk), Newburgh (Yorkshire), Newenham (Bedfordshire), Reigate (Surrey), Thetford and Weybridge (both in Norfolk) and Woodkirk (Yorkshire), as well as two Benedictine nunneries, namely Arden in Yorkshire and Bungay in Suffolk.124 121 122 123 124

See Appendix below. The patronage of these houses had previously been with the Ros family of Holderness. Cf. T. Wright, Suppression of the Monasteries, Camden Society Old Series xxvi (London, 1843), pp.117–18. LP, x. 364; Henry Norres was moreover possibly the patron of the Augustinian canons at Thurgarton Priory (Notts.), although LP (as above) names the king as patron in 1536. See also Chapter 4.


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Both the Berkeleys and the earl of Northumberland were patrons of eight houses from six religious orders, while the de Veres, as earls of Oxford, had the patronage of eight monasteries from four orders: the Benedictine priories of Earls Colne and Hatfield Broad Oak, both in Essex, Monks Horton Priory of the Cluniac order, five houses of Augustinian canons, namely Blackmore Priory (Essex), Bromehill Priory (Norfolk), Hempton Priory (Norfolk), Thremhall Priory (Essex) and the cell of Weybourne (Norfolk), and the Benedictine nunnery at Castle Hedingham in Essex. Between them, these twenty-two patrons held the advowson of over one hundred monasteries and nunneries in England and Wales. This amounts to 55% of all the religious houses with identified lay patrons c.1535.125 The effect that this phenomenon had on the practice of monastic lay patronage is considerable. While these people held the patronage of several monasteries and nunneries, they were rarely active patrons of all their houses. They did not always support all of them, or remember all of them in their wills, nor could they be buried in all of them. Instead, they normally chose to pay patronal attention to only some of them. How families with multiple monasteries selected the houses they chose to support varied. Some, like the Berkeleys, focused on their most ancient family monastery when they endowed St Augustine’s Abbey in Bristol. Others chose their grandest or most prosperous foundations, as the de Clares did when they picked Tewkesbury Abbey for their family mausoleum. Other families again, including the Montagues, turned their attention to new, fashionable establishments. An impressive building, a convenient location or an existing family tradition were all factors which might influence a lay patron’s choice.

Religious Orders Although the overall developments in monastic patronage, as well as the patterns of their foundations, are valid for all religious orders, there were some divergences in the extent to which these patterns applied to different orders. Some of these are obvious. Houses of Benedictine monks, for instance, counted among their founders and later patrons a considerable proportion of royalty and bishops, while houses of Augustinian or Premonstratensian canons were almost exclusively founded by the laity, but often passed into royal hands only at a later stage in their history.126 This was, of course, due not least to their different constitutional needs and requirements, which resulted in religious orders

125

126

If unidentified patrons, mostly expected to be members of the laity, are taken into account, the percentage of houses held by those twenty-two people still amounts to more than 25% of the total. Some of these, incidentally, may well have been patrons of houses where patrons have not as yet been identified. Only 15 out of 203 Augustinian monasteries were royal foundations, while at least 165 were founded by the laity. None of the 36 houses of Premonstratensian had been established by the crown. See the Appendix below.

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attracting different types of founders and patrons: while the prerequisite for founding and maintaining a house of Benedictine monks was sufficient capital, an Augustinian monastery could be established on much more modest means. The much greater number of lay foundations among Augustinian monasteries inevitably meant that more houses could potentially pass to the king and therefore the changes in patronage from the laity to the crown could be much more pronounced. Other developments were more subtle, but overall the trend is obvious: there was a clearly discernible shift in monastic patronage from lay to royal during the entire period, and particularly between the fourteenth century and the Dissolution. A brief look at individual religious orders will illustrate these developments. Benedictine monks Interesting to note is the virtual absence of new Benedictine foundations in England or Wales after 1300. With the exception of Upholland Priory in Lancashire and a small number of priory cells,127 no new houses of the order were established in this country.128 Interesting, too, is the list of founders of monasteries of the order. The proportion of royal and episcopal patrons among houses of Benedictine monks is comparatively high. Among the Benedictine monasteries were many Anglo-Saxon foundations, almost all of which came to the crown at the Conquest. Royal patronage helped to assure the stability and increasing wealth of these old and venerable foundations, which remained the largest and wealthiest monasteries in England.129 While the number of royal foundations among the Benedictine monasteries (31 houses) was proportionally significant, these were nonetheless outnumbered by those established by the nobility (a total of 81 monasteries), and matched by episcopal and other ecclesiastical foundations (29 houses).130 By the fourteenth century, the picture had changed quite remarkably. The total number of Benedictine abbeys and priories had risen to 146, following the foundations of a cell at Farne Island (Northumberl.) in the thirteenth century, Snelshall Priory (Bucks.) c.1219, Oxney Priory (Northants.) c.1272, Cardigan Priory (Cardiganshire) towards the end of the thirteenth century, and the priory cell of Modney (Norfolk) before 1291.131 Most noteworthily, a considerable proportion of existing religious houses had passed from lay patrons into the

127 128

129 130 131

MRH, p.76. The small cell of Snaith (Yorks.), a dependency of Selby Abbey, was founded in or around 1310 (Heale, Dependent Priories, p.150). The initially 143 Benedictine monasteries considered here do not include alien cells of the order, which were suppressed by royal order in 1414 or before. They do, however, include those alien priories which became independent houses in this country, among them Boxgrove Priory (Sussex), Chepstow Priory (Monmouthshire) and Deerhurst Priory (Glos.). Among them are such famous names as Glastonbury, Hyde and Peterborough, all royal Benedictine houses. See Figure 1.1 above. MRH, pp.54, 57, 56, 53, 55.


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Figure 1.3: Patrons of Benedictine monasteries from foundation to dissolution

hands of the crown by 1300, and perhaps as many as 47 of these 146 Benedictine houses were now under the patronage of the king. St Werburga’s Abbey in Chester, for instance, re-founded for Benedictine monks in 1092 by Hugh I, earl of Chester,132 passed into the king’s hands when the earldom of Chester lapsed in 1237. And Shrewsbury Abbey, which had been re-founded by earl Roger de Montgomery (c.1083),133 escheated to the crown in 1102 following the rebellion of Robert de Bellême, the founder’s son.134 Despite these trends, between 58 and 65 Benedictine monasteries still had aristocratic patrons in the fourteenth century.135 These developments represent an ongoing trend, and by the sixteenth century the number of houses in royal hands had risen further, from 47 to 65, when a number of Benedictine monasteries came to the crown between the fourteenth century and the Dissolution, further lowering the number of houses with lay patrons to 31 at most.136 The priory of Eye in Suffolk, for instance, founded about 1080 by Robert Malet,137 was vested in the earls of Cornwall following a series of quarrels surrounding the house in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, until the king took possession of the patronage of the priory, when a further dispute arose at the death of the house’s prior in 1313.138

132 133 134 135 136 137 138

Mon. II, p.370: before 1093; VCH Cheshire III, p.132. Mon. III, p.513. VCH Shropshire II, p.31. Allowing for unidentified patrons at that time, the actual figure lies somewhere between 58 and 65. See the Appendix below. This figure includes eight unidentified patrons. Mon III, p.401. Ibid.; VCH Suffolk II, p.73.

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William de Londres’ foundation at Ewenny139 became royal when his heirs, the dukes of Lancaster, later patrons of the house, became royal in 1399 at the accession to the throne of Henry IV.140 Ewenny Priory was only one of a multitude of houses in the patronage of the duke of Lancaster in the fourteenth century.141 The gradual but steady shift in the patronage of religious houses from the nobility to the crown can be regarded as an indicator of the situation of the laity in England and Wales more generally. Many of the aristocratic families had ceased to exist, their property passing to another family or to the king. Many of these had lost their property to the crown through forfeiture. The growing number of houses with unidentified patrons may moreover indicate how ties had weakened and patrons had in many cases lost touch with their monasteries. Cluniac monks Unlike the houses of the Benedictine order, the foundations of the English Cluniac monasteries are nearly all attributable to the new Anglo-Norman nobility.142 By the fourteenth century the number of Cluniac houses which still had lay patrons had been slightly reduced.143 By that time at least five Cluniac houses 139 140 141

142

143

Ewenny had been founded by William de Londres, Lord of Ogmore Castle, before 1131 (Mon. IV, p.523). Ibid. Other religious houses which became royal with the duchy of Lancaster in 1399 include Bardney Abbey (Lincs.), the Benedictine cell of Lytham (Lancs.), Spalding Priory (Lincs.), Tutbury Priory (Staffs.), Walden Abbey (Essex), the Cluniac Priories of Pontefract (Yorks.) and Daventry (Northants.), the Cistercian abbeys of Garendon (Leics.), Kirkstall (Yorks.) and Whalley (Lancs.), the Trinitarian house of Knaresborough (Yorks.), the Augustinian houses of Bicester (Oxon.), Bradenstoke (Wilts.), Breedon (Leics.), Hempton (Norfolk), Leicester Abbey, Norton (Cheshire), Nostell (Yorks.), Trentham (Staffs.), and the nunneries of Nuneaton (Warwicks.), Lacock (Wilts.) and the Minories (London) among others. 29 out of 35 Cluniac monasteries were lay foundations; see the Appendix below. Up to six houses of the order were founded as dependencies of other monasteries: Aldermanshaw (Leics.), Church Preen (Salop), Kerswell (Devon), St Helen’s (Isle of Wight), and possibly Malpas (Monmouthshire) and St Carrock (Cornwall). Having often been founded from France with a contingent of monks of French nationality and in many cases a French abbot or prior, Cluniac monasteries increasingly came to be a thorn in the side of the English king when relations between England and France were turning sour. English Cluniac houses had always been obliged to render payments to the mother-house in Cluny, and in order to put a stop to this, and to exercise greater control over a religious order, which appeared suspicious due to its close connections with the enemy, the majority of Cluniac houses, together with other alien priories, were seized into the hands of the crown during the fourteenth century when the Anglo-French wars began, and French monks were expelled from England in 1378. Only those houses which could prove to be satisfactorily naturalised, escaped this fate and were granted charters of ‘denization’. All but two of the English Cluniac houses – the cells of Church Preen (Shropshire) and St Carrok (Cornwall) – became denizen in the mid-fourteenth century to early fifteenth century. When the alien priories were


39

had come into the hands of the king, among them Kersal in Lancashire,144 Lenton in Nottinghamshire,145 Much Wenlock in Shropshire146 and Prittlewell in Essex.147 Nonetheless, houses with lay patrons continued to outnumber royally and episcopally patronised monasteries among the English Cluniacs. By the time of the Dissolution the number of houses under lay patronage had fallen further to eleven houses, while royal houses had increased to ten. Among the Cluniac houses with lay patrons in sixteenth-century England, several were in the hands of the same families. The successive earls, and later dukes, of Norfolk, the Bigods, Mowbrays and Howards, were patrons of up to four Cluniac monasteries. A further two Cluniac priories, Montacute in Somerset and Holme in Dorset, shared the patronage of the earls of Salisbury by the sixteenth century.148 Overall, the pattern of patronage of the English and Welsh Cluniac houses corresponded to the discernible general trend within late medieval monastic patronage. As many as one-third of all the houses of this order which had originally been founded by members of the laity had passed to the crown by the Dissolution. Cistercian monks Like Cluniac monasteries, houses of Cistercian monks were predominantly lay foundations.149 No more than seven foundations of the order can be attributed to the crown,150 while bishops were responsible for the foundation of some five

144

145

146

147 148

149 150

dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1414, Henry V, and Henry VI after him, used their buildings to endow other institutions; the former endowed two religious houses, the latter two colleges. See also D.J.A. Matthew, The Norman Monasteries and their English Possessions (Oxford, 1962), pp.110, 116. The small cell of Kersal in Lancashire (a cell of Lenton Priory in Notts.) was in fact regarded as a royal foundation shortly after the original grants by Ranulph de Gernon, earl of Chester in the mid-twelfth century, were confirmed and effectively regranted by Henry II in the 1170s (Mon. V, p.110; VCH Lancs. II, p.113). Mon. V, p.108: Lenton Priory, founded by William Peverel in 1102–8, was taken into the king’s hands during the wars with France. Henry II subsequently confiscated the estates of Peverel and granted the advowson of the priory to his son, later King John. Founded by Roger de Montgomery, earl of Shrewsbury, in as early as 1080–81 (VCH Shropshire II, p.38: c.1079–82), the patronage of the priory was in royal hands by 1102. The king again took possession of the house during the French wars: ‘extenta possessionum prioratus de Wenlock in manu Regis occasione guerræ’ (Mon. V, p.77, no.VIII). Mon. V, p.21. The patronage of Prittlewell Priory was vested in the earls of Essex whence it came to the crown (VCH Essex II, p.141). William de Montacute received the advowson of Montacute Priory by grant from Edward III in 1339 (Mon. V, p.168). Holme Priory was founded by Robert de Lincoln as a cell to Montacute in the mid-twelfth century and the advowson passed to the earl of Salisbury together with that of Montacute in 1339 (VCH Dorset II, pp.80–1). According to Dugdale, the founder of Holme was unknown (Mon. V, p.174). See the Appendix below. King Stephen founded Furness Abbey (Lancs.) in 1127 before he became king, and, as King Stephen (with Matilda) he founded Coggeshall Abbey (Essex) in 1140; Henry II

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monasteries of the order.151 The remaining 61 houses were founded by the nobility.152 By the year 1300, the number of Cistercian abbeys with identified lay patrons had fallen from 61 to 40. The crown had accumulated a further ten abbeys of the order by this time, and the number of houses with ecclesiastical patrons had risen slightly from six houses to eight. And thus it continued. Over the two and a half centuries that followed, the laity’s share in Cistercian patronage was further reduced to 21,153 while that of the crown had risen to 28 abbeys. In the case of the abbey of Stratford in Essex, upon the death of the patron, William de Mountfichet, in 1397 without an heir, Richard II suggested to the abbot and convent of Stratford that he be accepted as patron and ‘founder’ of the house, the abbey having long been under royal protection.154 The church’s share in Cistercian patronage remained unchanged. The pattern of patronage among the Cistercian houses largely reflects that of other religious orders. Significantly, the prevalence of laymen and laywomen among their original founders can be linked to the time when the majority of Cistercian houses were founded, that is the twelfth century, when they first made a large-scale appearance in Britain, where they came to represent a new, fashionable and, equally importantly, affordable outlet for pious generosity for a confident laity. In Wales, the Cistercians came to occupy a particularly prominent place on the monastic scene.155 Their monasteries became the burial places of the Welsh princes, of both patrons and benefactors of abbeys such as Strata Florida (Cardiganshire), Conway (Caernarfonshire) or Valle Crucis (Denbighshire). As the Brut informs us, no fewer than twenty members of the Welsh nobility, and very possibly more, were laid to rest in the precinct of Strata Florida Abbey

151

152

153

154 155

founded Stoneleigh Abbey (Warwicks.) in 1155; King John founded Beaulieu Abbey (Hants.) in 1204; and Edward I founded Vale Royal (Cheshire) in 1281, to mention only a few of them. Including Buildwas Abbey (Salop), which was founded by Roger bishop of Chester in 1135, Fountains Abbey (Yorks.), founded by Archbishop Thurstan in 1132, and Netley Abbey (Hants.), founded by Peter des Roches, bishop of Winchester, in 1239. Identifying monastic founders of Cistercian houses is not normally problematic, thanks to the nature of the sources. Information about monastic patrons does, however, become scantier for the later period, and especially after 1300, for the simple reason that patrons of monasteries belonging to the centralised religious orders, of which the Cistercians were one, do not tend to crop up in the sources to the same extent as do those abbeys and priories that were under the jurisdiction of the bishop. The comparatively large proportion of unidentified patrons in the later Middle Ages is therefore partly due to the fact that patrons’ rights over Cistercian communities were limited, and accordingly less involvement by patrons resulted in less documentation of the same. However, the number of unidentified patrons who were possibly, even probably, laymen and laywomen, had during the same period risen to 19, so the actual number of lay patrons at the Dissolution was most certainly higher than 21. VCH Essex II, p.131. Note particularly Huw Pryce, ‘Patrons and Patronage among the Cistercians in Wales’, on the patrons and benefactors of the Welsh Cistercian abbeys between the twelfth century and 1282–3, which is currently awaiting publication.


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between its foundation in 1164 and the end of the thirteenth century.156 For the Welsh nobility, burial in these monasteries, whose communities maintained strong bonds with the Welsh princes and supported their cause, must have been the obvious choice. By choosing to be buried in such a monastery, they sent out a clear political message, as well as continuing an existing tradition, and, not least, knowing their souls to be well guarded by the prayers of the monks. An abbey like Strata Florida was also among the most impressive burial places available to the native Welsh nobility. Our knowledge about the later medieval lay patrons of the Welsh Cistercian houses is somewhat limited. While their identity is in most cases known, much less is known about their activities. This is in no small part due to the fact that the patronage of many Welsh Cistercian abbeys had passed either to the crown, or to patrons who already held the patronage of numerous other monasteries, and who did not make the Welsh houses their priority. The de Clare family and their heirs, the Despensers, for instance, were patrons of over a dozen religious houses in England and Wales. The family held under their patronage also the Cistercian abbeys of Margam and Neath, both in Glamorgan. There is evidence for some degree of patronal activity in both houses, but the focus of the family’s attention was their grand Benedictine Abbey of Tewkesbury (Glos.). Moreover, by the end of the fifteenth century, their monasteries had passed to the crown. During the late thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Cistercian foundations of the Welsh princes, although they remained popular with native benefactors, passed into the patronage of the English nobility or king. Thus Richard, earl of Arundel, was patron of Madog ap Gruffudd’s foundation of Valle Crucis by the late-fourteenth century,157 and Conway Abbey (Caernarfonshire), first established by Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, prince of Gwynedd, was re-founded by Edward I and became regarded as a royal house. 158 Evidence for patrons’ activities in connection with their Welsh houses is often sparse to say the least, as is common with smaller, less well documented monasteries in general. It is therefore often harder to gain an insight into the patron–monastery relationship of the Welsh abbeys and priories during the later Middle Ages. One invaluable advantage for the study of the monasteries of Wales, or at least the Cistercian abbeys, on the other hand, exists in the shape of the medieval poetry. Fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century bards like Guto’r Glyn, Tudur Aled and Gutun Owain have left us an immensely rich and colourful insight into the role the Welsh Cistercians played in their society and for their local community, while at the same time providing vivid descriptions

156

157 158

Those buried in the abbey during this period included Cadell ap Gruffudd ap Rhys (1175), Hywel ap Ieuaf, lord of Arwystli (1185), Gruffudd ap Rhys (1201), Rhys Ieuanc ap Gruffudd (1222), Maelgwn ap Rhys (1231), Morgan, son of the Lord Rhys (1251), and Owain ap Maredudd ab Owain (1275), among others (Brut, pp.166, 168, 184, 222, 228, 242, 262). In Cal. IPM, iii (1398), the earl of Arundel’s monasteries also included the abbey of Haughmond (Salop) and the priory of Wix (Essex). Mon. V, p.671. See also ibid., p.674, nos.III and IV for Edward I’s charters of the refoundation and translation of the abbey to Maenan.

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of the houses themselves. Valle Crucis and Strata Florida were the particular focus of the medieval Welsh bards. Guto’r Glyn composed whole series of cywyddau or poems to abbots of both houses, in which, among descriptions of stained-glass windows and tiled floors, he praises their generosity, their learning, their role in educating the laity, all with ample poetic licence.159 Unfortunately, outstanding sources like these are limited to a small number of Welsh Cistercian houses. Following the Edwardian Conquest of 1282–83, it was to the English crown that the Welsh religious communities had to turn for support. Not infrequently, Welsh religious communities were involved in disputes with members of the royal household, and in the absence of protective patrons they often enough found themselves forced to seek help from the king. The Cistercian monks of the Radnorshire abbey of Cwmhir repeatedly sought royal help and protection against their troublesome neighbours Roger de Mortimer and John de Charlton. Around the year 1309, the abbot of Cwmhir send a petition to Edward II, complaining about the conduct of John de Charlton, Lord of Powys, who ‘voluntarily and of his great power, disturbs [the community], in no wise suffering them to have their profits or commodities in their lands or woods aforesaid, as they were wont to have’.160 A few years later, the abbot petitioned the king again for help concerning the abbey’s ‘lands, woods, wastes and pastures in Mellenyth, with all commodities and franchises’ which the convent held ‘in pure and perpetual alms, freely, without disturbance’. Roger de Mortimer, the abbot claimed, ‘wrongfully and without reason, disturbed them so that they could not avail themselves of their franchises and commodities’.161 Of the state of the patronal relations of the Welsh Cistercian abbeys at the time of the Dissolution, relatively little is known, except that the patronage of most of them was by this stage in the hands of the English crown. 162 Carthusian monks The majority of England’s nine Carthusian monasteries, too, were lay foundations: as many as seven houses of the order were originally founded by members of the laity.163 The other two, Witham Priory in Somerset, the oldest surviving

159

160 161 162 163

Gwaith Guto’r Glyn, ed. J.Ll. Williams and I. Williams (Cardiff, 1961). Note also C.T. Beynon Davies, ‘Y Cerddi i’r Tai Crefydd fel Fynhonnell Hanesyddol’, National Library of Wales Journal XVIII (1974), pp.268–86. CPW, p.57. Ibid., pp.54–5. Cf. the Appendix below. Note also G. Williams, Wales and the Reformation (Cardiff, 1999), pp.75–80. These are Axholme Priory (Lincs.), founded in 1397–8 by Thomas Mowbray; Beauvale Priory (Notts.), founded in 1343 by Nicholas de Countlow – see PRO E315/50/245 for the royal confirmation charter for Beauvale’s foundation; Coventry Priory (Warwicks.), founded in 1381 by William lord Zouche of Harringworth, who died shortly after this foundation; Hinton Priory (Somerset), founded in 1222 by William Longespée earl of Salisbury and re-founded in 1227–32 by his widow, Countess Ela; Kingston upon Hull (Yorks.), founded in 1377–8 by Michael de la Pole; the London Charterhouse, founded


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English Charterhouse, which had been founded by Henry II in 1178x1179,164 and Sheen Priory in Surrey, were royal houses.165 By the time of the suppression of the monasteries, the patronage of at least three further Carthusian houses had passed to the crown. Thus the priory of St Anne’s at Coventry, founded by William Lord Zouche of Harringworth in 1381,166 had become royal by the Dissolution. The founder died shortly after the foundation, and in fact before the completion of the convent’s buildings, and Coventry was soon regarded as a royal house, Richard II being one of its most important benefactors.167 The monks, it seems, accepted Richard as their patron, and in the documents he soon appeared in the records as ‘founder’ of the priory: ‘dominus Ricardus rex Angliæ praedictus, principalis fundator domus Sanctæ Annæ’.168 Similarly the Yorkshire house of Mount Grace, founded by Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey, earl of Kent,169 passed at his death in 1399 to his brother Edmund, earl of Kent (d.1408), whose wife Lucy, Countess of Kent, died seised of the advowson in 1421.170 The next patron was Sir William Ingleby, who was Thomas Holland’s sub-tenant, and who held the patronage of Mount Grace until his death in 1438, when it passed to his son and heir, William.171 By the time of its suppression in 1539, the priory was in the hands of the crown.172 Hinton Priory in Somerset, founded originally in 1222 by William Longespée, earl of Salisbury, illegitimate son of Henry II,173 was apparently under royal patronage at its Dissolution in 1539, and indeed probably much earlier.174 The charterhouse at Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire passed to the crown following the forfeiture of its patrons, the de la Poles, in 1506. The remaining houses of the order, on the other hand, remained under lay patronage until their suppression in the sixteenth century.175

164 165

166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173

174 175

in 1371 by Sir Walter Manny; and Mount Grace Priory (Yorks.), founded in 1398 by Thomas Holland, duke of Surrey and earl of Kent. See also Appendix below. Henry II allegedly founded Witham Priory as an act of penance for his part in the murder of Thomas Becket (Mon. VI, p.1; VCH Somerset II, p.123). Established by Henry V as late as 1414, Sheen was the last Carthusian monastery to be founded in England (Mon. VI, p.29). For Henry V’s foundation charter of the priory see ibid., p.31, no.III. Mon. VI, p.15; VCH Warwicks. II, p.83; MRH, p.134. He even reportedly laid ‘the foundation stone of the church at the east end of the quire’ in 1385 (VCH Warwicks. II, p.84). Cf. Mon.VI, p.17, no.IV. Mon. VI, p.22; VCH Yorks. III, p.192; MRH, p.135. VCH Yorks. III, p.192. Ibid. LP, x. 364. Mon. VI, pp.3–4; VCH Somerset II, p.127. Knowles has attributed the foundation to the Countess Ela [1227–32] (MRH, p.134). The priory had been moved to a new site in 1226 at the request of the monks, and with the support of the founder’s widow (VCH Somerset II, p.127; Coppack and Aston, Christ’s Poor Men, pp.30–1). VCH Somerset II, p.127. The patronage of the London Charterhouse, founded by Sir Walter Manny in 1371 on a plot of land adjoining a burial field for plague victims, descended to the Mowbrays, dukes of Norfolk, whence it passed to the Howards. (The individual cells of the London Charterhouse were granted by a number of donors. For a list of these individuals, see

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Augustinian canons Augustinian canons were the most numerous religious group present in late medieval England.176 The developments within the patronage of the Augustinian canons of England and Wales reinforce the trends identified for other religious orders. The predominance of lay founders among the houses of Augustinian canons is striking. At the height of its success, the order constituted more than two hundred functioning abbeys and priories in England and Wales. At least 165 of those were lay foundations, fifteen houses were established by the crown, and nineteen by bishops or heads of other religious houses. 177 By the fourteenth century Augustinian houses with lay patrons were increasingly passing to the crown.178 The number of royal houses had increased to 31 by 1300, while the number of houses held by the laity had fallen to 137. 179 This was an ongoing development, and at the time of the Dissolution the number of Augustinian houses with lay patrons had decreased to 83, while those with royal patrons had increased further to 49.180 A remarkably high

176

177 178 179

180

VCH Middlesex I, p.162.) The patronage of Axholme, founded by Thomas Mowbray in 1397x1398, too, passed to the Howards, dukes of Norfolk, together with that of a number of other Mowbray monasteries. At the Dissolution, the priors of Carthusian monasteries put up particular resistance to the royal supremacy and to the closure of their houses. A number of them unsuccessfully petitioned Cromwell for exemption from the oath administered by the royal commissioners implementing the Act of Supremacy in 1534. Note the correspondence between Archbishop Lee and Thomas Cromwell: ‘The priors of Hull and Mount Grace, [ . . . ] were stiff and determined to abide the last danger rather than yield [to Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the church in England]’ (LP, x. 93). And: ‘The priors of Hull and Mount Grace were sore bent rather to die than to yield to this your royal style, but I have persuaded both to change their opinions’ (ibid., 99). On the suppression of the English Carthusian houses, see also Coppack and Aston, Christ’s Poor Men, pp.130–5. The priors of the London Charterhouse, Beauvale and Axholme, John Houghton, Robert Laurence and Augustine Webster, were tried and executed in 1535 for their refusal to swear the oath. Augustinian canons were not, however, the most numerous religious group in Wales, where only eight houses of the order flourished in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. These were Bardsey Abbey (Caernarfon), Beddgelert Priory (Caernarfon), Carmarthen Priory (Carmarthen), Haverfordwest Priory (Pembrokes.), Llanthony I (Monmouthshire), Penmon Priory (Anglesey), a small cell on Puffin Island (Anglesey), and St Tudwal’s Priory (Caernarfon). See the Appendix below. See above, Figure 1.4. Augustinian monasteries which passed from the laity to the crown during this period included the Norfolk houses of Great Massingham and Creake, Merton Priory (Surrey), Thornton Abbey (Lincs.), Cold Norton Priory (Oxon.), Bilsington Priory (Kent), Darley Priory (Derbys.), Chirbury Priory (Salop) among others. Augustinian monasteries which passed from the laity to the crown between 1300 and the Dissolution included the priories of Anglesey (Cambs.), Hempton (Norfolk), Breedon (Leics.), Bradenstoke (Wilts.), Llanthony Secunda (Glos.), Marton (Yorks.), West Acre (Norfolk), Trentham (Staffs.), Repton (Derbys.), Maxstoke (Warwicks.), Nostell (Yorks.), Stonely (Hunts.), Walsingham (Norfolk), Tonbridge (Kent), and the abbeys of Notley (Bucks.), Wigmore (Herefords.), Norton (Cheshire) and Leicester (Leics.).


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Figure 1.4: Patrons of Augustinian monasteries from foundation to dissolution

number of patrons of Augustinian communities remain unidentified.181 This is partially due to the fact that the monasteries of this order included a significant proportion of small, poorly-endowed lay foundations, for which documentation is often scarce and about many of which consequently relatively little is known. The marked increase in numbers of unidentified patrons can moreover be linked to the phenomenon of multiple patronage, which meant that patrons of several monasteries often favoured one of them at the expense of another, or they lived far away from some of their religious houses and thereby generated a growing remoteness and a weakening of the ties which connected them to their abbeys and priories. Even when allowing for the relatively high number of unidentified patrons of this order at any given time, the developments within patronage among houses of Augustinian canons are remarkable. (It is of course possible that many of these people will be identified in the course of further, expecially regional study.) Only half of the monasteries originally founded by the laity still had known lay patrons when they were suppressed in the sixteenth century. By the Dissolution, the total numbers of Augustinian houses had fallen to 189. A considerable number of monasteries of this order had been closed by men like Wolsey, Oldham and Waynflete who used them for the endowment of their new colleges,182 while others had succumbed to poverty 181 182

As many as 24 in the fourteenth century and 38 at the Dissolution. The Augustinian monasteries suppressed by Wolsey for his colleges at Oxford and Ipswich between 1525 and 1529 were Blackmore Priory (Essex), Bromehill Priory (Norfolk), Dodnash Priory (Suffolk), Ipswich Priory of SS Peter and Paul (Suffolk), Lesnes Abbey (Kent), Mountjoy Priory (Norfolk), St Frideswide’s Priory (Oxon.), Poughley Priory (Berks.), the cell of Pynham (Sussex), Thoby Priory (Essex), Tiptree Priory (Essex), and Tonbridge Priory (Kent). On Waynflete’s use of monastic property for his colleges, see also V. Davis, William Waynflete: Bishop and Educationalist (Woodbridge, 1993), esp. pp.146–7.

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and decay.183 Predictably, houses under lay patronage were most likely to be affected by these closures for they often lacked powerful and wealthy patrons to protect them. Premonstratensian canons The mid to late twelfth century saw the foundation of nearly all of the 39 houses of English and Welsh Premonstratensian canons.184 Not all of these Premonstratensian monasteries, however, survived until the sixteenth century. Cammeringham (Lincs.), Charlton (Wilts.), and West Ravendale (Lincs.) were all alien priories and as such closed by the crown in 1396, 1380 and c.1413 respectively.185 Just over a century later, in 1525, Bayham Abbey (Sussex) was taken into Cardinal Wolsey’s hands and granted to his colleges,186 while Wendling Abbey (Norfolk) only narrowly escaped suppression for the same reason.187 The vast majority of the houses of this order were founded by lay patrons.188 Indeed, during the entire period, the number of houses which eventually passed to the king remained small indeed. Only Barlings Abbey (Lincs.), Coverham Abbey (Yorks.) and the small cell of Dodford (Worcs.) were in royal hands at the Dissolution.189 In some cases the patronage remained in the hands of the same family, as at Tupholme Abbey (Lincs.), where the patron at the Dissolution, the earl of Westmorland,190 was a direct descendant of the founders,

183

184

185 186 187

188 189

190

The small priory of Chipley (Suffolk), for instance, was ‘in a ruinous state’ by the mid-fifteenth century, and its buildings were annexed to the college of Stoke by Clare. Similarly, the Leicester priory of Charley was impoverished by 1444 and granted to Ulverscroft Priory (Leics.) soon afterwards. Not a single independent Premonstratensian abbey, and only three cells, Guyzance (Northumberl.), Leiston II (Suffolk) and Dodford (Worcs.) were added to the order after 1300. MRH, pp.184–5. The suppression of the house was met with fierce resistance by the canons and the local community, who took up arms in an attempt to prevent the closure of the house. Wendling Abbey was marked out for dissolution by Pope Clement VII in 1528 and granted to Wolsey. Wolsey’s fall, however, prevented the house from being used for the endowment of his colleges. See also VCH Norfolk II, p.423. See the Appendix below. At least 31 out of the originally 36 Premonstratensian abbeys were lay foundations. Barlings had been founded in 1154x1155 by Ralph de Haya. Before passing to the king, the patronage was in turn held by Robert Bardolf and by Thomas Holland, earl of Kent, in whose hands it was in 1397. By 1478, the house had passed to the crown via the duchy of Lancaster. Coverham Abbey, too, was originally a twelfth-century lay foundation, attributed to Ranulph de Glanville or his daughter Helewisia. In the fourteenth century, the patronage of the abbey was with the Neville family as lords of Middleham, and by 1406 it was in the hands of Stephen le Scrope of Masham The patrons in 1478 were the lords of Middleham (‘Dominus de Medleham est fundator [sive patronus]’ (Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, no.311 [1478]), and by 1536, the house had passed to the king. According to the Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia, the patron in 1478 was the earl of Westmorland (Coll. Anglo-Prem. III, no.608).


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Gilbert and Alan Neville,191 and of Ralph de Neville, who made a generous bequest to the abbey in 1342.192 Equally, the patronage of Durford Abbey (Sussex) remained with the Hussey family from the foundation (–1161) until at least the end of the fifteenth century.193 Both houses were counted among the lesser monasteries in 1536 and dissolved in the same year.194 The overall picture of patronage among the houses of the Premonstratensian canons of England and Wales suggests very little change, and houses with lay patrons remained the majority throughout the period. Compared with lay patrons of the less centralised orders, patrons of Premonstratensian houses had fewer rights of patronage and exercised less real authority over their houses, at least theoretically, rather like patrons of Cistercian monasteries. Colvin has described the role of lay patrons of Premonstratensian monasteries as based upon a position of ‘honour and personal influence, rather than of special rights of jurisdiction’.195 Gilbertine canons and double houses Houses of the Gilbertine order were never particularly numerous, but the order enjoyed considerable popularity with lay founders from its earliest days in the mid-twelfth century. The Gilbertines enjoyed the privilege of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction, a privilege which was defended not only by members of the order, but also by the lay authorities. In 1345 Queen Philippa together with the earl of Lancaster, the earls of Derby and Warwick, and Hugh Despenser appealed to Pope Clement VI ‘to confirm the said privilege and exemption, and to declare the said order [of Sempringham] to be free from all ordinary jurisdiction for ever’.196 Altogether, the order established some twenty-four priories in England (but 191

192 193

194 195 196

Coll. Anglo-Prem. III, no.608. See the Monasticon for Henry III’s confirmation charter, which runs as follows: ‘Hac cartâ nostrâ confirmâsse Deo, et ecclesiæ sanctæ Mariæ de Tupholm, et abbati et canonicis de ordine Præmonstratensi ibidem Deo servientibus, et imperpetuum servituris, omnes donationes, et concessions subscriptas; videlicet, de dono Gilberti de Nevill, et Alani de Nevill fratris sui, ipsum locum de Tupholm, cum nemore et marisco adjacentibus’ (Mon. VII, p.871, no.I). See also VCH Lincs. II, p.206; MRH, p.192; Colvin, White Canons, pp.99–101. VCH Lincs. II, p.206. The relationship between the religious community of Durford and the Hussey family was not always harmonious. Note Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, no.378; VCH Sussex II, pp.89–92. In 1327 the patron was Walter Hussey, who made the bequest of 100 marks to the financially strained community. Just over a century later, in 1454, according to the records of the chancery, the then patron, Sir Henry Hussey, harassed the canons of the house. Sir Henry Hussey was succeeded to the patronage by the apparently more amicably-minded Nicholas Hussey, who was patron of Durford Abbey in 1465, whose name is given in the Collectanea as follows: ‘Nicholaus Husye est fundator [sive patronus]’ (Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, nos.378 and 380), and whose letter to the abbot of Welbeck is reproduced ibid., no.374. LP, x. 1238. In 1535 Durford had been described by Layton in a letter to Thomas Cromwell as ‘the poorest abbey I have seen’ (LP, ix. 444). Colvin, White Canons, p.292. CPP I, p.103.

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none in Wales), of which ten were double houses and fourteen were for canons only. A considerable amount is known about the founders of Gilbertine houses, but after 1300 documentation is much less extensive, and information about later patrons becomes noticeably scantier.197 Nine of the ten double houses of the Gilbertine order were founded by members of the laity; the only exception was Haverholme Priory in Lincolnshire (fd. 1139), which owed its existence to Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln.198 The patronage of the house remained with his successors until the Dissolution. Little change to this original pattern of patronage occurred between the twelfth century and the year 1539, when the last of the double houses, Watton Priory in Yorkshire, fell victim to the Dissolution.199 Nearly all the Gilbertine double houses remained under lay patronage throughout their history.200 Their later patronage histories are often shadowy. Not so, however, that of Sixhills Priory (Lincs.), a mid-twelfth-century foundation of Robert de Gresley,201 which was under the patronage of the la Warre family by the 1320s,202 or that of Watton Priory, which was firstly in the hands of the Vescy family and by the sixteenth century in those of the earl of Northumberland,203 or, finally, that of Bullington Priory (Lincs.), which was vested in the heirs of the founder Simon de Kyme.204 The developments within the patronage of the fourteen houses which were for Gilbertine canons only is comparable to that of the double houses of the order. Of the twelve priories and cells founded before 1300, six had lay 197

198

199 200

201

202 203 204

For foundation charters of Gilbertine priories note F.M. Stenton (ed.), Transcripts of Charters Relating to the Gilbertine Houses of Sixle, Ormsby, Catley, Bullington, and Alvingham, Lincoln Record Society, vol.18 (1922). Bishop Alexander first granted the site to a group of Cistercian monks from Fountains Abbey, who declined it and moved instead to Louth Park. Alexander then gave the land to Gilbert of Sempringham, whose community at Sempringham was outgrowing its site there (Mon. VII, p.948, VCH Lincs. II, p.187). Knowles gives 1137, the date when the founder first offered the site, as foundation date (MRH, p.195). Most of the other Gilbertine houses had been dissolved in the previous year. Cf. MRH, p.194. Only Shouldham Priory (Norfolk) passed to the crown in the fifteenth century. Founded in 1193 by Geoffrey FitzPeter, earl of Essex, the advowson of the priory passed to the earls of Warwick when the founder’s great-granddaughter Maud, sister and co-heiress of the current patron Richard lord FitzJohn, married William Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d.1298). Both daughters from this marriage entered the house as nuns, as did Margaret and Katharine, daughter and granddaughter of Thomas Beauchamp nearly a century later. Guy de Warwick, son of the said Thomas Beauchamp (and husband of Margaret and father of Katharine just mentioned), held the advowson of the house at his death in 1361. The patronage was henceforth vested in the earls of Warwick until 1487, when this earldom was surrendered and fell to the crown. The Monasticon points out that the founder of the priory was ‘a person of the name of Grelle or Greslei’ and reproduces the following charter ‘de fundatione eiusdem: [. . .] Indentura inter Thomam de la Warre, clericum et canonicos de Sixhill, per quam patet, quod [. . .] de Grelle, antecessor ejusdem Thomæ, fundator erat ejusdem abbathiæ’ (Mon. VII, p.964). See also VCH Lincs. II, p.194 and MRH, p.196. Mon. VII, p.964. Ibid., pp.955–7. Note especially pp.956–7, no.XII: ‘Stemma Fundatorum istius Domus’. Ibid., p.951. See ibid., pp.952–4 for a number of charters of members of the de Kyme family to the monastery.


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patrons,205 two (Marlborough and Newstead) were royal foundations, and three (Clattercote, St Catherine’s Lincoln, and St Andrew’s, York) had been founded by bishops. The two later houses, Hitchin and Poulton, both small and poor, dating from the years 1350 and 1361x1362 respectively, were established by laymen.206 As with the double houses of this order, little change is to be observed regarding the patronage of its houses which remained predominantly in the hands of the laity.

Smaller orders Fontevrault207 The small order of Fontevrault, established in 1096x1097 by Robert of Arbrissel, was the earliest of the successful double orders. Its houses were for Benedictine nuns and brothers living in separate buildings and ruled by an abbess. The order was never a strong numerical presence in England, where it only ever established three successful houses.208 Amesbury in Wiltshire, refounded as a priory of Fontevrault in 1177 by Henry II, became by far the most prosperous of the houses of the order with an annual income of over £525 in 1535, when the patronage of the priory was still with the crown.209 The other two priories, Nuneaton (Warwicks.) and Westwood (Worcs.) were both lay foundations, the former attributed to Robert Bossu, earl of Leicester, and the latter to Osbert FitzHugh and his mother, Eustacia de Say.210 In the thirteenth century the advowson of Nuneaton Priory came to be held by Edmund, earl of Lancaster (d.1296), when he acquired the earldom of Leicester by royal gift.211 The patronage of the house descended among his heirs until 1399, when the duchy of Lancaster, and Nuneaton Priory with it, became royal. Westwood Priory, on the other hand, was in 1330x1331 under the patronage of the Talbot family,212 and appears to have remained in lay hands until the end. 213

205

206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213

These were Bridge End (Lincs.), St Edmund’s in Cambridge, Ellerton (Yorks.), Fordham (Cambs.), Hitchin (Herts.) (Old) Malton ((Yorks.), Marmont (Cambs.), Mattersey (Notts.) and Poulton (Wilts.). See the Appendix below. On the order of Fontevrault in England, note especially B. Kerr’s recent, exhaustive study, Religious Life for Women c.1100–c.1350: Fontevraud in England (Oxford, 1999). See also S. Thompson, Women Religious: The Founding of English Nunneries after the Norman Conquest (Oxford, 1991), pp.112–32: ‘Fontevrault’; MRH, pp.104–5. VCH Wilts. II, p.242; MRH, p.104. Nuneaton Priory had originally been founded by Robert Bossu at Kintbury (Berks.), but moved to the site at Nuneaton around 1155 (MRH, pp.104–5). VCH Warwicks. II, p.67. VCH Worcs. II, p.150. In 1536 John Pakyngton wrote to Cromwell, asking him for Westwood Priory in farm, as, he explained, ‘it is close to my house, where I have no pasture for my horses, though I am now in the king’s service in North Wales, to my great charge’ (LP, x. 386).

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Bridgettine During the first quarter of the fifteenth century, the Bridgettines established the abbey of Syon (Middlesex), their only successful English community.214 Under royal patronage from the outset, Syon Abbey became one of the wealthier houses in England with an annual income in the sixteenth century exceeding £1731.215 The Order of Grandmont Of the three houses of the order ever founded in England, only Grosmont in Yorkshire survived to the Dissolution.216 The house was founded c.1204 by Johanna, or Joan, wife of Robert de Torneham and daughter of William Fossard, and became denizen towards the end of the fourteenth century.217 The advowson remained in the hands of lay patrons until the close of the thirteenth century when the patron in 1294 was Peter de Maulay III.218 After the death in 1415 of Piers de Maulay, the last Maulay heir, the patronage of Grosmont Priory passed to his sisters as co-heiresses, and thence by marriage of Constance, one of the sisters, to Sir John Bigod of Settington,219 whose heirs held it until the Dissolution.220 Houses of Bonhommes Only three monasteries of the order were ever established, and all of them at a comparatively late date. The first house of Bonhommes was founded in 1283 at Ashridge in Hertfordshire by Edmund, earl of Cornwall,221 who was also responsible for the foundation of the Cistercian abbey of Hailes (Glos.).222 Two more foundations, at Edington and Ruthin, followed in the next century. 214

215

216

217 218 219 220 221 222

Founded in Sweden in 1346 by St Bridget, the Bridgettine order was for both religious men and women. The Syon community was first settled at Twickenham (Middlesex) in 1415, whence they moved to the site at Syon in 1431. MRH, p.202. Despite the royal association of the monastery, however, the prior got into difficulty with the royal authorities for refusing to take the oath of supremacy and was executed, together with the Carthusian priors of the London Charterhouse, Beauvale and Axholme, in May 1535. The other two, Alberbury in Shropshire and Craswell in Hereford, had a rather shorter lifespan. Both were granted to other institutions during the fifteenth century, the former to All Souls College, Oxford, by Henry VI c.1441, the latter to God’s House College (now Christ’s College), Cambridge by Edward IV in 1462. MRH, p.109. VCH Yorks. III, p.193. GEC VIII, p.571. Grandmont’s patrons in 1535 were ‘Sir Francis Bigot and George Salvain’ (LP, x. 364). The founder himself was buried in Ashridge in 1300. See Mon. VI, p.517, no.II: ‘De Sepultura præfati Fundatoris in isto Prioratu’. The monastery of Ashridge did not remain in lay hands for very long before its patronage came to the crown in 1335. Cf. Annales Monastici, III, p.305; VCH Bucks. I, p.386; Mon. VI, p.514; MRH, p.203.


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Founded by William of Edington, bishop of Winchester,223 the monastery of Edington passed to successive ecclesiastical patrons until its suppression in 1539.224 Ruthin, on the other hand, like Ashridge, was founded by a layman. Its foundation is attributed to John, son of Reginald de Grey of Ruthin, who established the community close to his own seat in Denbighshire. The later history of the monastery at Ruthin is uncertain. It appears that by 1478 the house had failed and the community temporarily dispersed. The same happened again in the following year, when the heir of the founder, Edmund Grey, earl of Ruthin, took the initiative and tried to revive his struggling monastery.225 The revival of the house seems to have been successful, because there appears to have been a community at Ruthin after 1479, which was suppressed in the year 1535. Tiron The first English monastery of the Order of Tiron was founded at Hamble in Hampshire shortly after the year 1109. By c.1113x1115 three further houses had been established at Caldy, Pill and Llandudoch or St Dogmaels, all in Pembrokeshire. Another two were added shortly afterwards at Andwell (Hants.) and Titley (Hereford), and the last house of the order was founded c.1132 at St Cross (Isle of Wight).226 None of these monasteries ever prospered, the wealthiest being St Dogmaels in Pembrokeshire with an annual income exceeding £87 in1535.227 St Dogmaels was also the only house of the Order of Tiron in this country ever to become an abbey (in 1120). The four English houses, all alien priories, were dissolved in 1391–2 and their possessions granted to William Wykeham, bishop of Winchester, for the endowment of his new college there.228 Information regarding the patronage of the three surviving houses is rather scanty. St Dogmaels Priory owed its foundation in 1113x1115 to Robert FitzMartin, Lord of Cemais on the site of an ancient church of Llandudoch, and was later in the hands of the Audley family.229 The priory of Caldy was founded by Geva, mother of the said Robert FitzMartin, around the same time, as a dependency of St Dogmaels, and also on the site of an ancient church.230 Its patronage decended with that of St Dogmaels. The founder of the priory of Pill was Adam de Rupe (Roche), with whose descendant Thomas de Rupe the patronage was in the fourteenth century. Beyond this, comparatively little is known about the activities of the late medieval lay patrons of the houses of the order.

223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230

Mon. VI, p.535. MRH, p.203. Ibid., pp.203–4. Ibid., p.106. Ibid. Ibid.; see also VCH Hants. II, pp.222, 224, 225. MRH, p.107. Ibid.

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Trinitarian Up to ten houses of the Trinitarian order, variously called also Friars of the Holy Trinity or Maturins, flourished in England during the later Middle Ages. All were small, both in terms of inmates and in size and wealth, the number of brethren being kept at three, later five, plus the superior, called minister or prior, and a small number of lay-brothers.231 Although none of the houses ever acquired any considerable wealth, all but one survived to the Dissolution.232 The houses of Hounslow (Middlesex),233 Oxford,234 and Totnes (Devon) remain in comparative obscurity as regards their patrons in the later Middle Ages, and even their foundations are surrounded with unanswered questions. More is known about Easton (Wilts.), Ingham (Norfolk), Moatenden (Kent), Thelsford (Warwicks.), and the royal Trinitarian house in Hertford. The latter monastery remained with the crown until its suppression around the year 1535. The Trinitarian monastery of Easton (Wilts.) was founded by Stephen of Tisbury in the mid-thirteenth century.235 The patronage was with the Esturmy family in the fourteenth century and remained in lay hands up to the Dissolution.236 The founder of the Norfolk house of Ingham, a late foundation of the order, was Sir Miles Stapleton.237 Like Easton, Ingham remained in lay hands until the end; the patron at the Dissolution was Edward Calthrope.238 Both Moatenden (Kent) and Newcastle upon Tyne (Northumberl.) have also been associated with lay patrons in the later Middle Ages.239 Thelsford (Warwicks.) was founded during the first half of the thirteenth century by William, son of Walter de Cherlecote.240 The patronage came to his grandson Fouk de Lucy, among whose successors many were benefactors of the house. 241 Nearly all the houses of this order were still in lay hands at the time of the Dissolution, and only in the case of Knaresborough in Yorkshire is there any evidence of a house passing to the crown at a later stage in its history.

231 232 233

234 235 236 237 238 239

240 241

Cf. ibid., p.205. The exception being the monastery of Totnes in Devon, which was suppressed by Bishop Oldham and granted to Exeter Cathedral before 1519 (Mon. VI (iii), p.1562). Ibid., pp.1562–3. The exact origins of Hounslow are uncertain. It seems probable that the house was given to the Trinitarians by Richard, earl of Cornwall, founder of Knaresborough. See VCH Middlesex I, pp.191–3. Oxford, too, was associated with the earls of Cornwall. MRH, p.206. Brown, Popular Piety, p.36. Mon. VI (iii), pp.1458–9; VCH Norfolk II, p.410; MRH, p.206. In the fifteenth century Ingham became the Stapleton family mausoleum. See also Sep. Mon. I.I, ccii; GEC VII, pp.61 ff. St Michael’s at Newcastle was a late foundation (1360) by William de Acton and was in lay hands in the late fourteenth century; Moatenden was founded c.1224 either by Sir Robert de Rokesley or Sir Michael de Poyninges, members of which family were later benefactors of the house (VCH Kent II, p.205). William de Cherlecote was the founder according to Mon. VI (iii), p.1563. See Mon. VI (iii), pp.1564–5 for Edward III’s confirmation charter, listing the chief benefactors of the house, among them members of the Lucy family.


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Knaresborough had been founded by Richard, earl of Cornwall c.1252, and by the fourteenth century the dukes of Lancaster held the advowson of the house. When the duchy of Lancaster became royal in 1399, Knaresborough was henceforth considered a royal house. 242 None of the houses of the order ever prospered; none had an income exceeding £80 per annum c.1535, and the numbers of brethren were small.243 With nine resident brethren in the sixteenth century, Knaresborough was the largest house of the order in this country.244 As well as being rather small and somewhat less than prosperous, the English Trinitarian houses are also proportionally perhaps the least well documented of the religious orders, as far as their lay patrons in the later Middle Ages are concerned.

Nunneries The number of nunneries in England and Wales was considerably smaller than that of their male counterparts.245 No more than about 140 houses for female religious were in existence in late medieval England and Wales.246 Nunneries were as a rule less generously endowed than monasteries and as a result far fewer houses of nuns ever prospered. Female houses were often much more closely tied into local interests than their male equivalents. The motivation behind the foundation of a nunnery could differ somewhat from that behind the estab-

242

243 244 245

246

See Mon. VI (iii), p.1566 for Edward II’s confirmation charter of Richard earl of Cornwall’s foundation: ‘Inspeximus cartam domini Richardi Regis Alemanniæ et comitis Cornubiæ [. . .] quam fecit fratribus Sanctæ Trinitatis, et captivorum de Knaresburgh.’ MRH, p.205. Ibid. The same is true for work relating to female houses, which traditionally have been somewhat neglected, particularly by the David Knowles school of monastic history. More recently, fortunately, the situation has improved considerably, and while E. Power’s fundamental work on English nunneries, Medieval English Nunneries c.1275–1535 (Cambridge, 1922), is still one of the key works on medieval houses for religious women, a significant amount of new work is appearing all the time. A special mention is due to Thompson’s work on Women Religious; J. Burton, ‘Yorkshire Nunneries in the Middle Ages: Recruitment and Resources’ in J.C. Appleby and P. Dalton (eds), Government, Religion and Society in Northern England 1000–1700 (Stroud, 1997), pp.104–16; J. Cartwright, Y Forwyn Fair, Santesau a Lleianod (Cardiff, 1999); R. Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture – The Archaeology of Religious Women (London, 1994); Oliva, Convent and Community, B.L. Venarde, Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England (London, 1997); and the volume edited by Diana Wood, Women and Religion in Medieval England (Oxford, 2003). A number of invaluable studies of individual nunneries have also appeared recently, notably P. Lee, Nunneries, Learning and Spirituality in Late Medieval England: the Dominican Priory of Dartford (Woodbridge, 2001) and R.B. Dobson, and S. Donaghey, The History of Clementhorpe Nunnery (London, 1984). The Appendix below includes 140 nunneries, Eileen Power speaks of ‘some 138’ (Power, English Nunneries, p.1).

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lishment of a house for monks or canons, just as the reasons for entering a house of nuns might differ from the reasons for entering a male monastery.247 In some cases there is some ambivalence regarding the religious affiliation of a nunnery. Sometimes the communities of nuns themselves were evidently not entirely in agreement as to which order their house belonged to – and occasionally the sources actually contradict each other.248 Contemporary records tend to be less consistent for houses of female than for male religious, and on the whole a larger proportion of nunneries than of monasteries have unidentified patrons. Chroniclers and visitors of female houses appear to be more concerned with the discipline – or lack of discipline – of the religious communities, than with records of mundane events which might reveal the identity, and the activities, of a patron.249 The total numbers of nunneries in England and Wales fluctuated only slightly during the later Middle Ages. Of the around 140 functioning houses during the fourteenth century, as many as 132 were still operating two centuries later. The vast majority of post-Conquest nunneries owed their existence to the initiative of lay founders. By the fourteenth century, a number of houses with lay founders had passed into the patronage of the crown, and this trend continued during the last two and a half centuries preceding the Dissolution. The overall development in patterns of patronage regarding the nunneries of England and Wales followed largely the pattern already established for houses of male religious, with the proportion of lay patrons gradually shrinking during this period, while both the number of royal houses and the proportion of unidentified patrons increased.250 Interesting to note in relation to founders of nunneries is the considerable proportion of female foundresses and co-foundresses among their ranks. One important category of founders of nunneries was that of aristocratic widows, who often entered their own foundations as abbesses or prioresses.251 A found-

247

248

249 250 251

Apart from providing a livelihood for women who wished to dedicate their lives to religion, they might be a welcome retreat for young girls who sought to escape marriage, or for widows who had no intention of remarrying. Another function, namely that of the nunnery as a convenient ‘dumping ground’ for unwanted female relatives or political prisoners has provoked much debate. A famous example is Edward I’s sending of Gwenllian, infant daughter of Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, to the Gilbertine house of Sempringham in the aftermath of his conquest of Wales (Power, English Nunneries, p.30; J. Davies, A History of Wales (Harmondsworth, 1990), p.164). During the Wars of the Roses and other times of political unrest, daughters and wives of traitors are known to have been put in the custody of nunneries. Dugdale for example lists the nunnery of Brewood White Ladies in Shropshire among houses of the Cistercian order (Mon. V, p.730), while Knowles includes the house under Augustinian canonesses (MRH, p.279). The priory of Grimsby in Lincolnshire on the other hand, listed under Augustinian canonesses by Knowles (MRH, p.278), appears among houses of Benedictine nuns in Dugdale (Mon. IV, p.545). See also J. Bond, ‘Medieval Nunneries in England and Wales: Buildings, Precincts, and Estates’, in Wood (ed.), Women and Religion, pp.46–7. This is particularly evident in the royal visitation records of Henry VIII’s commissioners. See Figure 1.2 above. These noble ladies who intended to found a nunnery might seek the support of the king


55

ress of a nunnery may well have had her own advantage in mind when choosing to establish a house of female rather than male religious, a community she might join at any stage in her life, for example when she became a widow. Although this custom had become less common during the later Middle Ages, it was possible for female patrons and influential benefactresses to live in a nunnery without actually taking the veil, as Mary of St Pol did in her house of Minoresses at Denney. However, due to the fact that nunneries, like monasteries, were passed on to the patron’s heir, who was normally male, it is often less easy to identify women patrons’ activities and involvement in the later Middle Ages. Benedictine nuns Predominant among foundations for women were Benedictine nunneries, which were also the wealthiest and the most prestigious of the houses of female religious in this country.252 Between the twelfth and the sixteenth centuries, a significant number of Benedictine nunneries with lay patrons came into the hands of the king.253 Some of these had become royal at the Conquest in the eleventh century, others later.254 The priory of Flamstead (Herts.) had been founded in the mid-twelfth century by Roger de Tony and was by the fourteenth century vested in the earls of Warwick, whence it fell to the crown in 1487.255 Similarly, the nunneries of Nuneaton (Warwicks.), Redlingfield (Suffolk), Studley (Oxon.), Usk (Monmouthshire), Wilberfoss (Yorks.) and Wix, or Sopwick (Essex), all passed from the hands of the aristocracy into those of the crown during the fourteenth to late fifteenth centuries and continued under royal patronage until their suppression. 256

252

253

254

255 256

in order to realise their foundations. The foundresses of Lacock (Wilts.), Cookhill (Worcs.) and Godstow (Oxon.) were among those women who joined their own religious community. See also Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, p.92, and Power, English Nunneries, pp.25–41. At the peak of the period there existed in England and Wales some 77 Benedictine nunneries, compared with 29 houses of Cistercian nuns and 24 houses of Augustinian canonesses. Among the Benedictine nunneries were the important houses of Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset, Barking Abbey in Essex and Wilton Abbey in Wiltshire. These pre-Conquest nunneries enjoyed an annual income in the sixteenth century of £1166, £862 and £601 respectively, while the majority of English and Welsh nunneries had to survive on considerably less. The numbers of lay patrons of Benedictine nunneries fell from at least 44 lay foundations to just over thirty at most at the Dissolution, while the share of the king rose from 11 to 25 houses during the same period. The Benedictine abbey of Chatteris in Cambridgeshire, for example, was founded around the year 980 by Ælfwen, wife of Æthelstan, earl of the East Saxons, with the support of her brother Ednoth. The patronage passed to the crown at the Norman Conquest and was finally granted by Henry I to Hervey bishop of Ely with whose successors it remained until the suppression of the abbey in 1538. Mon. IV, p.299; VCH Herts. IV, p.432; MRH, p.258. See the Appendix below.

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Houses of Cluniac Nuns Only two houses for nuns of the Cluniac order were ever established in England while female houses of the order were altogether absent in Wales. Both Cluniac houses, Arthington Priory in Yorkshire and Delapré Abbey in Northampton, were lay foundations dating from the mid-twelfth century, and both were still under lay patronage in the fourteenth century.257 The priory of Arthington remained in the hands of the Arthington family, who were reasonably active patrons of the nunnery.258 At the house’s suppression in 1539, the patron was Henry Arthington.259 Houses of Cistercian Nuns260 Nearly all the 29 female houses of the order, if indeed that is what they were, were established at some point during the mid- to late twelfth century, although not all were associated with the Cistercian order from the beginning. Cistercian nunneries in England and Wales were almost exclusively founded by members of the aristocracy, after the Cistercian order expressed initial reluctance to accept houses of women religious.261 The priory of Whistones (Worcs.) was the only Cistercian nunnery which was not a lay foundation. Whistones Priory was founded before 1241 by Walter de Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester,262 and the patronage of the house remained with the bishops of Worcester until its dissolution in 1536, when the priory was denoted among the ‘lesser’ monasteries.263 There were no royal foundations among the female houses of this order, although Henry III appears to have been involved in the foundation of Fosse Priory in Lincolnshire. This house was, it seems, co-founded by the inhabitants of the village of Torksey and the king around the year 1184. 264 By the later Middle Ages, the picture had not changed dramatically, neither by the fourteenth nor by the sixteenth century. The main group of patrons of Cistercian nunneries in later medieval England and Wales were still members of the laity, and the shift in patronage from lay to royal was much less pronounced among nunneries of this order. Interestingly, the distribution of

257 258 259 260

261 262 263 264

Mon. V, p.207; ibid. IV, p.518; MRH, p.270. In his will of 1391, Robert de Arthington, then patron of the priory, asked for burial in the house (TE I, p.124). LP, x. 364. So-called houses of Cistercian nuns have been surrounded by some degree of uncertainty regarding their order. S. Thompson reminds us that a large number of Cistercian nunneries have been attributed at some point in time to orders other than the Cistercians (Thompson, Women Religious, p.95). Note the example of Brewood White Ladies above. For a different view on Cistercian nunneries, note Berman, The Cistercian Evolution, pp.41–44. The present study follows MRH’s listing of Cistercian nunneries. See Burton, Monastic and Religious Orders, pp.87, 101; MRH, p.271. Knowles dates the foundation of the house to ‘before 1255’ (MRH, pp. 276–7). LP, x. 1238. Mon. IV, p.292. However, royal involvement in the foundation is mentioned in neither VCH Lincs. II, p.157, nor MRH, p.273.


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royal patrons coincides with the distribution of wealth among the houses of the order. Thus Tarrant Kaines Abbey (Dorset), the most prosperous of the Cistercian nunneries, was royal by the fourteenth century,265 while the second most prosperous house, Catesby Priory in Northamptonshire, had passed to the crown by 1279.266 Other Cistercian nunneries which came into the patronage of the king during the later Middle Ages were Cook Hill (Worcs.), Rosedale (Yorks.), and Wykeham (Yorks.), while the remainder continued to be patronised by the laity. Noteworthy is the proportion of women among the patrons and benefactors of these houses.267 However, our information about patrons of Cistercian nunneries is somewhat scanty overall, both in terms of their identity and of their actions in the later Middle Ages. Augustinian canonesses The vast majority of the 24 houses of Augustinian canonesses were lay foundations.268 No more than a small number of houses were established by clerics, and only the priory of Grimsby in Lincolnshire was, in all probability, a royal foundation.269 By the Dissolution, the number of houses of Augustinian canonesses still in lay hands had fallen quite notably, while the crown had gained the patronage of at least another six houses of the order, among them Canonsleigh Abbey (Devon), Moxby Priory (Yorks.), Rothwell Priory (Northants.) and Lacock Abbey (Wilts.), all of which had passed to the crown during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.270 The majority of houses of this order, however, remained in the hands of lay patrons throughout their history. 265

266

267

268 269

270

Founded by Ralph de Kahaynes c.1169x1176, the Dorset abbey of Tarrant Kaines had passed to the crown after having been in the hands of Bishop Richard Poore, who was often regarded as the convent’s founder, during the minority of the legitimate heir in the thirteenth century. See Mon. V, p.619; VCH Dorset II, p.87. In that year William Bagot granted the endowment of the house to Queen Eleanor. Cf. VCH Northants. II, p.123. See also Mon. IV, p.635; MRH, pp.272–3. In the 1530s Catesby Priory was the subject of the correspondence between the royal commissioners for Northamptonshire, Edmond Knyghtley, John Lane, George Gyffard and Robert Burgoyn, and Richard Rich, in which the commissioners pleaded Rich for the preservation of the nunnery which, they argued, was ‘in verry perfett order, the priores a sure, wyse, discrete, and very religyous woman, with ix nunnys under her obedyencye as relygious and devoute and with as good obedyencye as we have in tyme past seen or belyke shall see’ (Wright, Suppression, p.129). At least five Cistercian nunneries were in fact founded, or co-founded by women: Cook Hill was founded by Isabel, countess of Warwick, Hampole by Avicia de Tany (together with her husband), Marham by Isabel, widow of Hugh d’Aubigny, Nun Appleton by Alice de St Quintin, and Stixwould by Lucy, dowager countess of Chester. Cf. MRH, pp.273–6. See the Appendix below. The priory is said to have been founded by Henry II. See Thompson, Women Religious, p.67, MRH, pp.279–80, and Mon. IV, p.545. The VCH, on the other hand, describes Grimsby as ‘poor and obscure’ and states that its founder is unknown (VCH Lincs. II, p.179). The former three came to the crown with the earldom of Warwick, the last one with the duchy of Lancaster.

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In common with nunneries of other religious orders, the number of women among their founders is noteworthy. At least six of the founders of Augustinian nunneries were female, highlighting the popularity of female communities with women founders. Premonstratensian canonesses271 Houses for women of the order of Prémontré were never numerous in England and Wales. Only three houses of Premonstratensian canonesses have been included here. A fourth, namely Guyzance Priory (Northumberl.), has been mentioned under houses for Premonstratensian canons above. The house had apparently become extinct when the Black Death wiped out the religious community in the mid-fourteenth century and thereafter Guyzance Priory was reduced to the status of a cell attached to the male Premonstratensian house of Alnwick in the same county.272 Of the three remaining houses, two were founded in the mid-twelfth century by lay folk.273 Shortly before the Dissolution, one further house was added to the order. Stixwould Priory in Lincolnshire was re-founded for Premonstratensian canonesses by Henry VIII himself in 1537, only two years before the nunnery, which had previously housed communities of Cistercian nuns (c.1135x1536) and Benedictine nuns (1536x1537), was finally suppressed.274 During its brief existence as a Premonstratensian nunnery, Stixwould Priory greatly exceeded the other two houses of the order in terms of size and wealth. 275 Information regarding later patrons of either of the two earlier foundations is scanty. Of Broadholme, it is known that in the fourteenth century the patronage was vested in the lords of the manor of Saxilby and changed hands frequently.276 The patrons of Orford Priory have not been identified with certainty.277 However, if the patronage passed to the heirs of Ralph d’Aubigny, the later patrons are most likely to be laymen, for the other religious houses under the patronage of members of this family were all still in the hands of the laity at the time of the Dissolution. Religious houses of their foundation passed

271 272 273

274 275 276 277

On the nuns of the Premonstratensian order, see also Colvin, White Canons, pp.327–36; Gribbin, Premonstratensian Order, pp.7–8, and Thompson, Women Religious, pp.133–45. MRH, p.283. Broadholme in Nottinghamshire was founded before 1154, probably by Peter of Goxhill and his wife Agnes, while Orford in Lincolnshire was founded between 1155 and 1160, most probably by Ralph d’Aubigny. Both houses were very poorly endowed, and by 1535 their annual incomes amounted to no more than £16 and £13 respectively. Both had fewer than ten resident nuns at the Dissolution. VCH Lincs. II, pp.146–9; MRH, pp.266, 276, 283. The annual income of the priory in the 1530s was recorded as over £165 (MRH, p.283). Cf. Coll. Anglo-Prem II, nos.291–92. Ralph d’Aubigny, possibly the founder, might, however, have been merely the chief benefactor of the nunnery. See Colvin, White Canons, pp.328–30; Thompson, Women Religious, p.227; MRH, p.283.


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to the earls of Arundel and the Mowbrays, earls and dukes of Norfolk, and to the Knyvet family.278 Franciscan nuns The Franciscan nuns, also known as Poor Clares or Minoresses, were late in establishing themselves in England. The first house of the order was founded in Northampton in 1252, but the foundation did not succeed and about twenty years later the house had failed.279 The next house of Minoresses was not established until c.1293x1294, when a house of the order was founded at Aldgate in London, known as The Minories, and a further house was established at Waterbeach in Cambridgeshire, only to be resettled at Denney in the same county some fifty years later in 1342.280 Another successful, albeit less generously endowed, house of Franciscan nuns was eventually established in the fourteenth century with the foundation of Bruisyard Abbey in Suffolk (1364x1367) by Lionel, duke of Clarence.281 All three houses of Minoresses, then, were originally founded by the laity, who continued to play an important role as their patrons throughout the history of the order.282 By 1399, the London house had come to the crown with the duchy of Lancaster. Bruisyard Abbey was inherited by Lionel of Clarence’s grandson Roger Mortimer, earl of March, in 1368, and in 1425 the patronage of the house passed to Richard, duke of York, whence, from 1461, Bruisyard became a royal house under his son, Edward IV.283 Only Denney Abbey, which had been re-founded by Mary de St Pol, countess of Pembroke, in 1342 remained in lay hands. At the death of the last earl of Pembroke in 1389 the patronage appears to have passed to the Greys of Ruthin, who later became earls of Kent. Dominican Nuns Only one house of Dominican nuns was ever established in medieval England. The nunnery of Dartford (Kent) was a royal house, founded by Edward III in 1356, and it remained under the patronage of Edward’s successors until its suppression in April 1539, when at least eighteen nuns were still residing there.284 The community enjoyed relative prosperity, reflected in an annual

278 279 280

281 282 283 284

See the Appendix below. MRH, p.286 The Minories in London was founded by Edmund, earl of Lancaster, and the foundress of Waterbeach Abbey was Denise, the widow of Warin Munchensey. Cf. MRH, pp.286–7. On the relationship between Mary de St Pol, countess of Pembroke, the patroness of Denney (where the Waterbeach community was transferred in the mid-fourteenth century) and the nuns of the house, see Chapter 2. MRH, p.286. The role of the patrons of these houses has been emphasised by Claudine Bourdillon (A.F.C. Bourdillon, The Order of the Minoresses in England (Manchester, 1926), p.18). For a genealogy see Bourdillon, Minoresses. For a fairly recent study of Dartford Priory see Lee, Nunneries, Learning and Spirituality.

Figure 1.5: Distribution of wealth among religious orders in England and Wales, c.1535, showing houses with annual income in excess of £200 (Source: D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales)


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income of over £380 in the 1530s, which may have been a by-product of its royal patronage and of its reputation for learning among the laity.285

Wealth and status To a considerable extent, the prosperity of a monastery was consistent with the wealth and status of its patrons, as well as with the religious order to which the house belonged. Thus the distribution (by religious order) of monasteries categorised as greater houses in 1536, that is those with an annual income exceeding £200, shows some interesting, if perhaps predictable, patterns (Figure 1.5). As many as 190 religious houses recorded an income of £200 or more in the Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535.286 Nearly one-third of these monasteries (55 houses) belonged to the Benedictine order, while 26% (50 monasteries) were houses of Augustinian canons, and 19% (36 houses) were affiliated to the Cistercian order. Ten houses each of Cluniac monks and Benedictine nuns are among the above figure, as well as eight Premonstratensian and six Carthusian houses. These figures become more significant when contextualised: there were 134 Benedictine monasteries at the time of the Valor, so the 55 houses of the order valued at over £200 per annum represent as much as 41% of all Benedictine monasteries at the time of the survey. The proportion of Cistercian abbeys was even higher: the 36 houses of Cistercian monks whose income exceeded £200 represent 47% of the total number of Cistercian monasteries in the sixteenth century, while the 50 Augustinian houses which fall into this category, correspond to 28% of all the houses of the order at that time. It is perhaps no great surprise to find that the patrons of these more prosperous houses were most likely to be wealthy men and women themselves. Indeed, nearly all the 55 Benedictine monasteries with an income over £200 had royal or ecclesiastical patrons, and only three of them, namely Monk Bretton (Yorks.), Tynemouth (Northumberl.) and Wymondham (Norfolk) were in lay hands in 1535. The status, like the wealth, of a monastery or nunnery often reflected the status of the community’s patron in the religious orders where this applied. So it is, for instance, that houses of Benedictine monks, which had a particularly high number of high-status patrons, also included more houses of high status than any of the other religious orders.287 The Cluniac monasteries in this country also counted among them several comparatively wealthy houses. The most prosperous of these was Lewes Priory 285 286

287

MRH, p.285. Cf. Valor Ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII: Auctoritate regia institutus, 6 vols (London, 1810–34). See also Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum and Knowles and Hadcock’s evaluation of the Valor Ecclesiasticus under individual religious houses in MRH. Benedictine monasteries were more often raised to the status of abbey than monasteries of any other order to which this applies, that is excluding the Cluniacs, Cistercians and Premonstratensians.

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in Sussex, a lay foundation, which was at the time of the royal survey under the patronage of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk.288 The majority of the remainder of England’s wealthiest Cluniac priories (including Daventry in Northamptonshire, Lenton in Nottinghamshire, Much Wenlock in Shropshire and Pontefract in Yorkshire), was at that time under royal patronage. Augustinian monasteries included a considerable number of small, impoverished, in many ways obscure houses, at least as far as their patronage histories are concerned. Based on a moderate initial endowment, many Augustinian priories in this country never rose to prominence or acquired any great wealth. Of the fifty Augustinian houses with an income exceeding £200 in 1535, nearly half were houses which were under royal patronage between the fourteenth century and the Dissolution. A further four monasteries had ecclesiastical patrons, and at least eighteen houses had lay patrons during this period, although none of these eighteen were among the wealthiest houses of the order. Cirencester Abbey (Glos.), a royal Augustinian house, had an annual income of over £1051; Leicester (£951) was royal by 1399; Maxstoke in Warwickshire (£960) became royal in 1521; Plympton in Devon (£912) was an episcopal house, and Waltham in Essex (£900) was a royal foundation. Even the richest Augustinian house, however, could not match the most prosperous houses of Benedictine monks in wealth, or indeed prestige in late medieval England. Houses of the Premonstratensian order were not normally among the most prestigious or the most prosperous monasteries in the country; on the other hand they did not include any desperately impoverished houses either. All but eight of the thirty-six Premonstratensian houses had a net income well below £200 in 1535. Unsurprisingly, and in tune with the pattern of the other religious orders, most of the more prosperous Premonstratensian monasteries had patrons who were either the king, as at Barlings Abbey in Lincolnshire, or a bishop, as at Halesowen Abbey in Worcestershire, Titchfield Abbey in Hampshire, Welbeck Abbey in Nottinghamshire, and West Dereham Abbey in Norfolk. The other male and double orders followed largely the same pattern.289 Houses of nuns were overall considerably less well endowed than their male counterparts. The wealthier nunneries tended to be in the hands of kings and bishops; only very few of them had lay patrons at this time. Comparing the wealth of these houses with those of male religious, the patterns mirror each other, despite the gap in wealth between the two. Benedictine nunneries were among the more prosperous of the female communities, with ten out of seventy houses exceeding an annual income of £200 in the sixteenth century. Of these ten houses, strikingly, not a single one had a layman as its patron. The two wealthiest Benedictine nunneries were both royal pre-Conquest foundations. Barking Abbey (Essex), whose annual income in 1535 was over £862, was founded towards the end of the tenth century by King Edgar, and Shaftesbury Abbey in Dorset (with an annual income c.1535 over £1166) was founded by

288 289

Val. Eccl.: £920. See Figure 1.5 above.


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King Alfred around the year 888.290 The same two abbeys also housed the largest numbers of resident nuns of all the houses of their order at the time of the Dissolution.291 Only one and three houses respectively of Cistercian nuns and Augustinian canonesses fell into the group of houses exceeding £200 annually in 1535, while, on the other hand, communities of Poor Clares were relatively well endowed in comparison with other female houses. This noteworthy fact can be linked to their comparatively late arrival on the English monastic scene. Both of the female orders of friars, the Franciscan and the Dominican nuns, were enjoying their first and enthusiastic, and naturally generous, wave of endowments in this country during the fourteenth century. Another contributing factor to their relative financial comfort was their great popularity with the laity. Gentry and nobility alike showed a lively interest in these new communities, especially those of the Minoresses, to which the papal registers bear witness.292

Conclusions During the two and a half centuries before the Dissolution, lay patronage of religious houses in England and Wales was undergoing a clearly discernible shift. The numbers of lay patrons of almost all monastic orders decreased as time passed and monasteries passed to the crown by means of forfeiture or by escheat at the extinction of a family line through lack of male heirs. These developments applied to all religious orders, albeit to varying degrees. The advowsons of religious houses moreover passed from one noble family to another by means of marriage and/or inheritance. Those monasteries which did remain in the hands of the laity were increasingly concentrated on fewer families of a higher rank. Thus a small number of noble families accumulated considerable wealth and property through inheritance, especially through marriage of their sons to heiresses of families without male issue. The religious houses which persisted under lay patronage did not normally include the more important houses in terms of status or wealth. Monasteries or nunneries whose status had been raised to that of abbey at some point in their history (in the religious orders where this applies), tended to have royal – or in some cases episcopal – patrons; in fact, some were made abbeys when the house passed to the crown.293 Monasteries which were under the patronage of the crown or the church theoretically found themselves in a position of greater 290 291 292 293

MRH, pp.253, 255, 256, 265. According to Knowles, there were approximately 30 nuns at Barking in 1539 and at least 56 at Shaftesbury (MRH, pp.256, 265). E.g. CPP I, p.166; ibid. III, pp.165, 531, 534. The Norfolk priory of North Creake, for example, was raised to the status of abbey when the patronage passed from the founder’s widow, Alice de Nerford, to Henry III in 1231 (VCH Norfolk II, p.370).

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financial security, whereas many lay foundations, based upon a moderate initial gift of land or property, never prospered, and many failed soon after their foundation.294 Regional differences emphasise the patterns of patronage and wealth of houses within England and Wales. Overall, the Welsh abbeys and priories were considerably less prosperous than their neighbours to the east. Glanmor Williams has shown that the income of all the Welsh houses put together could not match that of one of the most prosperous English foundations. Thus the added income of all the Welsh houses at the Dissolution amounted to c.£3178, while the incomes of such great English monasteries as Westminster Abbey or Glastonbury may have exceeded £3740 and £3511 respectively.295 By the time of the suppression of the monasteries of England and Wales in the sixteenth century, the number of lay patrons was small but no less significant. At that time, around 216 religious houses in England and Wales still had identified lay patrons, 174 of these being male, and 42 being female communities. Taking into account the number of unidentified patrons for this date, the total number of potential lay patronised monasteries and nunneries in England and Wales is 348 (272 male monasteries, 75 nunneries). Several of these men and women, however, held the patronage of more than one religious house, and this affects the number of individual lay patrons who were potentially active in sixteenth-century England and Wales.296 It seems clear that temporal distance from the original foundation resulted in a certain degree of depersonalisation on the part of both patron and monastery. However, as the following chapters will show, the concept of monastic patronage in the eyes of lay patrons during the end of the monastic period in England and Wales had as many manifestations at this late stage in their history as it had during the centuries preceding the fourteenth century.

294

295 296

The small Augustinian house of Haselbury in Somerset, founded by William FitzWalter around the year 1150, is one such example. The monastery, built with limited funds, was probably never finished, although Collinson in his History of Somerset has argued that the house was destroyed in the contest of the barons (J. Collinson, The History of Somersetshire (London, 1791), cited by MRH, p.159). In the case of the small Benedictine priory of Ewyas Harold in Herefordshire, founded in 1100 by Harald, Lord of Ewyas, the remaining monks had to be withdrawn in 1359, when the house was so poverty-stricken that it was unable to support even its prior. Williams, Wales and the Reformation, p.74. As many as 107 individuals have so far been identified as patrons in the sixteenth century.

Manifestations of Monastic Patronage

2 Manifestations of Monastic Patronage in the Later Middle Ages

During the two and a half centuries preceding the Dissolution, monastic patronage of all religious orders changed in character as well as in scale.1 Only very few new religious houses came into existence after the year 1300, and the needs of existing, established communities of monks, canons and nuns differed in some respects from those of a new foundation. Consequently, the demands on lay patrons altered. Their function as protectors and supporters of their religious communities became increasingly important under the economic and political pressures of the late Middle Ages, at a time when many houses of monks and nuns complained about financial difficulties, even poverty. Thus patrons were regularly called upon to confirm, and thereby defend, a community’s existing endowments, which had been donated to the monastery by their ancestors or predecessors. However, the custom of gift-giving also continued throughout this period, right up until the Dissolution, with religious houses being the recipients of bequests ranging from smaller, personal, usually religious items, to sums of money or, indeed, manors, estates, or rents.2 Of particular importance, in many cases, was the appropriation to religious houses of churches, together with their advowsons. During the later Middle Ages this was especially common for houses of Augustinian canons. 3 1

2

3

Relationships between the religious houses of England and Wales and their lay patrons during the later Middle Ages had many facets. Due to the paucity of relevant documentation, the range of ways in which lay patrons were involved with their monasteries and nunneries can be identified only for certain patrons of particular houses at specific times, and consequently it is from these cases that many general conclusions have to be drawn. Fortunately, the evidence that is increasingly emerging from less well-known religious houses adds greatly to our understanding of the relationships between religious communities and their lay patrons and benefactors during the later Middle Ages. Lands and property given to religious houses were often less substantial in size and value than they had been during earlier centuries when they formed part of the monastery’s original endowment. William de Clinton’s petitions to Wolstan de Bransford, bishop of Worcester, for the appropriation of the churches of Tanworth and Yardley to his new Augustinian priory of Maxstoke (Warwicks.) in 1340 and 1347 are two such examples (A Calendar of the Register of Wolstan de Bransford, Bishop of Worcester 1339–49, ed. R.M. Haines (London, 1966), nos.321 and 833). Another example is the appropriation of Healaugh church to the Augustinian canons of Healaugh (Park) Priory (Yorks.) at the instigation of their patron, John Depeden, and his wife Elizabeth, in February 1399 (A Calendar of the Register

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And then, of course, there were other types of contact, too. Theoretically at least, the patron of a monastery was involved in the election of a new abbot or prior (abbess or prioress) to his house, to which his assent was required and which he – normally – confirmed. Patrons also still had the unwritten right to be received as visitors at their monasteries and to spend any length of time there, enjoying the hospitality of the religious community, and staying, eating and drinking at their expense. Ideally, though clearly not always, this was done in moderation as regards both the duration of the visit and the size of the visiting party. And as well as visiting their monasteries, some lay patrons still chose to enter the religious communities under their patronage, either by formally taking the vows of the order, or by residing in the house without actually taking the habit. To be received into a monastery’s confraternity was still an important privilege. The relationship between a house and its patron was, of course, not always a happy one. Evidence of disputes between the two parties, where it exists, can grant illuminating insight into the problems that arose between religious communities and lay patrons, who were often geographically and physically distant during the centuries preceding the Dissolution. From the laity’s point of view, attitudes to traditional conventual monasticism were changing during the later Middle Ages. For many, late medieval monasticism represented an increasingly old-fashioned, antiquated form of religious expression.4 By the fourteenth century, new, more fashionable expressions of piety were available to the laity, most notably the chantry chapel and the numerous guilds or fraternities. For the increasingly self-conscious lay community, monasteries, with their ever more outdated liturgy, were coming to be regarded as insufficiently flexible, and for this and other reasons no longer held the level of attraction they once did. As a result, lay patrons increasingly put their money elsewhere, as is testified by the enthusiasm with which new types of foundations were founded, or at least supported, by the laity during this period. The continuing ties which nonetheless persisted between some lay patrons and their abbeys and priories in later medieval England and Wales must be considered in this context of changing fashions and changing priorities if we are to understand their full significance.

4

of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York 1398–1405, ed. R.N. Swanson, 2 vols (York, 1985), no.144). Brown has shown that the late medieval laity’s ‘continuing search for novel expressions of spirituality’ led to the rise and fall of new religious phenomena and to the decline in support for the traditional enclosed orders. During the later Middle Ages it was the parish that increasingly formed the ‘focus for pastoral and spiritual attention’ (Brown, Popular Piety, pp.46–7). But the waning involvement of lay patrons with their religious houses was not a universal trend, as this chapter will emphasise.

MANIFESTATIONS OF MONASTIC PATRONAGE

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Everyday Relations and General Attitudes For the original founders of religious houses during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, a personal element of some sort was a central part of the foundation process. As well as personally choosing the religious order, founders were often directly involved in the establishment of the community, for whom they specified the location and provided the conventual buildings. For economic as well as practical reasons, new monasteries were normally built on the founder’s lands, in relative proximity to his caput, and the new monks, canons or nuns thus became his neighbours as well as his protégés. Regular contact, of varying intensity, was thus the natural and intended by-product of a new foundation. With the passage of time and the passing of the patronage from one family to another, the bond between patrons and their monasteries in many cases gradually lessened, especially if the distance between them and their houses naturally increased, both in terms of activity and, frequently, physically too, since later patrons did not necessarily maintain the same residence as their predecessors. More or less regular contact was evidently maintained between some religious houses and their lay patrons throughout the later Middle Ages. Visits, especially more casual ones, were not normally recorded in any great detail, especially if they passed off uneventfully. Household accounts can indicate how much and what kind of food was purchased or consumed at any particular time, thus providing a clue regarding the number of persons present on that day, sometimes even naming individual dinner guests. But unfortunately this kind of evidence is hard to come by for the smaller, less prosperous monasteries which remained in lay hands. Among the smaller houses, the Cluniac priory of Thetford (Norfolk) is a particularly noteworthy exception. Several registers of the house have survived, and grant spectacular insight into certain day-to-day contacts between the priory and its patrons, the earls and dukes of Norfolk. 5 Some families maintained close links with the houses under their patronage throughout much of their history, expressing, in one way or another, their awareness of their role as patrons of their monasteries. Some of them did so by explicit statement. Thus John of Gaunt, earl of Lancaster, for instance, stated in 1373 that he was ‘bound as advocate of the house of holy religion of the nuns of Nuneaton to give succour and help to the said nuns, and their goods and chattels, that they may serve God in peace and quiet according to their foundation and to the rule of their religion’.6 Others merely emphasised their status.7 Nor did this attitude among some lay patrons wane during the following century and a half, for in 1524 William lord Dacre, patron of the Augustinian priory of Lanercost (Cumberland), clearly recognised his patronal duties when he said in 5 6 7

Cambridge University Library, MS Add. 6969. See also Dymond, Register. Of particular interest for this present study is the latest surviving register of the priory. The Register of John of Gaunt, Camden Society (1911), p.143. Thus did Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, in 1458, when he said of the Augustinian priory of Bisham (Berks.), that it was ‘under the patronage of me and my dear wife’ (TV, pp.286–7).

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a letter: ‘As I am your founder [I am] bound in conscience to see to your welfare and give unto you my faithful counsel.’8 A positive, munificent attitude towards, and active involvement with, their religious houses earned some lay patrons a laudable reputation among their contemporaries. The Berkeleys, for example, founders and patrons of numerous religious houses from different orders, were praised by their contemporaries for their generosity towards their monasteries.9 Repeated endowments and a tradition of burial in their houses of St Augustine’s (Bristol) and Kingswood Abbey (Glos.) point to a relationship in which regular contact was maintained. It can safely be assumed that visits to their monasteries and a generally supportive attitude formed part of this contact, even if there is only scarce direct evidence to support this.10 Likewise, successive generations of the de Vere family have left evidence for a continued relationship with the monasteries under their patronage, most prominently with the Benedictine priory of Earls Colne in Essex.11 Records of numerous burials of family members in this priory, as well as the physical proximity of their caput to their Benedictine nunnery at Hedingham, also in Essex, lend some substantiation to the conjecture that contact was maintained between the de Veres and some of their religious houses, despite the lack of adequate documentary evidence.12 One outstanding document bearing testimony to this relationship is the will of John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford (d.1513), which contains endless lists of items bequeathed by the testator to the monks of Earls Colne Priory.13 These examples represent merely a small selection of incidents which show that in some instances mundane everyday contact between the religious and their lay patrons continued during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. That the interest in maintaining a good relationship between monasteries and their patrons could be mutual is illustrated by the evidence from the chronicle of Croxden Abbey.14 The Cistercian community of Croxden in Staffordshire upheld active contacts with the family of Verdun and, in a perhaps less personal manner, from 1316, the Furnivals. Spiritual services provided by the community formed an integral part of this relationship. So, for instance, in 1320 the abbot of Croxden Abbey was involved in the baptism of his patron’s newborn daughter, Margaret, which event the chronicler of the house considered worthy of recording, stating that ‘the abbot of Croxden baptised [Margaret] and the abbot of [the Augustinian abbey of] Rocester lifted her from the font’.15 Records of births, marriages and deaths of the patrons 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

LP, iv. 128. Note Smyth, John of Nibley, The Berkeley Manuscripts, ed. J. Maclean (Gloucester, 1883–85). On the Berkeley family and their religious house, see also Chapter 4. The de Vere family held the patronage of at least eight monasteries and nunneries of three different religious orders in the sixteenth century. For further discussion of burials of the de Vere family at Earls Colne, see Chapter 3. Cf. W.H.S. Hope, ‘The Last Testament and Inventory of John de Veer, thirteenth Earl of Oxford’, Archaeologia lxvi (1915), pp.275–348. BL Faustina vi, ff.72–93v. Ibid., ff.80v–94v. Translation by L. Boatwright et al..


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during the fourteenth century abound in the chronicle.16 Relations between the two parties, at this time at least, were amicable, and the Croxden chronicler hinted at the closeness of the ties between his monastery and the patrons of the house on more than one occasion. In October 1309, the abbey saw the burial of its patron, lord Theobald de Verdun, which the chronicler recorded, with the comment: of him [Verdun] the saying of the wise man (Ecclesiastes 2) may fitly be said, ‘He died and is as if not dead. For he left after him one like him in name and in reality.’ And further, it can truly be said what follows there, ‘he left there a defender of the house against enemies and one giving grace to friends’.17

At the death of Thomas lord Furnival, then patron, in 1332 ‘about Easter’, the chronicle contains an edifying entry. Lord Furnival, the chronicler stated, was lord of Sheffield and of Worksop and their appurtenances, and was succeeded by lord Thomas, his son, who had earlier married lady Joan, the eldest daughter of Lord Theobald de Verdun. As a result, the honourable and distinguished name of Verdun was passed to the Furnivals for them and their descendants for as long as it pleases the one who disposes all things agreeably.

And he continued on a rather more sombre note: But let not the memory of that name pass for ever from the hearts of those living in this house, lest they be found ungrateful, because there is not another name given to them under heaven to which they are bound to show such great reverence in prayer or the giving of thanks.18

In connection with the information which can be gathered from the entries in the chronicle over nearly two centuries, the latter comment by the Croxden chronicler seems particularly revealing of the patron–monastery relationship, as well as going beyond simple convention by so overtly expressing partiality towards the ‘honourable and distinguished’ family of Verdun. The relationship of the convent with their successors, the Furnival family, as patrons of Croxden Abbey, as it turned out, was not without its problems, of which the chronicler of the house has also left a detailed record. 19 The particular esteem, even affection, in which some later lay patrons were held by their religious communities might thus be expressed in a house’s chronicle, either by allocating a considerable portion of the chronicle to affairs involving the patron and his family, or simply by referring to them in a way 16

17 18 19

So for instance the chronicler noted in 1302 that ‘lord Theobald de Verdun, the heir of lord Theobald son of John de Verdun, took to wife Maud, daughter of lord Edmund Mortimer, at Wigmore on 29 July’ (ibid., f.78v). A year later, the chronicle recorded the birth of Maud’s child: ‘On 11 August, which was then a Tuesday, Maud de Verdun gave birth to her firstborn daughter, by name of Joan’ (ibid., f.78v), and in 1315, ‘lord Theobald de Verdun, patron of this house, married Elizabeth, daughter of lord Gilbert de Clare, earl of Gloucester, and of lady Joan of Acre, daughter of King Edward, at Bristol’ (ibid., f.80r). Ibid., f.79v. Ibid., ff.80v–94v. Ibid., f.80r.

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which might hint at some degree of closeness in the relationship, as the Croxden chronicler did. Respect for a patron, if not necessarily affection, is also commonly detectable in this type of document through the use of certain standard diplomatic conventions. Thus a charter of 1415, relating to the Augustinian abbey of Haughmond in Shropshire, refers to a transaction made ‘ad instanciam et speciale rogatum excellentissimi et reverendissimi domini nostri, Thomæ comitis Arundeliæ et Surriæ’, patron of Haughmond.20 Although this kind of address can be seen as no more than a formula, it seems to reflect, to some extent, the functioning and mutually respecting relationship between an active patron and an appreciative religious community. In some cases the ties between a religious house and its patrons were reinforced when a member of the family entered the house to become a member of the religious community. Existing everyday contacts between monasteries and their patrons and a flourishing relationship between the two parties might have influenced a patron’s decision personally to join his or her community of canons or monks, or nuns. During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the option to take the habit and enter the religious community was reasonably popular among the founders and patrons of English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries. Some houses were indeed founded with this ultimate aim in mind.21 However, by the fourteenth century the popularity of this custom had all but disappeared. Only occasionally did patrons join their own religious communities during the later Middle Ages, and apparently this was more common among nunneries than monasteries, as at the Benedictine nunnery of Barrow Gurney in Somerset, where in 1325 the prioress, a certain Joan de Gurney, was a close relation of the patrons of the priory.22 Similarly, two daughters of William Beauchamp (d.1298) took the veil in their father’s monastery, the Gilbertine double house of Shouldham in Norfolk.23 Shouldham Priory, incidentally, was one of the few religious houses in which something approaching a patronal family tradition of joining the community ever developed in the later Middle Ages, when both a daughter and a granddaughter of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick (d.1369), became nuns in the priory.24 And in 20 21

22 23 24

The document is reproduced in Mon. VI, p.110, no.VI. See also The Cartulary of Haughmond Abbey, ed. U. Rees (Cardiff, 1985), no.449. Both men and women availed of this option during the earlier period. Hugh, earl of Chester, for example, entered his Benedictine foundation at Chester in the late eleventh century and was later also buried in the house. A few years later, Godfrey de Vere, founder of the Benedictine priory of Earls Colne (Essex) entered his house as a monk; less than century later again, Richard FitzRanulph joined his Premonstratensian community at Beauchief (Derbys.), and around the same time Edith, widow of William Lancelene, took over the headship of her Benedicitine nunnery of Godstow; Robert FitzHarding, founder of St Augustine’s Bristol, died a canon of this abbey, while William de Romara, likewise, ended his days as a monk in his Cistercian foundation of Revesby (Lincs.). In 1179 Richard de Luci decided to become a canon in his Augustinian foundation of Lesnes (Kent), and as late as 1238, Ela, countess of Salisbury, joined her abbey of Augustinian canonesses, initially as a nun, but she soon advanced to the position of abbess. VCH Somerset II, p.108. VCH Norfolk II, p.413. Cf. ibid. Thomas Beauchamp’s daughter Margaret, widow of Guy de Montfort, and his


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1368 Ralph Basset, patron of the Augustinian priory of Launde in Leicester, became a canon in the house, which had been founded by his direct ancestors some time before 1125. 25 It appears, however, that the majority of later patrons were no longer interested in joining the religious life themselves during this period. This lack of interest by the laity can clearly not be attributed to their declining piety or diminishing interest in the care for their souls, because the evidence plainly shows that patrons were indeed still very much concerned about their spiritual well-being, for which they made elaborate and generous provision in their wills. It is also significant that patrons turned increasingly towards the more austere religious orders, notably the Carthusians, whose prayers were perceived to be particularly effective. The reasons for patrons’ gradual development away from the religious houses under their patronage have to be sought on a more pragmatic level. External and economic factors certainly have to be considered in this context, as does the issue of new pious opportunities for the laity. The effects of the Black Death and its aftermath were also felt by the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries. An entry in the register of Bishop John Waltham of Salisbury for the year 1389 bears witness to the problems faced by many religious communities during this period regarding recruitment to their houses. ‘Previous pestilences’, it is stated there, ‘had made tenants, husbandmen and servants scarce.’26 And this had a direct impact on religious communities as much as it did on the lay community, and particularly on the lay patrons of religious houses, who were predominantly landholders of some wealth, many of whom must have experienced the repercussions of the devastation on their own estates. The evidence shows that the English and Welsh monasteries were affected by the general economic situation during this period, many houses suffering from poverty and some failing altogether.27 There is some indication that struggling religious houses, as was occasionally the case in times of dearth, were granted royal protection during this time, which often meant a welcome financial boost.28

25 26 27

28

granddaughter Katherine, daughter of his son Guy Beauchamp (d.1351) were both nuns at Shouldham in the fourteenth century. Thomas Beauchamp, in his will, left to the former a ring, a covered cup and 40 marks, and to the latter a gold ring and £20 (TV, p.79). VCH Leicester II, p.11. Reg. of John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury 1388–1395, Canterbury and York Society, lxxx (1994), p.33. The dearth experienced by many late-fourteenth-century abbeys and priories, whether genuine or not, is reflected in the numerous petitions to the king, complaining of their strained resources and general impoverishment. This type of complaint was voiced more frequently by the smaller religious houses, whereas some of the larger, wealthier (predominantly royal or episcopal) monasteries such as St Alban’s or Westminster Abbey, appear to have recovered much more rapidly after the Black Death. See J. Clark, A Monastic Renaissance at St Albans: Thomas Walsingham and his Circle, c.1350–1440 (Oxford, 2004). Note also B. Harvey, The Obedientaries of Westminster Abbey and their Financial Records, c.1275–1540, Westminster Abbey Record Series 3 (Woodbridge, 2002). The plight of English and Welsh religious post-plague communities is to some extent comparable to that of Wales’ abbeys and priories following Edward I’s war with Llywelyn

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Patrons of religious houses were evidently aware of the problems which many of their monasteries were facing during this period, for it can be no coincidence that the fourteenth century saw increased building activity at religious houses.29 However, these circumstances, while appealing to the generosity of the laity, did not encourage patrons to enter their communities themselves. Other explanations for this reluctance have to be considered also, one of them being the continually growing range of pious outlets for the lay community, which has already been mentioned. During the later Middle Ages lay patrons increasingly had alternatives for spiritual expression and provision for the care of their souls, which included the option of founding chantry chapels or of joining confraternities.30 Moreover they occasionally obtained papal permission for access to some religious houses, whether or not they were patrons thereof, to enter, eat and drink with the community, as witnessed in the numerous petitions to the pope for licences regarding this request.31 And they had the opportunity to live a pious life in the religious household without making a binding commitment to the order, as the well-known examples of Cecily, duchess of York, and Mary de St Pol show.32 While undoubtedly scarce compared to previous centuries, the evidence nonetheless shows that at least some lay patrons were still aware of the possibility of entering their own religious houses and joining the community. The fact that there is very limited evidence for this practice involving lay patrons during the later Middle Ages, however, does indicate that, in addition to the external factors just mentioned, the practice had by this time simply gone out of fashion.

Spiritual and Other Services Prayer The spiritual benefits which the patrons of religious houses could expect in return for their patronage were normally the chief motivation behind monastic endowment. Lay patrons were only too prepared to invest in their monasteries in order to be able to benefit from the perpetual prayers of their religious communities. In return they were entered into the martyrology of their houses, and prayers for their souls were a priority among the prayers of the religious community. And they did not always have to wait until after their death to reap

29 30

31 32

ap Gruffudd, which resulted in numerous royal grants to Welsh monasteries in 1284 (e.g. Littere Wallie, nos.90, 91, 94, 102, 181, 188, etc.). Both in terms of upkeep and repair of existing buildings, and in terms of expansion, or even construction of new ones. Chantry chapels were sometimes built by patrons in the churches of their family monasteries. Note for example the Salisbury Chantry at Christchurch Priory (Dorset, formerly Hants.). This custom became particularly popular among lay folk visiting, eating and drinking with the mendicant orders, both male and female. Mary de St Pol, patroness of Denney Abbey (Cambs.), took up residence among the Minoresses dwelling there, without, however, formally taking the vows of the order.


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the benefits of this spiritual protection. The later patrons of the Cistercian abbey of Forde (Devon), the Courtenay family, allegedly believed to have been preserved by the prayers of the monks of their abbey ‘in the midst of many and great dangers’.33 Patrons’ share in the monks’ prayers was one of their most fundamental rights, and one which was evidently of considerable concern to them, judging by the elaborate specifications for them in their wills.34 This privilege extended to include prayers not only for their own souls, but also for those of their ancestors and of other persons specified, normally family members and close friends or associates, and most patrons’ wills contain a section specifying prayers for various souls after death.35 Thus Walter FitzWalter, in his will of 1431, set out clearly what he expected the community of his Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow (Essex) to do upon his death. As well as burying his body near the grave of his mother in the priory church, the canons were to maintain prayers ‘ad orandum pro animabus nostris et animabus omnium antecessorum nostrorum’.36 Gerard Braybrook, patron of the Augustinian priory of Bushmead (Beds.), similarly anticipated the prayers of his prior when, in 1429, he declared that ‘the priour of Busshemede who so ever he be for the tyme do þe service, and he to have for his travail 6s 8d and every chanon of his hous that is preest have 3s 4d also alle other preestes that been at Dirige and at masse have eche of hem 12d’.37 And Sir Thomas Neville, lord Furnival, asked his canons at Worksop Priory (Notts.) for prayers for his soul yearly on his anniversary.38 An outstandingly elaborate example of this kind is the will of John de Vere, earl of Oxford, who died in 1509, whose provisions for the well-being of his soul, and for the souls of ‘my late wif/ my wif that now is whan God shall call hir/ my childern my Lord my fader & my lady my moder/ my brethern and my sustern all myn Auncestris Soules/ all my friendes and good doers Soules and all Christen soules’,39 involved an endless list of the prayers he expected from religious houses of monks and nuns of various religious orders from among numerous religious houses.40 The performing of the specified requiem masses, two thousand in all, the earl willed to begin ‘as hastily aftir my departure as [my 33 34

35 36 37 38

39 40

Baskerville, English Monks, p.48. Requests for prayers, usually from more than one religious group, moreover have a prominent position at an early point in a patron’s will, underlining the importance attached to this practice. Note also Cownie’s analysis of the ‘anima mea’ clause in patrons’ and benefactors’ wills (Cownie, Religious Patronage, pp.154–9). The Register of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury, ed. E.F. Jacob, The Canterbury and York Society, ciii (Oxford, 1937), p.469. Ibid., p.409. In is will, lord Furnival requested of the canons that they observe ‘singulis annis anniversarium sive obitum meum solempniter cum Placebo et Dirige in eccl. conv. de Worsop’ (TE III, no.8). ‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, p.311. The religious houses which were to pray for the earl’s soul included, apart from Earls Colne Priory, where he was buried, the houses of Black Friars in Cambridge, those in Oxford, the White Friars of Lynn, the brethren of the London Charterhouse, Sheen Priory and Syon Abbey, among many others.

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executors] can or may provide shall cause’.41 As soon as possible after his decease, then, ‘every Monke chanoner and every other religious persone being a Preest and abiding within any house of Religion of the foundacion of any of myn Auncesters shall syng and say Placebo Dirige & Comendacions’. But the request was not limited to de Vere’s own religious houses, for, he added, ‘also every other freer Monke Chanoner Anchorite and every other man of Religion being a Preeste within any house of Religion whatsoever it be in any of the Shires off Norffolke Suffolke and Essex shall syng and say Placebo Dirige and Commendacions and three Massez percell of the Residewe of the said M1 M1 Massez assone as it may be done’.42 John de Vere, earl of Oxford, had evidently decided better to be safe than sorry. Prayers from religious communities were most commonly requested in patrons’ wills, to be said after the testator’s death, but they might also be demanded during his lifetime. When John Depeden and his wife Elizabeth generously endowed the Augustinian priory of Healaugh Park (Yorks.) by appropriating to it the parish church of Healaugh in 1399, they asked for the fruits from this appropriation to be used for the ‘maintenance of an additional two canons who shall be priests, who shall celebrate daily at the altar of St John the Evangelist and St Anne within the priory church, for the health of John and Elizabeth while they live, and thereafter for their souls, and for the souls of their ancestors, successors, and all the faithful departed, and for the health of the lords of the manor of Healaugh for the time being; except on those days when, according to the rules of the priory, it shall be their weekly turn to celebrate at the main altar of the priory’.43 The welfare of their souls was evidently a serious concern for the late medieval laity, and the religious communities therefore had important spiritual obligations to their lay patrons, both alive and dead. Hospitality Prayers for the patron’s soul, and the burial of his body, were certainly the nucleus of the privileges a lay patron enjoyed. They were, however, not the only ones. Other, more tangible advantages lay in store for him. Next to the spiritual benefits from their religious communities, one of the most popular rights of a monastic patron was that of hospitality provided by his religious community. The frequency and duration of patronal visits to their abbeys and priories varied considerably. Where regular contact of this kind is known to 41 42 43

‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, p.310. Ibid., pp.310–11. A Calendar of the Register of Richard Scrope, Archbishop of York, 1398–1405, ed. R.N. Swanson (Borthwick Texts and Calendars: Records of the Northern Province 8), no.144. Elizabeth was the daughter of the priory’s patron. In his will, composed some three years later, John Depeden not only requested to be buried in Healaugh Park Priory – ‘corpus [. . .] meum sacrae sepulturae jacere in eccl Abbathiae de Helaghpark, si Deus ordinaverit, in medio chori ecclesiae ejusdem, videlicet juxta Elizabetham uxorem meam’ – but he moreover asked for a reliquary which belonged to him to remain in the priory (TE I, no.216).


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have taken place, this can normally be taken as an indication that the relationship between the patron and his family and the religious community was intact, unless this privilege was abused by the patron. This was reportedly the case at Thetford Priory in 1279.44 Despite the unpleasant experience endured by the monks of Thetford, the tradition of hospitality in the house continued until the Dissolution, culminating perhaps in the sumptuous feast served by the prior to their patron Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, in 1527, when the fanciful dishes put in front of the duke on that occasion included baby eels, figs, fine wines and many other delicacies.45 The list of expenses for this particularly lavish dinner gives us some idea that entertaining one’s patron could be a costly affair for a religious community. The greater the visiting party and the longer the visit, the greater the cost for the monastery. In 1376 the canons of the Premonstratensian abbey at Alnwick entertained their patron, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, ‘and thirteen knights’ in the refectory of the house, while an additional ‘1,020 parishioners ate in the cloisters’.46 One patron, Ranulph de Neville, lord of Middleham (d.1331), evidently cherished the hospitality of his convents, and the company of his abbots and priors, so much, that he could be more frequently found in either of two of his monasteries – the Augustinian priory of Marton or the Premonstratensian abbey of Coverham (both in Yorks.) – than in his own residences, which he left in the hands of his son.47 And lady Elizabeth, widow of Theobald de Verdun, stayed in Croxden Abbey (Staffs.) ‘for a month and more’ following her husband’s funeral in the monastery in 1316.48 The patrons of religious houses found themselves in a privileged position as far as monastic hospitality was concerned, for obviously not all religious houses were easily accessible to lay folk who wished to enjoy the company and hospitality of monks, canons or nuns, or indeed friars, and often a papal dispensation was required before a layman was admitted into the house. The fourteenth-century papal records include many instances of laymen and laywomen petitioning for leave for religious of all orders to join them ‘to eat flesh meat at their table on lawful days’.49 Thus in 1366 Bartholomew Burghersh, knight, petitioned Pope Urban V in this matter. He also repeatedly asked for leave to enter houses of Minoresses in London with his wife ‘to eat, speak and drink with them’.50 Requests of this kind appear frequently in the papal records. Such petitioners frequently sought the company of communities of friars and of nuns, particularly of the Minoresses.51 44 45 46

47 48 49 50 51

Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.104. Dymond, Register, p.522. Colvin has suggested that this particular instance was not perceived as burdensome by the canons, whose chronicler recorded the event ‘with evident approval’ (White Canons, p.299). Cf. Colvin, White Canons, p.298. BL Cotton Faustina vi, f.80r. Various entries in the papal records testify to the popularity of this custom in fourteenthcentury England. CPP I, pp.531, 532. Houses of the order of the Minoresses, indeed, were the focus of a remarkable number of

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Other services Another crucially important service typically provided by religious communities for their patrons, no less appreciated, was the preservation of dynastic memory. Religious houses were often responsible for the compilation and safekeeping of pedigrees and other family records in the monastic archives. The Founders’ Book of Tewkesbury Abbey has already been mentioned. The Augustinian canons of Pentney (Norfolk), similarly, are known to have kept a genealogy of the de Vaux family and their connections with lord de Ros, which had been ‘copied from a book of the monastery of Pentney in 1459’.52 And not only documents are known to have been kept by religious communities on their patrons’ behalf. Thetford Priory, for example, provided storage for some valuables of the Howard family.53 And then there were other financial services. Some religious houses were used by their patrons for various banking duties, and some even granted loans to their patrons or members of their families, as the canons of Bolton Priory (Yorks.) did to Maud de Clare, lady Clifford. 54 The range of services, spiritual and otherwise, which a religious house provided for its patrons theoretically had no limit (nor was it clearly specified), and this was one facet that made monastic patronage such an attractive privilege for the laity, during this late period no less than a century or two earlier.

Protection and Support From the point of view of a religious house, perhaps the two most important aspects of patronage were material support on the one hand, and protection of the community, its rights and its privileges, on the other. Turning firstly to the second of these two elements, it becomes evident, again, that different patrons dealt with this duty in many different ways. In times of need, other than financial, about which more below, a patron might step in personally to help his religious community, or, alternatively, he could turn to a higher authority – the king, a bishop or the pope – on behalf of his house. During the later Middle Ages, both these options were still periodically chosen by lay patrons. The main incentive for patrons to approach the pope on behalf of their

52 53 54

petitions by members of the laity requesting permission to enter their enclosures, usually in specified company. In the case of female petitioners the suggested company often consisted of a specified number of ‘honest women’ or ‘matrons’. In 1344 John Prittlewell, citizen of London, was granted an indult ‘to enter once a year the new monastery of nuns of the order of St Clare without London, with four honest persons’; the same was granted to his wife, in her case ‘with a suite of four honest matrons’ (see for instance CPP III, p.165). Calendar of Charters and Rolls preserved in the Bodleian Library, ed. H.O. Coxe and W.H. Turner (Oxford, 1878), p.202. Prior Ixworth of Thetford, in a letter to his patrons, mentioned ‘such ornamentes & juelles as ye have leffte here in thys howse’ (Dymond, Register, p.735). The Bolton Priory Compotus 1286–1325, ed. D.M. Smith and I. Kershaw, Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series (2000), pp.391, 410.


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monasteries during this period was in order to obtain licence for appropriations of churches to monasteries, usually where these were allegedly suffering from poverty caused by external factors, such as floods or other natural disasters, or raids by troops moving to or from war.55 Another reason for patrons to turn to the pope was in order to obtain or secure certain rights and privileges for their religious houses. The founder of the Augustinian priory of Maxstoke in Warwickshire, William de Clinton, earl of Huntingdon, approached Pope Clement VI on several occasions with this and other, similar requests. In a petition from the year 1344 he asked the pope for confirmation of his new monastery, founded by him ‘with the consent of Roger, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield’.56 In the following year he requested papal permission to appropriate the church of Filongley (Warwicks.), which he had acquired for this purpose, to Maxstoke Priory, in order to enable the canons there to increase their number.57 A few years later, in 1350, the founder again approached Clement VI, this time for papal confirmation, which was granted, of the appropriation to Maxstoke Priory of Yardley church (Warwicks.), made by the bishop of Worcester.58 Concurrently with his petitions to the Curia, William de Clinton also turned directly to the bishop of Worcester. In June 1340, he received letters patent of the appropriation of Tanworth church from Bishop Wolstan de Bransford, in response to his petition to this effect. Clinton had argued that, due to the increase in canons at Maxstoke Priory, the original endowment no longer sufficed for their maintenance. 59 Approaching the pope was not the only way in which a patron might seek protection or support for his monastery or nunnery. On a number of occasions, patrons decided to take matters into their own hands, as far as they were able to. Thus one lay patron, the duke of Gloucester, came to the aid of William of Scarborough, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Meaux (Yorks.) in the late fourteenth century, when the abbot sought support against the monks of his own house. Approaching the age of eighty, and after over two decades in the abbey, Scarborough, who was known for his lax rule as head of Meaux, desired to resign his abbacy. His monks, however, having apparently enjoyed the lenient discipline under their elderly abbot, rejected his resignation. In this dilemma, the abbot decided to turn to his patron for help. This help came in

55

56 57 58 59

This is what happened in the case of Byland Abbey in Yorkshire, whose monks complained about assaults by ‘marauding Scots’, and to which house the patron sought to appropriate a church for reasons of the abbey’s poverty, purportedly caused by Scottish attacks. In 1352, Henry duke of Lancaster appealed to Pope Innocent VI with a similar request on behalf of Leicester Abbey (CPP I, p.226), and sometime between 1305 and 1314 Thomas earl of Lancaster personally wrote to Clement V on behalf of Barlings Abbey (Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, no.201). CPP, I, p.50. Ibid., p.92. Ibid., p.192; CPL III, p.333; A Calendar of the Register of Wolstan de Bransford, Bishop of Worcester 1339–1349, ed. R.M. Haines (HMSO, 1966), no.750. He mentioned in particular the canons’ ‘special obligation’ to provide hospitality (Reg. Bransford, no.321).

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1396, when, ‘by the intervention of the duke of Gloucester, patron of the abbey, [. . .] he was able to retire from office’.60 Another lay patron who acted as protector of the rights of prior and convent was the earl of Northumberland in December 1527, when he stepped in on behalf of ‘my right welbeloved in God, the prior of the Monestry of St. John Evangelist, Helagh Park [sic], of my foundation’ against the intrusion of a certain George Fulbarne, who was at that time threatening ‘the right and intrest of one spring liing within the tewinship of Litle Ribston, within my Lordship of Spoforth’. The earl ordered the prior to ‘sufer the saving of [the said spring], unto the time the better we may know to whom the right of the same belongeth.’61 There is a small number of known incidences where the patron of a dependent priory campaigned for his house’s independence from a powerful mother house. In the first quarter of the fourteenth century, the patron of Binham Priory (Norfolk), one Robert Walkfare, took direct action on behalf of his Benedictine monks and their bid for independence from St Albans Abbey. When the abbot of St Albans appeared at the priory gates during a visitation of Binham, Walkfare, together with some local residents, refused the abbot entry into the priory.62 Abbot Hugh of St Albans turned to Edward II for support, which was granted but proved ultimately futile when the prior of Binham refused to resign his post. Unable to come to an agreement, and threatened with arrest by the king, the prior of Binham eventually took the matter to the pope, who ordered an investigation. 63 A similar situation arose in the Benedictine priory of Wymondham in 1448. There Sir Andrew Ogard, the patron, successfully campaigned on behalf of the monks and their prior Stephen Langdon, to have the status of the house raised to that of an abbey. He succeeded at last in November of the following year, when Stephen Langdon’s position was finally formally raised to that of abbot.64 The efforts of the late-fourteenth-century patroness of Snape Priory brought similar results for this community.65 As well as petitioning popes and bishops, or taking personal action, patrons might appeal to the crown for support of a troubled or ailing monastery under their patronage. In April 1303, the Cistercian abbey of Merevale in Warwickshire, which was under the patronage of the Ferrers family, received royal protection at the request of the patron’s overlord, the duke of Lancaster, who moreover appointed a certain Roger le Brabazon to the custody of the

60 61 62 63 64

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VCH Yorks. III, p.148. T. Stapleton (ed.), The Plumpton Correspondence (Stroud, 1990), pp.226–7. The incident is cited by M. Still, The Abbot and the Rule (Aldershot, 2002), p.145. Ibid. Registrum Johannis Whethamstede, i, pp.152–3; Mon. III, pp.326, 337–9; CPR, 1446–1452, p.154. The foundation charter of Wymondham contained an injunction, of which Sir Andrew Ogard was obviously aware, granting the patron of the house the right to elevate the status of the priory to that of an abbey. Snape’s patroness, Isabel Ufford, countess of Suffolk, secured her priory’s independence with papal confirmation. Note for instance PRO SC7/8/16; PRO SC7/35/21.


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house, which, he stated, ‘is decayed’.66 And in 1390, the earl of Northumberland, successor of the patron of Tynemouth Priory (Northumberl.), joined Richard II and the duke of Lancaster in support of the Benedictine community there, by granting them 100 marks for the restoration of damage caused by a fire in the priory two years previously.67 What these examples, and, in fact, numerous others, demonstrate, is that one of the main grievances of religious communities in later medieval England and Wales, and a prominent reason for abbots and priors to approach their patrons, was alleged poverty due to external causes, be they natural disasters (affecting especially houses in coastal regions),68 abuse of hospitality, or the consequences of war. Religious houses in border regions were particularly prone to attacks by troops on their way to and from war. The northern houses evidently suffered a good deal from incursions by Scottish soldiers, just as many of the Welsh monasteries felt the repercussions of Anglo-Welsh fighting at different times during their history.69 Thus in Ceredigion, Strata Florida Abbey repeatedly suffered from external interference: firstly due to the imposition of heavy fines under King John, and two centuries later due to the intrusion of English troops during the Glyn Dwr revolt, when Henry IV’s soldiers took over the house and temporarily used it as an army base, which apparently involved stabling their horses in the nave of the abbey church.70 Further south, in Whitland (Carmarthenshire), the Cistercian community complained to Edward II about the destruction of their crops and their grazing stock by passing soldiers.71 Large-scale abuse of a religious house, as in the case of Strata Florida, meant that patrons were often unable to financially support their ailing community, forcing the religious to turn elsewhere for help.72 The above examples might give the impression that the issue of patronal support and protection was a one-way process. This, however, was not always so, for some evidence survives which shows that as well as providing financial support to patrons in the shape of loans, heads of religious houses occasionally stepped in personally in defence of their patrons. This is what happened in the year 1385 when the then abbot of Easby (Yorks.), a man named John, offered invaluable support to his patron, Richard Scrope, who was embroiled in a dispute with another nobleman, one Sir Robert Grosvenor, whom he had 66 67 68

69

70 71 72

CPR, 1301–1307 (London, 1898), p.130. The St Albans Chronicle, Vol.1, 1376–1394, ed. J. Taylor, W. Childs and L. Watkiss (Oxford, 2003), pp.900–1. Thus William de Etchingham claimed that his Cistercian abbey of Robertsbridge (Sussex) had suffered damage by the ‘encroaching sea’ (N. Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life. Knightly Families in Sussex 1280–1400 (Oxford, 1986), p.142). But not only the Welsh houses were caught up in this. The Cistercian abbey of Buildwas in Shropshire, for instance, was subjected to ‘the levity of the Welsh’, who, in 1350, carried off and imprisoned the abbot of the house. See CPR 1401–05, p.65. CPW, p.42. In the case of Strata Florida, these occasions were fairly numerous, as the repeated petitions from the abbot to the English crown show. Cf. CPW, pp.105–7, 239–43.

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spotted sporting the same arms as himself, namely his habitual ‘azure a bend or’. Scrope challenged Grosvenor on this matter, but the latter refused to alter his arms to make them distinct from Scrope’s.73 When the matter was taken before secular authorities, Abbot John provided significant evidence on behalf of his patron, pointing out the presence of the disputed heraldry in the monastery, where it represented the Scrope family’s patronal connections with Easby Abbey. Undoubtedly in part thanks to the abbot’s intervention, the matter was eventually settled in Scrope’s favour before John of Gaunt, duke of Lancaster.74 More commonly, however, we find patrons giving their support to their religious communities, not vice versa, and protecting them from external interference or harassment. This function, we might call it patronal duty, became particularly relevant – if ultimately fruitless – when, during the 1530s, the monasteries and nunneries of England and Wales were facing acute external threats and, as it turned out, unavoidable extinction.

Endowments and Benefactions By the fourteenth century the process of endowment of religious houses was in decline. Despite the grants which were still being made to religious houses, the lay patrons of monasteries and nunneries during the later Middle Ages are more likely to be encountered confirming their predecessors’ gifts of land and/or property, rather than significantly adding to the endowments themselves. However, benefactions were still an essential and important element of monastic patronage, albeit now mostly on a somewhat smaller scale. Interestingly, as Sandra Raban has shown in her study on the Statute of Mortmain, the fourteenth century was the peak period for licences to alienate lands and property to monasteries.75 Many of these alienations, significantly, were for chantries and other additional services provided by or in religious houses.76 There is some evidence for lay patrons of monasteries founding chantry chapels in their own religious houses. On 25 April 1348, Thomas de Berkeley was granted ‘episcopal confirmation of his ordination of a perpetual chantry in St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol’, of which he was patron.77 Likewise, a few years before the suppression of his Benedictine priory at Boxgrove (Sussex) in 1536, Thomas West, lord de la Warr, had a splendid chantry chapel erected for himself in the priory church.78 Other examples have already been mentioned. 73 74 75

76 77 78

On this famous dispute, see The Controversy between Sir Richard Scrope and Sir Robert Grosvenor 1385–1390, ed. N.H. Nicolas (London, 1832). VCH Yorks. III, p.247. These grants were to some extent a response, already referred to, patronal and otherwise, to the numerous complaints made by religious communities about the hardship and impoverishment they were experiencing. Raban, Mortmain Legislation, pp.42–3, 44–6. Reg. Bransford, no. 907. For an illustration of this remarkable ‘poor chapel’, as its founder called it, see e.g. G.H. Cook, Mediaeval Chantries and Chantry Chapels (London, 1947), ill.39, facing p.117.


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For a lay patron who had the financial means to build his own chantry chapel in the church of his abbey or priory, this type of foundation meant that he had at his disposal a dedicated priest to say prayers for his soul specified by himself. Chantry chapels afforded greater flexibility in the liturgy and other spiritual services which they provided, as well as being highly fashionable assets to a wealthy nobleman, and as such they should be considered apart from the traditional grant of property, land or money to a religious community. Another category of patronal bequest to religious houses comprised smaller gifts, books, vestments, and especially items for religious usage, and other commodities. The Mowbray family made to their new Carthusian priory of Axholme (Lincs.) the fine bequest of ‘a tun or two pipes Gascon wine’ in order to maintain intercessory prayers in the house.79 This kind of gift, it appears, never ceased during this period, and there is plentiful evidence for donations of smaller objects of this nature in medieval wills, episcopal registers, inventories and charters.80 Wills in particular often include elaborate descriptions of the items bequeathed by a patron to his house, sometimes existing objects, sometimes new ones. Bequests to religious houses might be made either in conjunction with the request to be buried in the monastery, or on their own. In many cases, patrons made separate bequests to their abbeys and priories specifically as provision for their burial, in addition to any other gifts to these religious communities. Not only do wills tell us that a patron has – or has not – remembered his monastery, but they tell us moreover about the nature and size of the bequest, thereby revealing something about the nature of the bond between the testator and the recipient of the bequest. Bequests made by lay patrons to their monasteries varied greatly, both in character and in size, obviously depending in no small measure on the patron’s financial situation. Some wills give the impression that a patron was merely fulfilling his patronal obligations, leaving to his monastery only what was expected in return for the community’s spiritual services. Other bequests, however, point to a more personal relationship than the simple fulfilment of a patron’s duty. If a patron chose to leave his monastery an object of particular sentimental and/or material value, this seems to imply that we are dealing with something more significant than merely a dutiful act. Vestments, objects of religious significance, and particularly books were all popular bequests, and all of these are often described in considerable detail. Relics especially, preferably encased in precious reliquaries, such as the ‘gilt cross with all the relicks included therein’, which Thomas Berkeley left to ‘that church wherein my body may happen to be buried’,81 or the pail of holy blood given by Edmund, earl of Cornwall to Hailes Abbey in 1270, were of particular value and significance. The gift of a relic had the added advantage that it might in future attract pilgrims to the monastery, thereby providing an additional

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CPR 1413–16, p.355. On small-scale bequests to monasteries, see also D. Postles, ‘Small Gifts but Big Rewards: the Symbolism of some Gifts to the Religious’, Journal of Medieval History, 27 (2001), pp.23–42. TV, p.190.

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source of income for the community. This was, however, a rare occurrence during the later Middle Ages. The range of bequests we find in patrons’ wills and charters is very wide indeed. In what must be one of the most spectacular documents of its kind, John de Vere, thirteenth earl of Oxford, in addition to the detailed requests for prayers for his soul, already mentioned, made a whole series of bequests to his numerous religious houses, and to many other individuals, religious or otherwise, besides. To his Benedictine priory of Earls Colne in Essex, his favourite monastery and chosen burial place, he made a uniquely elaborate donation, which included numerous vestments, altar cloths, books, and other objects, such as candlesticks and crucifixes.82 What makes John de Vere’s generous bequest to the monks at Earls Colne so remarkable is the very personal nature of some of the bequeathed items, indicating that a considerable amount of thought had gone into the compilation of this will and the distribution of the earl’s goods, and providing more than a hint at the nature of the relationship between himself and his monastery. Although the size of the bequest and the degree of elaboration in the will are quite exceptional among later lay patrons’ grants to their houses, de Vere was following a well-established tradition of patronal bequests to monasteries. Thus in 1494, John lord Scrope of Bolton, patron of the Premonstratensian abbey of Easby in Yorkshire, had made to that house an equally personal gift of books, religious items and money. He also requested burial either in Easby Abbey, if he should die in Yorkshire, or in the Cluniac priory at Thetford (not under his patronage), should he die in Norfolk; for his burial he made a separate gift of ten marks to buy a chalice, ‘or another jewel’.83 Less than a century earlier, Beatrice lady Ros had made a similar donation. In her will, dated 1414, she stated that she wished to give to the priory of Warter, of which she was patroness, a range of objects, including different vestments, an altar-frontal, two candelabra and a chalice, all of which she described

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The earl bequeathed, among many other things, ‘to the Prior and Covent of Colne Priory and to their Successours to thonour of Almighty God [. . .] oon hole sute of Vestmentes for Preestes Deacon and Subdeacon of blake Velwet powderid with garteres, flowrys and mollettes and orfraid with rede velwet And iij. Copis of blake saten figury vpon tawny grounde/ and oon Cope of blake velwet purled Item ij. Aulter clothes of Whit damaske embrowderid and myn Armes in diverse partes of the same with a frontlett of the same wrought in the stole paly [with vertical stripes] with many Werkes And a pece of rede clothe of golde of tissue at every ende thereof. Item a Cope of Clothe of Bawdkyn White orfreid with blewe clothe of gold Item ij. Copis of Crymsen Velwett powdrid with ffire yronges thorfreis powdrid with aungelles and molettes. Item ij. Copis of crymsen clothe of golde with a Monke on the hede Item my Secund portues in the whiche the g?untt of thoffice of the Great Chamberleynship of England made in tyme passed vnto Awbry de Veer Erle of Oxinford myn auncester is written in thende Item ij. great Candilstickes of silver percell gilte chased weying ciiij vnces. Item a Sensor of silver with liepardes faces weying xxvij vnces. Item a Booke called a Cowcher. Item A Crosse without Mary and John of silver anneled on both sides with thev?ngelistes weying lxiij. vnces . . . ’ And thus he continued with chalices, a reliquary, more candlesticks, all described in minute detail (‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’ pp.311–12). TV II, p.458.


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in some detail.84 Together with these specific bequests, lady Ros requested burial in the choir of the conventual church at Warter Priory. In this case, the testatrix was leaving what she already possessed, rather than commissioning new work, but the bequest implies that she knew her gifts would be useful, and would be appreciated by the religious community. Spouses and children of patrons, too, can often be seen to leave generous gifts to the family monasteries. In 1446 Matilda, countess of Cambridge, née Clifford, asked for burial in the Cistercian abbey of Roche in Yorkshire, which was of her father’s patronage, ‘in capella Beatae Mariae’, to which house she also made a generous bequest of vestments, other items, and money, and asked for one monk to maintain prayers for her soul there. Among the list of bequests granted to the abbey by her was a specific sum of money which was to be given to the community under the condition that the monks annually celebrate her obit and pray for the well-being of her soul forever.85 She moreover left, together with her body, a vestment (‘integrum rubii coloris operatum cum auro’), a chalice, two candelabra and a silver bell, among other things, ‘ad usum perpetuum dictæ ecclesiæ’.86 Other bequests were less elaborate, but surely no less welcome. In 1374 the patron of the Premonstratensian abbey of St Radegund’s in Kent, Thomas lord Poynings, left a sum of money to his house, together with the wish to be buried there, ‘in the midst of the quire’.87 And in 1398 William de Chaworth, patron of the Premonstratensian abbey of Beauchief in Derbyshire, left to his abbey, where he also sought burial, his best beast, certain lands and a manor in Norton.88 Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, stated in his will dated 28 July 1504, that he wished to be buried in the Augustinian priory of Burscough (Lancs.), of which he was patron, ‘in the north aisle of my ancestors’ foundation, where the bodies of my father, mother and other of my ancestors lie buried, with the personages of myself and both my wives’; in order for his request to be realised, he bequeathed to the same monastery ‘great gifts of money, jewels and ornaments’.89 As husband of Margaret Beaufort, stepfather of Henry VII, and steward of the household of Edward IV and Edward V, Thomas Stanley was a metropolitan figure and could have chosen burial in a more glamorous place than Burscough Priory, but it was his explicit wish that he be buried among this community of Augustinian canons of which he was patron. It should be noted

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86 87 88 89

Lady Ros’s bequest to the convent of Warter included ‘unum vestimentum integrum de panno aureo blodeo, viz iii albas, cum duobus tuniculis, i chesiple, unam capam, et i fronturam, et i reredose, cum pertinentibus, cum duobus candelabris longis argenti, i calicem argenti deauratam meliorem, ii phialas, et i paxbrede argenti, i par turribulorum, et i tintinabulum argenti’ (TE I, no.320). The countess made this bequest ‘sub condicione quod, si volerint sufficienter obligari fundatori suo, quod illi semel in anno imperpetuum celebrant obitum meum pro salute animæ meæ’ (TE II, no.97). TE II, no.97. Of the abbey, Poynings noted in his will that is was ‘de ma fundacion’ (TV, p.92). TE I, no.180. TV II, p.458.

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that Burscough Priory had a history of active contact with its patrons during the fourteenth century, when several lords of Lathom, who held the patronage of the house, had business with the prior and canons of the house. 90 The above examples show that benefactions might vary greatly in their size and nature. In the cases of Beatrice lady Ros, Matilda countess of Cambridge, John de Vere and John lord Scrope of Bolton the impression is that the gifts were an expression of a rather more personal relationship between the donor and the recipient than that which is expressed in wills of the kind composed by Thomas lord Poynings. In the case of lord Scrope, the donation of his personal Bible, one of his books, and a set of garments he describes in some detail, points to a bequest which had received some thought. Moreover, he had clearly decided to present the abbey with these particular goods regardless of the possibility of being received in the house for burial, for which he made an entirely separate bequest. The fact that at least eight members of the Scrope family chose to be buried in the monastery between 1336 and the end of the fifteenth century confirms the continuing link between the abbey and its patrons during this period. Some lay patrons were more obviously interested in their houses, and more active in their patronage than others. The enduring relationship between the de Veres and Earls Colne Priory, for example, testifies to some degree of closeness between the two parties during this period, as well as pointing to a considerable degree of dynastic integrity and continuity.91 Only a few monasteries with lay patrons, however, have left this amount of evidence regarding the different occasions of contact between themselves and their houses. Bequests of the kind made by de Vere or lord Scrope were not always made in conjunction with the request for burial in the benefiting monastery. Thus John de la Pole, whose family held the patronage of the Carthusian monastery at Kingston upon Hull in Yorkshire, made to that house the generous bequest of ten books in his will dated 1414, without asking to be interred in the priory, which housed the graves of several members of the family.92 Nor did Alesia Myton, daughter of John Aske, patron of the Gilbertine priory of Ellerton in Yorkshire, seek burial in her father’s monastery, to which she nevertheless bequeathed a gilt silver cup, ‘pro sacramento altaris conservando’, in her will dated 1440.93 Later members of her family, on the other hand, again favoured Ellerton’s sepulchral services. In 1465, for instance, lady Margaret Aske, in her will, directed to be buried in Ellerton Priory,94 of which house she had inherited the patronage. Sir John Aske did likewise in his last testament of 1497. 95 While bequests to monasteries in wills were thus very often – though not 90 91 92 93 94 95

An Edition of the Cartulary of Burscough Priory, ed. A.N. Webb (Manchester, 1970), e.g. nos. 7, 32, 67. For other, similarly close patron–monastery relationships, see Chapter 4 below on Bisham Priory, Tewkesbury Abbey and St Agatha’s, Easby. TE I, no.267. Ibid. II, no.60. Ibid. II, no.221. Ibid. IV, no.62.


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always – made together with the wish to be buried in the same house, some patrons and members of their families, on the other hand, chose other ways than their wills to bequeath to their monasteries a range of items during their lifetimes. This type of bequest often included grants of land and property, and while the custom of endowing religious houses with lands, estates and/or property had decreased considerably during the later Middle Ages, this tradition had by no means ceased. Parcels of land, as well as parish churches, manors and forests, were all among the bequests made to houses of monks, canons and nuns during this period. Ideally, existing monasteries and nunneries should have been sufficiently endowed by their founders and their immediate successors when the house was first established, and should therefore require no further large-scale additions to the lands and estates they already possessed. However, in practice the situation was often quite different. The papal letters and the episcopal registers bear witness to the large number of religious houses complaining of poverty, as has already been pointed out. Moreover, quite apart from these complaints and the aid programmes which often followed, later lay patrons might have other, more personal reasons for wishing to endow their community of monks, canons or nuns. Or they might have acquired the patronage of the house only recently, and treat the grant of a piece of land or property, or the appropriation of a parish church, with an initial display of generosity, in order to create, or reinforce, the link between themselves and their new monastery or nunnery. The following examples provide evidence for all of these cases. In the early years of the fourteenth century, William de Etchingham, patron of the Cistercian monks at Robertsbridge (Sussex), granted three churches as well as land in Salehurst to his abbey, the estates of which had apparently been badly damaged by the encroaching sea.96 His wife Eve and their daughter Joan were both to be buried in the abbey.97 The grants of successive patrons of the Augustinian priory of Chacombe in Northamptonshire likewise included landed estates. John, lord Segrave, in a charter dated 1344, granted to the canons of this priory certain lands in Chacombe,98 as did Amabilia lady Segrave in a separate charter.99 She moreover gave to the priory certain rents in Chacombe.100 Nicholas de Segrave was another member of the family to bequeath lands in Chacombe to the Augustinian canons,101 as was Stephen de Segrave, whose charter dated 1315 granted to Chacombe Priory certain privileges to be enjoyed by the community in Great Dalby, the prior and convent, in return, agreeing to the celebration of certain offices.102 The Segrave family held the patronage of Chacombe Priory during the fourteenth century, during which time they appear most frequently in connection with 96 97 98 99 100 101 102

Saul, Scenes from Provincial Life, p.142. VCH Sussex II, p.72. PRO E315/35/179. PRO E315/38/161. PRO E315/46/13. PRO E315/42/138. PRO E315/53/130.

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grants to the house, such as those mentioned above. Judging by this display of activity and generosity towards their house, it is somewhat surprising to find no more than three instances of burials of family members in Chacombe Priory between 1295 and 1352. 103 Other monasteries, too, were the recipients of lands from their lay patrons during the fourteenth century and beyond. Thus the Augustinian priory of Anglesey (Cambs.) was the beneficiary of various lands and rents from their patroness Elizabeth de Burgh, lady de Clare, in 1350.104 Shortly before Elizabeth’s grant, Marie de Neville (d.1320) likewise issued a charter to the canons of the Premonstratensian abbey of Coverham in Yorkshire, of which her family held the patronage. By this charter she granted various parcels of land and meadow-land, as well as rents, to the abbey and convent.105 Marie de Neville also requested burial in the abbey. The inquisitions ad quod dampnum from the reign of Edward II include a number of inquiries into applications for licences to alienate lands or rents to monasteries. In 1307 Thomas earl of Lancaster gave to the prior and Augustinian convent of Kenilworth in Warwickshire fifteen acres of forest, ‘in bosco ibidem vocat’ le Frythe’.106 In the same year, Isabella, daughter of Gilbert de Clare, made a grant to Tewkesbury Abbey, of which her father was patron, and John de Lacy, patron of the Cistercian abbey of Kirkstall in Yorkshire, granted rents in Burgton (Yorks.) to his monastery.107 Appropriations of churches to religious communities formed a significant portion of this type of endowment. Poverty of a monastery or nunnery was frequently given as a reason behind applications made by patrons for licences to appropriate to them churches together with the income deriving from them. The causes of the ostensible impoverishment of monasteries are sometimes mentioned together with the bequest to the house. John de Mowbray, patron of the community of Cistercian monks at Byland in Yorkshire, sought papal permission in 1344 for the appropriation of the church of Rillington, near Malton, to the monastery, which had suffered from ‘the hostile and horrible incursions of the Scots, being denuded of its church ornaments and loaded with debts’.108 Eight years later, in 1352 Henry, duke of Lancaster, petitioned the pope to grant him permission to appropriate the churches of Humberston and Hungerston, together with the chapel of Ingwardby, to his Augustinian abbey at Leicester, which, being situated ‘near the high road’ with ‘many persons of all ranks passing that way’, had hit upon hard times, having ‘spent much on hospitality’. In addition to the poverty caused by excessive entertaining, the revenues of the abbey had allegedly ‘suffered by the pestilence and other causes.’109 103 104 105 106 107 108 109

The burials were those of Nicholas Segrave in 1295, John lord Segrave in 1325, and another John lord Segrave in 1352. PRO E315/32/73. PRO E315/32/93. Cal. Inq. ad quod Dampnum, p.220. Ibid. CPP I, p.18. Ibid., p.226.


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However, claims of increased poverty due to natural disasters or war, or overly lavish hospitality and increase in divine services, were liable to be exaggerated and hence they have to be treated with some degree of caution. To what extent they were actually verifiable is now often impossible to say. However, poverty was not always stated as the reason behind a patron’s request for the appropriation of a church to his monastery. Thus, in 1342, Richard Talbot was granted papal permission to appropriate to the prior and Augustinian convent of Flanesford in Herefordshire, ‘whose house has been founded by the baron’, the church of Westbury (Salop).110 A similar writ was issued on behalf of the prior and convent of the Augustinian priory of Maxstoke in Warwickshire in 1350, following the petition of the community ‘and that of William de Clinton, earl of Huntingdon’, their founder, confirming the appropriation to the priory of the church of Yardley.111 This was not the first grant the earl made to Maxstoke. In 1343 he had granted to Maxstoke Priory a manor in ‘Netherwhytacre’ (Nether Whitacre, Warwicks.).112 And four years later another member of the Clinton family, one John son of John de Clinton, gave to the same monastery certain lands in ‘Maystoke’ (Maxstoke) and Shustoke, both in Warwickshire.113 The range of bequests of this type included all kinds of lands, property, rents, and the like, including, in 1326, a fishpond, granted by Edmund FitzAlan, earl of Arundel, to his canons of Haughmond (Salop).114 The same earl, and other members of his family as patrons of Haughmond Abbey, made several grants to the house, as well as confirming earlier ones. Edmund himself, in November 1324, confirmed an exchange of land between the abbot and one Cecilia de la Chaumbre and her family.115 He moreover confirmed grants to the abbey by his predecessors, gave to the house 4s rent from lands he owned in Haughton in 1309–10, a piece of land situated between the abbey and his own residence in 1313, and, in May 1318, he granted to the abbey a section of the wood near the monastery, called Blakewalmore.116 With these generous acts of support for the canons of 110 111 112 113 114

115 116

CPL III, p.69. Ibid., p.333. PRO E315/34/157. PRO E315/35/68. ‘Quia antecessores nostri ad monasterium de Haghmon’ quondam affeccionem specialem intelleximus habuisse et nos eorum vestigiis inherentis [sic] damus et concedimus in puram et perpetuam elemosinam dicto monasterio de Haghmon’ et viris religiosis ibidem deo servientibus ac eciam confirmamus totum illus vivarium proprius manerium nostrum de Ruton’ (Haughmond Cartulary, no.538). Fishponds seem to have played a notable part in Haughmond Abbey’s existence, for they frequently appear in the records. Twelve years after the earl of Arundel’s grant of the above fishpond to the canons, the abbot of the house filed a complaint against five men, John, John, Richard, Ieuan and William, who had allegedly appeared one night and done considerable damage to the abbey’s fishpond (‘contra pacem domini Ricardi comitis Arundell’ venerunt de nocte ad vivarium suum quod vocatur le Overhethmillepole et fregerunt stagnum eiusdem vivarii’). Ibid., no.69. ‘Predictus Edmundus tradidit et ad perpetuam firmam dimisit dictis abbati et conventui unam placeam terre seu bosci in bosco de Haghmon’ que vocatur Blakewalmore’ (ibid.,

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Haughmond, Edmund was following the example of his predecessors. Richard, earl of Arundel (d.1302), had repeatedly stepped in on behalf of the community.117 Around the year 1300, he had obtained for the canons of the abbey the important right to take timber from the wood of Ness.118 Later earls of Arundel did likewise. Another Richard (d.1375) granted 3 acres of waste and the advowson of a church to the abbey in October 1331,119 and in the fifteenth century Thomas and William FitzAlan, earls of Arundel, were involved with the abbot and convent of Haughmond in relation to elections and the nomination of a corrodian.120 In some instances, papal letters survive which confirm the bequests by patrons to their houses. In 1308, during the pontificate of Clement V, the pope issued a writ to the rector and brethren of the house of Ashridge of the order of Bonhommes. In his writ he confirmed the gift to the community of Ashridge by Edmund, earl of Cornwall, ‘founder and patron’ of the house, of ‘his manor of Ambresdon and the advowson of the church there’.121 Those who were patrons of several houses habitually considered some, sometimes even all of them, when they allocated their goods and possessions in their wills, with some houses profiting more than others from their generosity. So for instance in 1412, William lord Ros, whose family held the patronage of several religious houses in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, made bequests to three of his monasteries: he gave money to Belvoir Priory (Lincs.), Rievaulx Abbey (Yorks.) and Kirkham Priory (Yorks.).122 And in the following century George lord Ros, likewise remembered three of his houses, namely Rievaulx Abbey, Kirkham Priory and Warter Priory, in his will.123 As well as objects and property, patrons often chose to donate to their houses, and/or to each member of the religious community, sums of money. In the case of cash bequests, a patron had the option of specifying what use be made of the money he had chosen to leave his house, and according to patrons’ surviving wills, this was mostly to be used for repair to the conventual church or buildings, sometimes very specifically for certain tasks, e.g. a belfry or specific repair work, and sometimes for maintenance or expansion in general. Where money was left for building work and repairs to the monastery, this had very important implications regarding patrons’ expectations for the future, especially during the final decades preceding the Dissolution. Donating money and making plans for building improvements and additions to their monas-

117 118 119

120 121 122 123

nos.471 and 168). The same earl also obtained royal licence to donate 60 acres of woodland to the community to hold in mortmain (ibid., no.169) and campaigned for the abbey’s rights to the woodland granted by him (ibid., nos.170–72). Cf. ibid., nos.557–8. Ibid., no.146. ‘A noz chiers et bien amez en dieu abbe et covent de Haghmon et la lour successours [. . .] treis acres de waste [. . .] od le avoesoun et le droit del patronage de tote leglise de Wroxcestre’ (ibid., no.1377). Ibid., nos.418, 419, 449. CPL II, p.43. TE I, no.261. TV II, p.528.


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teries, in other words investment in the religious community as the Dissolution was approaching, implies that a patron did either not foresee what was to happen so shortly afterwards, or that he intended the building work to help improve his monastery physically. Adding to, and improving the appearance of, the conventual buildings might have been regarded by those patrons who felt uneasy about the way things were developing as a move to secure the future of a house. The impetus behind monastic building work during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, on the other hand, may simply have been the response to an obvious need. Whatever the patron’s motivation – and this cannot always easily be known – the fact is that this type of bequest was made to religious communities from time to time during the later Middle Ages. In 1451, for example, Margaret lady Ros, patroness of Newhouse Abbey (Lincs.), and her son, Philip Wentworth, ‘secured an indulgence designed to attract contributions towards the repair of the abbey buildings’.124 Sir Thomas Gresley, in his will of 1504, merely stated that the 40s he left to his Augustinian priory of Church Gresley in Derbyshire was meant ‘for the maintenance of the monastery’.125 In addition to this, he left to each canon the sum of 3s 4d, as well as 13s 4d to the prior. In the year 1406, Sir Thomas Neville, lord Furnival, likewise considered the structural needs of the conventual buildings of his Augustinian priory of Worksop in Nottinghamshire, when he directed in his will that the sum of £40 was to be used for repair works to the fabric of the steeple of Worksop Priory church, or alternatively the corresponding value of this sum in lead.126 The north-west tower of the priory had apparently been in need of repair for nearly a hundred years. Likewise, in his will of 1412, already mentioned, William lord Ros (d.1414) sought burial in the choir of his Benedictine priory of Belvoir (Lincs.) should he die in the diocese of Lincoln, or in his Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx, should he die in Yorkshire. In addition to leaving money to both these monasteries, he also made a cash bequest of £13 6s 8d to his Augustinian priory of Kirkham (Yorks.). In the case of Belvoir Priory, he specified the use of the sum donated (£11) ‘ad fabricam predictæ ecclesiæ de Belvero’.127 Some later monastic patrons added so considerably to their houses’ endowments, that they came to be described as ‘second founders’. This was the case with Roger Bigod III, earl of Norfolk, from 1245 patron by inheritance of the Cistercian abbey of Tintern in Monmouthshire. At his death the childless earl made to the monks of Tintern a generous gift of several estates and manors in Norfolk, which was to prove ‘the abbey’s single most profitable asset’.128 Roger Bigod, due to the generosity and interest shown to his monastery both in life and in death, was later described as the abbey’s ‘founder’ by the fifteenthcentury writer William Worcestre. The Cistercian community of Tintern 124 125 126 127 128

CPL X, p.175. DW, no.17. ‘Fabricæ campanilis eccl. conv. de Worksop xl line vel verum valorum dictæ summæ in plumbo’ (TE III, no.8). Ibid. I, no.261. D.M. Robinson, Tintern Abbey (Cardiff, 1995), p.14.

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continued to honour his name by praying for him and distributing alms ‘for the repose of his soul’ right up until the Dissolution.129 The random survival of charters of this kind shows that transactions between monasteries and patrons, involving grants of land and/or property, were still a significant part of the patronal relationship during the later Middle Ages. As a rule, by this period monasteries had already received the bulk of their endowments, thanks to more or less generous gifts of land, property and appropriations during the preceding centuries. Patrons adding to earlier endowments at this later stage often did so specifically to help and support a house in time of need. But this was evidently not the only reason. Some religious houses experienced the addition, or enlargement, of conventual buildings, for reasons of increased prosperity and/or expansion of the community. The fourteenth century saw a great deal of activity as regards building programmes in the shape of modifications of and additions to monastic compounds. Although slight, the surviving evidence suggests that the lay patrons of the monasteries during this time were regularly involved in these activities, and their financial support and initiative often made building work possible in the first place. The small Benedictine priory of Ewenny in Glamorgan saw some final alterations to its buildings at the hands of its patrons in about 1300, when two of its gates were remodelled and a tower was added to the cemetery gate, although by this date the generosity of the patrons had on the whole ‘dried up’, the patronage having passed to the house of Lancaster in the thirteenth century, following the failure of the Chaworth family in the male line.130 Perhaps not entirely altruistic in nature was the building work undertaken by Sir Edward Knyvet, patron of the Benedictine abbey of Wymondham in Norfolk, who mentioned recent alterations to his monastery when, in his will of 1528, he asked for burial in the house ‘befor the hye aultar bye the new work ther done, mad and set by me’.131 His words give the impression that he was directly involved in the work he described, which may well have served the purpose of improving or embellishing what he had chosen to become his sepulchre. He might however be referring simply to his tomb, the marble slab of which he proceeded to describe in the same will. In 1381 William, lord Latimer, donated money for two separate building projects at Guisborough Priory in Yorkshire. As well as providing for the completion of the north nave aisle of the priory, he gave the impressive sum of £333 6s 8d for the construction of the belfry.132 Building projects, then, were still favoured, and often financed, by some lay patrons of religious houses during the fourteenth century and beyond. Investing in building work is a clear sign of confidence, and an indication of forward-thinking. The work commissioned or undertaken by late medieval lay patrons of monasteries was meant to last. It was a long-term investment in an institution which was expected to prevail for

129 130 131 132

Ibid. C.A. Ralegh Radford, Ewenny Priory/ Priordy Ewenni (London, 1976), p.8. TV II, p.635. G. Coppack, Gisborough Priory (London, 1993), p.27.


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some time to come. Consequently, this type of endowment tells us a lot about the psychology behind this kind of continuing support of religious houses. William, lord Latimer, in addition to donating a generous sum of money for the belfry of his priory church, moreover made an elaborate bequest to Guisborough of ‘toutz les bestes et catell que j’ay sur la manore de Ugthorp, la quele j’ay a ferme du dit Covent, apres mon deces’.133 As well as leaving his cattle to the canons of Guisborough, he bequeathed to them, in perpetuity, a range of religious items, namely ‘la grand hanaper d’argent endoré appellé Seint George, et les mazers et le grant almesdych d’argent quex j’ay en ma Garderobe a Loundres’. He then asked for his body to be interred in the church of that monastery after his death, for which arrangement he made separate provision of £2 ‘por celebrer mon obit chescun an un fois’.134 The same William made another, very interesting donation to another two monasteries which he claimed were under his patronage, namely the Augustinian priories of Bushmead and Caldwell, both in Bedfordshire. To these monasteries, of which, he explicitly stated, ‘je suy avowe’, he wished to give to each canon of each house ‘un cape de drap d’orre ou de sey enbroude ove mes armes en le manere come ils sont a Gisburn’.135 Similar bequests, of garments embroidered with the patron’s arms, were made by several other patrons, as the will of John de Vere, earl of Oxford illustrates. The inventory of the Augustinian priory of Warter (Yorks.) listed ‘one suit of blue silk called the water bourges [that is, the arms of the Ros family, patrons of the priory]’ among other vestments,136 and some time in the early fourteenth century the prior of the Augustinian house of Tonbridge (Kent) wrote a letter to his patroness Margaret de Clare, thanking her for the gift of a gown.137 The tradition of providing material support to their houses was thus continued by later lay patrons of the monasteries and nunneries of England and Wales. These men and women emphasised the continuing link between themselves and their communities of monks, canons or nuns by endowing them with a range of objects and/or money. The nature of these bequests often reveals a great deal about the nature of the relationship which existed between the two parties. This impression was often enhanced by the ‘physical presence’ of lay patrons, that is the presence of their heraldry and/or their portraits, in the fabric of the monastery.138 Particularly popular in this context, but often difficult to assess today, were stained-glass windows in the conventual church, depicting the founder/s or later patron/s of a house. In most cases the physical evidence for this disappeared when the windows were destroyed during the Dissolution,

133 134 135 136 137 138

TE I, no.83. Ibid. Ibid. Cited by Baskerville, English Monks, p.50. Turner and Coxe, Calendar of Charters, p.134. In her recent study of Rievaulx Abbey, E. Jamroziak has referred to the ‘possible outlet for self-representation’ a religious house represented for patrons and benefactors (Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey, p.204).

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leaving us with no more than the documentary evidence for the commissioning of such windows. In some churches, however, windows depicting patrons have survived to this day, notably at Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire, where a female donor figure, possibly the patroness, Eleanor de Clare (d.1337), is depicted in the fourteenth-century east window, kneeling ‘stripped of all earthly trappings’ and in prayer, below glass panels showing Christ, the Archangel Michael and the Virgin, and the twelve apostles.139 Her first husband, Hugh Despenser, is portrayed in one of the choir windows, in full armour and holding his sword in his hand alongside several of his predecessors.140 In the same abbey, on the wall of the fourteenth-century Trinity Chapel, we find a mural painting dating from the time of its inauguration, depicting the patrons, the lord Edward Despenser and his wife, kneeling before the Trinity.141 The same Edward is also represented atop his sepulchre by the high altar, in a kneeling pose.142 And, although largely destroyed now, about twelve sculpted statues of Tewkesbury’s founders and patrons were at some point adorning the abbey church.143 Another popular and less than subtle way for patrons to portray, and thus to emphasise, their patronage, was the display of dynastic paraphernalia, notably family heraldry. This might be displayed, as with the depictions of Tewkesbury’s patrons, in the windows or on the walls of the conventual church, or carved into the stone of the buildings, or even woven into, or embroidered onto, the vestments presented to the religious community. A magnificent example of the former is the splendidly decorated gatehouse of Kirkham Priory in Yorkshire which still stands today. Upon his arrival at this Augustinian priory, the medieval traveller encountered first of all the elaborately decorated gatehouse, adorned not only with groups of figures, including the crucifixion, St George and the dragon and David and Goliath, but also with the brightly painted arms of Walter Espec, founder of the house, those of some of the chief benefactors of the community, and most prominently those of the de Ros family of Helmsley, later patrons of Kirkham. This show of dynastic power ‘firmly proclaimed Kirkham as the family monastery of Ros of Helmsley’.144 Likewise in the Premonstratensian abbey at Torre in Devon, the arms of the founding family, the Brewers, and other benefactors of the house

139 140 141 142

143

144

For a discussion of the stained glass windows in Tewkesbury Abbey, see Brown, ‘Stained Glass’ in Morris and Shoesmith (eds), Tewkesbury Abbey, pp.187–8. His predecessors depicted in those windows include several de Clare earls of Gloucester. Cf. Brown, ‘Stained Glass’, p.187; Porter, Tewkesbury Abbey, p.8. For a photograph of the mural, see plate 12 in ibid. On the Trinity Chapel and its founders, as well as on the ‘Kneeling Knight’ see also P. Lindley, ‘The Later Medieval Monuments and Chantry Chapels’ in Morris and Shoesmith (eds), Tewkesbury Abbey, pp.169–71. For a discussion of these statues, their identification, their discovery, and their representation in the Tewkesbury manuscript, see J.M. Luxford, ‘Sculpture as Exemplar: the Founders’ Book of Tewkesbury Abbey and its Sculptural Models’, Sculpture Journal, xii (2004), pp.4–21. J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, p.23. Note also S. Harrison, Kirkham Priory, pp.14–15.


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were on display.145 Examples for the latter are known from Lanercost Priory (Cumberl.) and from St Agatha’s, Easby (Yorks.), where the arms of the founders were embroidered on copes.146 In the case of the Cistercian abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire, it was in the late-thirteenth-century heraldic floor tiles that the arms of the patron, Richard, earl of Cornwall (d.1272), who was also buried in the abbey, were represented.147 In like manner, the arms of the Despenser family, patrons of the Cistercian abbey of Neath in Glamorgan in the fourteenth century, were on display on the tiles of that monastery,148 as well as on those of their Benedictine abbey at Tewkesbury.149 Evidence for the depiction of patrons’ arms in vestments has already been cited.150 The examples above are a clear indication that in some cases the relationship between lay patrons and their religious houses remained active, sometimes even close, right up until the Dissolution, and had by no means ceased to matter, as has been argued in the past. The conspicuous display of such heraldry, of hereditary patrons and benefactors alike, in a monastic context, also worked to the opposite effect. Thus many religious houses took great pride in their association with a noble family, who might be an asset to the convent, just as the convent was an asset to the family. To be able to proclaim so prominently the links between the monastery and an important family must have inspired considerable respect in the eyes which beheld such a feast of dynastic paraphernalia, especially if those eyes belonged to rival communities, vying, perhaps, for the attention of the same families. And while the prominent exhibition of patrons’ arms in monastic churches might appear to be a statement of dynastic confidence on the part of the family, the argument to the reverse has often been raised, namely that the inclination to display family heraldry in such a setting was a sign of lack of dynastic confidence, rather than buoyancy.151

Elections and Nominations As part of the authority they exerted over their monasteries, patrons of most religious orders were involved in the process of electing new heads to their houses. The evidence for this is largely confined to episcopal records covering 145 146 147 148 149 150 151

Mon.VI (ii), p.923. Colvin, White Canons, p.297. C. Platt, The Abbeys and Priories of Medieval England, p.102, ill.63; J. Steane, The Archaeology of the Medieval English Monarchy, p.191, ill.111. Similarly, some heraldic tiles from Margam Abbey, bearing the arms of various noble families, survive in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. On the heraldic tiles of Tewkesbury Abbey, note A. Vince, ‘The Medieval Floor Tiles’, in Morris and Shoesmith (eds), Tewkesbury Abbey, pp.197–204. Cf. the will of William Latimer (d.1381) cited above. This point has most recently been raised by J. M. Luxford in connection with the de Clare and Despenser monuments in Tewkesbury Abbey (Luxford, The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300–1540: A Patronage History (Woodbridge, 2005).

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houses of non-exempt orders, but there are also papal registers and letters written by either party to this effect. A patron’s involvement in the elections of his religious house changed over time. By the later Middle Ages he was normally expected to give his assent to and confirm the election of a new abbot or prior to his monastery, and there are a great many examples to prove that this seems normally to have gone ahead without major complications. Often, the patron of a religious house either granted his community licence to elect a new abbot or prior, or approached the church authorities on this behalf. Thus in 1347, the patron of Tewkesbury Abbey, Hugh Despenser, was recorded in the register of Wolstan de Bransford, bishop of Worcester, as granting his Benedictine community licence to elect a new abbot.152 Some direct personal initiative was shown by Henry Courtenay, marquess of Exeter, the last patron of the Cistercian nunnery of Wintney in Hampshire. During a vacancy of the position of prioress in 1534, he wrote to Thomas Cromwell, suggesting his own wife’s kinswoman, a certain Elizabeth Martyn, be appointed prioress of the house, and assuring Cromwell of her cooperation in ‘all such duties as shall appertain to his [the king’s] grace’.153 William lord Dacre, patron of the Augustinian priory of Lanercost (Cumberland), went one step further when, clearly worried about the state of his house, he wrote a letter to the prior and convent in February of 1524, recommending the appointment of a sub-prior, ‘as the prior is so occupied with outward works and building that he has not time to attend to the service of God and the order of religion’.154 More commonly, however, patrons appear in the records of elections merely in name, as figures of authority, witnessing and/or giving their assent to the appointment of the new abbot or prior. In 1321, William Melton, archbishop of York, was ordered to admit the new prior of Shelford Priory in Nottinghamshire, who had been presented to the community by their patron, Thomas Bardolf.155 Half a century later, in 1383, Michael de la Pole, lord of Wingfield, obtained for his recently acquired Premonstratensian house of Leiston (Suffolk) a charter which confirmed the abbey’s right to free elections.156 Involvement in elections was often a family affair. The patrons of the Augustinian cell of Weybridge in Norfolk, the earls and dukes of Norfolk, were involved in the election process of that house for several generations from the thirteenth century onwards.157 And likewise successive generations of the Harcourt family, 152 153 154

155

156 157

Reg. Bransford, no.928. BL MS Cotton Vespasian, F.xiii, f.178, transl. in D. Coldicott, Hampshire Nunneries (Chichester, 1989), p.133. Dacre made the urgency of his request quite clear when he continued that ‘in my opinion you would do well to elect [canon Richard Halton]. I am your founder and, as far as in me is, assent to his election. You had, therefore, better elect him without any obstinacy or grudge as you intend to please me’ (LP, iv. 128). This order was proclaimed following a dispute over the right to the patronage of Shelford Priory (The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York 1317–1340, ed. R. Brocklesby, Canterbury and York Society, vol.85 (1997), no.197). Cf. Colvin, White Canons, p.293. Mon. VI, p.598.


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patrons of the community of Augustinian canons at Ranton in Staffordshire, exercised their patronal right of confirming elections of new priors to their house throughout the later history of the priory.158 The family’s interest in their Augustinian priory was continued by their descendants, who held the patronage of Ranton Priory in the sixteenth century, and who actively tried to prevent the suppression of the same.159 Where the relationship between a patron and his monks or nuns was amicable, problems do not normally seem to have arisen at elections, possibly because there had been some communication between the two parties prior to the appointment. In the case of Haughmond Abbey, where the ties between the Augustinian community and its patrons are known to have been close during the later Middle Ages, the patron’s actions at the election of a new head of the house in the 1460s confirm this closeness. In December of 1463, William, earl of Arundel, the patron, granted licence to elect a new abbot of Haughmond,160 and following the election, he gave his assent to the appointment of John Ludlow as abbot of Haughmond in January 1464.161 Similarly, a year later, Nicholas Hussey, patron of the Premonstratensian abbey of Durford (Sussex), obtained licence from the abbot of Welbeck for his community at Durford to elect a new abbot following the death of Walter, the previous abbot. Hussey moreover suggested that the election, which he urged to be conducted ‘in all haste’, should be held by the abbot of Titchfield.162 Needless to say, matters did not always proceed as smoothly as this. In some instances either the patron or the religious community might be unhappy about the outcome of an election or appointment. Where the patron of a monastery or nunnery was displeased with the appointment of the new head of his house, he might proceed to interfere with the election process. Occasionally such actions escalated, sometimes to the point where we find patrons threatening or intimidating their monks, canons or nuns. Mainly for this reason religious communities occasionally sought papal confirmation for newly elected heads of their houses. In 1335, Pope Benedict XII confirmed the election of a certain Simon to be abbot of the Augustinian monastery of St Peter and Paul, Bourne, in Lincolnshire, stating that ‘the election was opposed by Thomas Wake, lord of Liddell, knight, on the ground that he was patron of the said monastery’.163 The abbot elect, Simon, appealed to the pope for support, who caused the case to be heard by the bishop of Albano, with the result that ‘Sir Thomas Wake and his proctor, Andrew Sapiti, were condemned for contumacy.’164 Similar

158 159 160 161 162 163 164

VCH Staffs. III, p.253. More on Sir Simon Harcourt’s efforts to prevent the suppression of Ranton Priory in Chapter 5. Haughmond Cartulary, no.418. Ibid., no.419. Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, no.374. CPL II, p.523. Ibid.

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problems arose when, in the year 1317, the patron of the Benedictine nuns at Cannington opposed the election of the new prioress of the house. 165 There were occasions when an uncooperative patron might block or delay an election altogether, as at Croxton Abbey (Leics.) in 1534, where the patron gave his canons considerable grief. By order from Cromwell, the religious community had postponed their election until the arrival of their patron, lord Berkeley, despite their insistence that they were not bound to his permission or assent. When lord Berkeley arrived at Croxton, he initially attempted to prevent the election, trying to promote his own choice of candidate instead.166 He went as far as positioning armed men at the chapter house to prevent the canons from entering, and it was only grudgingly and upon payment of a fine and enormous pressure from the abbot of Welbeck, who had stepped in as mediator, that he finally gave in to the appointment of the abbot elect Thomas Green.167 An interesting observation at this point is that the patrons involved in one way or another with the election process at their abbeys and priories were almost exclusively men. This does not mean that women patrons did not get involved, it merely shows, yet again, that they were often in the shadow of male relatives in an administrative context. Often, that is, but not always. And women, no less than men, might play a powerful part in the lives of their monasteries and nunneries.168 One prominent, if somewhat aggressive, example comes from the Benedictine priory of Earls Colne in Essex. The countess of Oxford, patroness of the priory, upon being informed of the appointment of a new prior to the house by the bishop of London in 1395, about which she was greatly displeased, apparently stormed the priory by night in the company of armed men, carried off the new prior, and made him swear obedience to her.169 Occasionally the opposite was the case and it was the convent, not the patron, who opposed an election in their house. Thus in the late 1390s, the Cistercian monks of Meaux (Yorks.) disputed the appointment of their bursar Thomas Burton as abbot to the monastery, arguing that he had been forced upon them at the instigation of their patron, the duke of Gloucester, with the help of the abbot of Fountains.170 Unwelcome involvement by patrons in the electoral, or indeed other, affairs of their religious houses remained a problematic issue throughout this period, and one which required a good portion of

165 166 167

168 169 170

VCH Somerset II, p.110. LP, vii. 17. Cf. S. Jack, ‘Monastic Lands in Leicestershire and their Administration on the Eve of the Dissolution’, Transactions of the Leicester Archaeological and Historical Society, xli (1965–6), p.13. A powerful part, that is, in the documented sense. What unrecorded power was wielded by a patroness is impossible to know now. CPL V, no.150. The conflict escalated, and when the abbots of Roche and Garendon arrived at Meaux to investigate the matter, they found that Thomas Burton and the abbot of Fountains held the abbey by force of arms. The case was taken to the Curia, but was eventually resolved peacefully. Burton resigned in 1399 and was succeeded briefly by his former opponent William Wendover (VCH Yorks. III, p.148).


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diplomatic skill on both sides, and often also external intervention, to prevent its escalation. As well as interfering in elections or imposing candidates upon their religious houses, there is some evidence for patrons actively trying to convince ruling heads of houses to resign their post. Not long before the suppression of the Benedictine house of Tywardreath in Cornwall, Henry Courtenay, marquis of Exeter, wrote to Thomas Collins, prior of the house, suggesting his speedy resignation in favour of an appointee chosen by Courtenay. A defiant Collins resisted this dismissal as best he could, confronting his patron directly in a written response to the letter suggesting his resignation.171 Very similar action was taken by the same marquis in 1532, when he, as patron of the Cistercian abbey of Buckland (Devon), told his abbot, a man named Whyte, in no uncertain terms that in his opinion Whyte’s time as head of the house was up.172 Whyte, not unlike Collins, responded with a desperate but unsuccessful plea for mercy, entreating the marquis to let him stay and stating, ‘I don’t want to resign. I can do anything except ride and that can be done more conveniently by servants. Let me continue in my office and not resign, as you wish.’ His greatest worry was concerning his successor, as he continued by pleading, ‘above all don’t give office when I die to [John Tucker], who has been recommended, because of his untoward conversation and intolerable charges’.173 This, however, was evidently exactly what Courtenay had had in mind, for Tucker succeeded as abbot of Buckland, with the patron’s backing, in 1528. In either case the patron, especially a powerful one, might give the religious community sufficient grief to cause them to turn elsewhere for help and support. Either the patron or the religious community could be the source of conflict at elections, as the cases of the monks of Meaux and the marquis of Exeter demonstrate. There were times, on the other hand, when the two parties united against appointments imposed by external authorities. In 1301 for example, during the pontificate of Boniface VIII, the pope issued a mandate to the prior of the Benedictine priory of Holy Trinity in York, the official of Amiens and others, ordering them to make an inquiry into ‘the cause relating to the Cluniac priory of Thetford in the diocese of Norwich’. The abbot and convent of the mother-house of the order in Cluny, to which Thetford Priory was subject, 171

172 173

‘My lorde priour, in my right hartie maner I recommende me unto you, and sertefieng you it hath pleased the kynge’s grace to geve unto me the vousyon and next advoydaunce of your rome and office of the pryory, wherfore I desyre you the rather at this myne instaunce, and at this my requeste yf ye canne be contentynd to resigne your rome to resigne it unto me for a frynde of myne upon a reasonable pencyon yerely paied.’ Courtenay was not the only one urging Collins to resign, as a number of further letters, including one by Wolsey, demonstrate. Collins responded stating that ‘my awnswere was thys, that I trustyng my lord wold contynew my good lord, as he hath bene in tymes past, as I have bene & schall behis contynuall pore bedman; but as to resygne or putt away from me that pore levyng that hytt hath pleasyd Almyghty God to call me to, I intended not during my lyfe, nor never was myndyd to do’ (Mon. Dioc. Exon., p.46). For Courtenay’s letter, see ibid., no.XXVII. LP, vi. 1376.

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enjoyed the privilege of appointing the house’s new prior. However, the monks of Thetford being unhappy about this arrangement, they explained to the pope that they wished to ‘withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of the said abbot [of Cluny]’. With the support of the bishop of Norwich and the patron of the house, Roger Bigod, Earl Marshal, and his brother, John Bigod, the monks of Thetford proceeded to elect a new prior of their own choice. The new prior, Reginald de Montargi, whose election was duly confirmed by the bishop of Norwich, resisted the demands of the abbot and convent of Cluny to resign his office. He moreover ‘imprisoned and ill-treated certain monks sent by [the abbot of Cluny] to publish the process against the prior and convent of Thetford’, and, relying on the ‘power of the said bishop and the patron of the house, defended and maintained his position’.174 The register continues thus: ‘The abbot and convent of Cluny then petitioned the pope, who orders, if the above statement is found to be true, what has been done to be revoked, the intended prior to be deprived and the imprisoned monks to be released.’175 Roger Bigod, as patron of the priory, received a warning from the pope to ‘desist from interference’ in this matter. All parties involved were told to appear before the pope, were his orders to be disobeyed. Apart from highlighting possible manifestations of a lay patron’s involvement in the election process of his monastery, this incident is moreover an interesting example of a patron acting on behalf of his house against a higher authority, in this case that of the pope. Only three years later, in 1304, we find another instance of patronal interference in the election process of the same monastery, when the new prior, whose name was Thomas Bigod, and who was recruited from outside the priory, was evidently a relative of the patron earl Roger Bigod.176 Despite the problems which sometimes inevitably arose between religious communities and their patrons during times of elections, it seems clear that in the majority of cases the appointments of new abbots or priors seem to have passed off peacefully and without conflict caused by interfering patrons. As well as being involved in the election of abbots and priors to their religious houses, lay patrons of monasteries and nunneries from non-exempt orders also enjoyed the important privilege of nominations to their houses, both of brethren and of corrodians. How frequently this right was in fact exercised is now difficult to ascertain. It appears to have been exercised less frequently during the later Middle Ages than it had been in previous centuries, but there is nonetheless some evidence which suggests that the custom had not entirely gone out of fashion by the fourteenth century. In 1341 Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, nominated a certain John de Fynham as one of the two monks he was entitled to send to Bordesley Abbey, directing the abbey to admit him.177 Although in this case the earl was not the actual patron of Bordesley, 174 175 176 177

CPL, I, p.594. Ibid. Registrum Roberti Winchelsey Contuariensis Archiepiscopi, ed. R. Graham, 2 vols (Oxford, 1952–56), p.792. College of Arms Monastic Charters, Warwick 20/12/15.


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the example nevertheless demonstrates that the practice of external appointments to religious communities by the laity persisted. It did so, indeed, right up to the eve of the Dissolution, when, in 1532, the earl of Essex, patron of Beeleigh Abbey (Essex), ‘of which’, he noted, ‘I am founder’, in a letter to Cromwell, informed him that ‘I have two children at my own cost in the house of the canons of Bylegh’, for whom he sought protection to allow them to remain in the abbey, ‘else the service of God cannot be maintained’.178 A comparatively rare example of a patron placing a corrodian in a monastery under his patronage during the later Middle Ages comes from Haughmond Abbey. Here, in May 1415, Thomas, earl of Arundel and Surrey, granted a corrody for life to one Robert Lee of Uffington, who was to ‘serve the abbot as an esquire with a servant and two horses, and when [he] wishes to be in the monastery, he and his servant shall receive the same food and drink as the abbot’s esquires and servants, and his horses shall have the same amount of hay and provender as those of the abbot’s esquires’.179 Perhaps the most interesting part of this document is a little injunction which assured the community that ‘it is not, however, the earl’s intention that the monastery should be burdened with similar corrodies in future’.180 Involvement in elections in their monasteries and nunneries, then, remained popular among the later medieval lay patrons in England and Wales. The extent of their participation was by then increasingly well defined, and in some instances their presence or assent appears to have been a symbolic gesture, rather than a legally binding act.181 Patronal participation in the election process often seems to confirm the continuing ties which existed between a religious community and its patrons. The same can be said about other appointments by lay patrons to their houses of monks, canons and nuns, be they of brethren or corrodians. Both kinds of patronal involvement occurred considerably less frequently during the later Middle Ages than they had done, but both did still occur, particularly where relations remained close or friendly.

Conflict Relations between monasteries and their patrons were of course not always amicable or even peaceful. The surviving evidence confirms that problems could and did arise for a variety of reasons, the main point of conflict being 178 179

180

181

LP, v. 803. ‘Dedimus, concessimus, et hac præsenti cartâ nostrâ indentatâ confirmavimus Roberto Lee de Uffington, unum corrodium pro termino vitæ suæ, essendo cum abate monasterii prædicti armigerum, cum uno gartione et duobus equis’ (Mon. VI (i), p.110, no.VI). See also Haughmond Cartulary, no.449. ‘Ita non est intentio neque voluntas dicti excellentissimi et reverendissimi domini nostri [Thomas Earl of Arundel], vel vostri aut successorum nostrorum, nos aut successores nostros, vel monasterium prædictum, de cætero, de aliquot tali corrodio onerare’ (Mon. VI (i), p.110, no.VI). Colvin has pointed out that ‘all the available evidence, in fact, suggests that in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries at least, freedom of election was both recognised and respected’ (White Monks, p.293).

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disputes regarding lands, as in the case, for example, of the Carthusian priory of Mount Grace in Yorkshire. The house had been founded in 1398 by Thomas Holland, earl of Kent and duke of Surrey, on a site occupied by his sub-tenant John de Ingleby. As early as 1412, following the death of Thomas Holland in 1400, the monks petitioned the king for confirmation of their rights to their site, a petition which they repeated successfully in 1439. By this time the advowson of Mount Grace Priory had passed to William Ingleby, the heir of John de Ingleby, and the monks had reason to believe that their new patron had his own personal interest in the site of the monastery, which they regarded as rightfully theirs. When his efforts to reclaim the site of the priory failed, William Ingleby, disregarding the royal charter confirming Mount Grace to the Carthusian monks, proceeded to grant the manor and site of Mount Grace to the Augustinian house of Guisborough.182 The two communities eventually came to an agreement whereby the monks of Mount Grace paid the canons of Guisborough an annual rent for the site. This example illustrates what was the most common cause of conflict between religious communities and the laity. Instead of confirming their predecessors’ gifts of land and property, later patrons occasionally decided to try and annul the earlier grants in order to pursue their own personal interests and reclaim the land for themselves.183 A letter written in 1305 to Edward I by the prior of the Benedictine priory of Tutbury in Staffordshire refers to the problems experienced by the monks due to oppression by the house’s patron, the earl of Lancaster. Unable to resolve the quarrel directly, the community requested the king’s help in the matter.184 Turning to a higher authority for help was thus an option for religious houses whose communities felt threatened or oppressed by their patrons. This might, however, prove difficult in cases of lay patrons who were either very powerful figures, or themselves favourites of the king, in which case the religious community had no option but to seek support in the papal Curia. Disputes over lands and properties were not the only contentious issue in patron–monastery relationships. Complaints were also made by religious communities if their patrons took advantage of their hospitality, either by overstaying their welcome or by imposing themselves upon their monasteries with large parties, thus considerably straining the resources of the house. This was generally more problematic in the case of royal, than of lay founders.185 Royal parties were often large and expected particularly lavish hospitality.

182 183

184 185

G. Coppack, Mount Grace Priory (London, 1991), p.43. On issues of conflict between a religious community and its patrons, note also Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, pp.161–70 and Jamroziak’s chapter on ‘Bad Neighbours: Dispute and Conflict Resolution’ in her recent study of Rievaulx (Rievaulx Abbey and its Social Context, esp. pp.123–30). PRO SC1/21/17. Note, for example, the complaints made by the abbot of St Alban’s, Michael Mentmore (d.1349), who protested about the numbers of royal and aristocratic visitors who were burdening his abbey and straining its resources (Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani a Thomas Walsingham, ed. H.T. Riley, ii (London, 1867), pp.299–371).


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Conflict between monasteries and their patrons, however, was not a one-edged sword. Patrons, too, occasionally had reason to complain about their monasteries. A notable example is the case of Henry de Lacy, earl of Lincoln, patron of the Cistercian abbey of Whalley in Lancashire. The earl had attempted to settle his monks at Whalley, at a site provided by him, but his endeavour had received a lukewarm response from the community, who were reluctant to make the new abbey their home. Eventually, the exasperated patron turned to the pope for help, and in the year 1306, Pope Clement V issued an injunction to the monks of Whalley, telling them to remain at the new site. Should the monks to fail to comply with the pope’s demand, they were to lose that site and the church was to ‘revert to the presentation of the said earl’.186 The community heeded the pope’s advice, at length followed their patron’s orders, and stayed at Whalley. Several decades later, Mary de St Pol, countess of Pembroke, the patroness of the Minoresses of Waterbeach (Cambs.) had a similar complaint. In 1342, following her new foundation at Denney (Cambs.) for the Waterbeach community, she tried to encourage the nuns to leave their old house and move to the new site. But the transfer did not proceed as smoothly as the patroness had anticipated: a number of nuns were clearly not happy about the move and refused to leave their old house.187 In response, Mary de St Pol appealed to Pope Clement VI in 1349, asking him to enforce the move of the remaining sisters from Waterbeach to Denney. Several papal records bear witness to the dispute between the patroness and the religious community, such as a mandate to the bishop of Hereford in the year 1348 on the petition of Mary de St Pol, ‘to compel certain Minoresses to obey the [. . .] abbess of Waterbeach and remove from thence to Denney with their goods and chattels [. . .] they having elected a new abbess and received nuns at Waterbeach’.188 In a separate petition of the same year Mary de St Pol then asked to be granted papal permission to give the site of the old house to the Friars Minor.189 Two years later, the countess petitioned the pope again regarding her new house, asking him to confirm the foundation of Denney Abbey and the move there from the former site, adding that ‘the abbess and convent shall not dwell elsewhere without special papal licence’.190 As well as turning to king or pope for assistance against a bothersome patron, the members of a religious community might record their discontent with their patron in their own chronicles. Although comparatively few of these survive from the later Middle Ages for houses with lay patrons, the existing evidence suggests that monastic chronicles were used for this purpose. The chronicle of Croxden Abbey in Staffordshire bears witness to this. An entry for 186 187

188 189 190

CPL, ii, p.7. For a more detailed discussion of Waterbeach and Denney Abbey see Bourdillon, Minoresses, pp.18–22; M. Hicks, ‘The English Minoresses and their Early Benefactors 1281–1367’, J. Loades (ed.), Monastic Studies i (1990), pp.158–70. CPL, ii, p.285. Ibid., iii, p.285; CPP, p.160. Ibid., iii, p.209.

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the year 1319 mentions the oppression of the community by their new patron, Thomas lord Furnival. This patron, described here as the ‘new lord of Alton’, decided at some point to count the monks of the abbey. He was obviously displeased with the fact that ‘he found only thirty there’, rather than fifty, as he has expected,191 and he used this as an excuse to threaten the Cistercian community. The relationship between the monks of Croxden and Thomas lord Furnival then appears to have deteriorated. According to the chronicle, he exacted many other things from them, namely a fixed distribution of alms every day at the gate, the maintenance of horses and hunting dogs at his pleasure and the receiving at table in a special room of seven of his bailiffs from Alton every other Friday throughout the year.192

However, these demands do not seem to have satisfied his demonstration of power over his monks. The chronicle tells us that ‘for these and such other services, which had sometimes been done to him and his, he often made severe distraints as if for rent withheld’.193 And he went even further still, molesting the community and interfering with their livestock, as the chronicle proceeds to describe: He took their cart near his wood of Greet and kept it at Alton for three weeks until it was released by king’s writ. He imparked 160 sheep of both sexes from Mosdene at Wotton and kept them locked up in the park there for seven weeks, so that neither the sheriff nor another bailiff could have view of them. He likewise took twenty oxen and thirty-two horses in ploughs near the grange and Lees and detained them in the same way in that park, so that people could neither plough nor sow in these places, and no-one dares to ride freely through the gates of the abbey over the fee of Alton.

The monks found themselves forced to respond to this violence. So they made two hedges of thorns in those gates so that no-one could pass in or out from the time of the Annunciation of the Lord until the feast of the translation of St Benedict, that is for sixteen weeks.

In a gesture of defiance, however, they ‘made for themselves a little postern gate in the wall on the south side and there they went out secretly’. External intervention finally succeeded in solving the situation, when Robert Holland, Stephen de Segrave, Henry de Hamberry and many others, described by the chronicler as ‘our friends’, helped the monks to obtain ‘a writ of novel disseisin’, and peace was eventually restored. 194 The events described in the Croxden Chronicle are not remarkable in themselves, for this kind of dispute arose frequently enough between landholders, and the actions taken by lord Furnival were by no means unusual. However,

191 192 193 194

BL Cotton Faustina vi, f.80r (transl. L. Boatwright et al.). Ibid. Ibid. Ibid.


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this is an example of a lay patron not merely neglecting his duties towards his monastery, but actively exploiting the house, thus failing to adhere to one of the basic unwritten rules underlying the concept of patronage, that is, the duty of protecting his house. The monks of Croxden were not the only religious community suffering persistent strife with their lay patrons. The Premonstratensian canons at the Sussex monastery of Durford struggled for several years against their quarrelsome patron, Sir Henry Hussey of South Harting, causing the abbot to petition the Court of Chancery on several occasions. In at least one instance, in 1454, Sir Henry appeared at the abbey gates with an armed mob and threatened to burn the monastery to the ground.195 Only two years later he again harassed the canons and repeatedly threatened to kill the abbot.196 The situation appears to have improved considerably when Nicholas Hussey, clearly very different in nature, succeeded Sir Henry c.1465, and the complaints ceased. 197 Fortunately not every displeased patron resorted to this kind of drastic action against his religious community. There were other ways in which patrons might assert unwelcome authority over their monasteries, as the earl of Arundel demonstrated when he obtained the patronage of Castle Acre Priory (Norfolk) in 1404. Arundel made the prior, Simon Sutton, swear an oath ‘not to alienate [the woods or possessions of the priory], nor to manumit his serfs without licence of the earl or his successors.198 The prior soon regretted having taken the oath and turned to the pope for advice and support. Innocent VII in response fined Sutton for his lack of caution in taking an oath of this nature, and proceeded to declare the oath null and void ‘as laymen had no such power over persons and things ecclesiastical’.199 Problems might arise between monasteries and their patrons over disagreement following the election of a new abbot or prior, as has already been shown. On the one hand a patron might try to promote his own choice of successor as head of his monastery against the will of the community, and on the other, he might be displeased with the results of the community’s election. In either case relations between the two parties might be considerably strained as a result. 200

195

196 197

198 199 200

The abbot of Durford complained to Henry VI that his patron had been harassing him for several years, ‘ii or iii times yerly . . . made assawte with force of armes ayent the King’s peas brekyng up the yates and the dores of the Abbey bothe by nyghte and by dayes dyvers tymes and taken and ledde away theire hors and other dyvers godes ayent their wille and yit them witholdeth, betyng and hurting theire men withyn the saide abbey the which is halowed’ (Early Chancery Proceedings, bundle 22, no.174, cited by Colvin, White Canons, p.299). During one of those confrontations, Hussey killed one of the abbot’s servants (VCH Sussex II, p.91). Nicholas Hussey is perhaps best known in connection with Durford for his supportive involvement during elections at the abbey in 1465 (Coll. Anglo-Prem. II, no.374; VCH Sussex II, p.85). VCH Norfolk II, p.357. Ibid., p.357. This type of dispute might have most objectionable repercussions, as the examples of Thomas Wake, patron of Bourne Priory, or lord Berkeley at Croxton show.

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Conflict of a different kind, on the other hand, might arise between two families claiming the patronage of the same religious house. It was evidently not always clearly established in whose hands the advowson of a monastery or nunnery was vested at any given time. Powerful overlords were known to clinch the hereditary patronage from their tenants, just as particularly generous benefactors might overshadow an absent or less generous patron and become known to the religious community as a ‘second founder’ of the house. The Augustinian Priory of Stone (Staffs.), for instance, had been founded by Enisan de Walton in the first half of the twelfth century.201 Not long after its foundation, the founder’s overlord, Robert de Stafford II, assumed the patronage of the house, to which he had himself granted property.202 In some cases the identity of the current patron was simply not known to the community, prompting rivalling contenders to make claims for the patronage of a monastery. A dispute of this kind arose between the heirs of William Bardolf and Adam de Everingham over the advowson of Shelford Priory (Notts.). The conflict was finally resolved in 1321 when Thomas Bardolf, heir of William, and one of the claimants, was re-established as patron of Shelford.203 Similarly, at Caldwell Priory in Bedfordshire in 1287, there was uncertainty among the community of Augustinian canons regarding the identity of the house’s patron. However, when the crown proceeded to seize the advowson of the house in 1339, the canons claimed that the patronage was in the hands of Simon de Barescote, whose ancestors had founded the house.204 Likewise at the Augustinian priory of Bourne (Lincs.) the king’s escheator tried – in vain – in 1311, and again in 1324, to claim the house as a royal foundation.205 There were instances, however, when royal claimants were more successful in superseding a house’s less influential lay patrons.206 Having their patronage thus ‘upgraded’, theoretically at least, to royal status, certainly came as a relief to many an impoverished priory that had been under absent or disinterested lay patronage. There is also some evidence for patrons acting on behalf of their religious houses in situations of conflict involving the monastery and a third party. Thus Isabel, countess of Suffolk, patroness of the Benedictine priory of Snape in Suffolk, had successfully obtained a grant of exemption from episcopal jurisdiction on behalf of her monastery, following her petition to the pope in this matter. During the closing years of the fourteenth century, this right was encroached upon by the Benedictine community of Colchester who were evidently harassing the prior and monks of Snape. The monks of Snape Priory

201 202 203 204 205 206

MRH, p.175. VCH Staffs. III, p.241. Reg. Melton, no.197. VCH Beds. I, p.382. VCH Lincs. II, p.177. As in the case of the monastery of Ashridge of the order of the Bonhommes. While the original founder was Edmund, earl of Cornwall, the Black Prince (d.1376), a great benefactor of the house, increased its endowments so generously that he was henceforth considered ‘second founder’ of the religious community (VCH Bucks. II, p.387; cf. also MRH, p.203).


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consequently approached the authorities in Rome for papal support on this issue, as a result of which the pope, in a bull dated 10 January 1400, issued an order to the bishop of Norwich and the prior of Ely, as third parties, ‘not to permit the abbot and convent of Colchester to molest or hinder the prior and monks of Snape’.207 While this case is an example of papal intervention in response to a religious house suffering from the abuse of another, more powerful religious community, it is just as much an example of the initiative of a powerful patron/ess whose intervention on behalf of their monastery resulted in their protection by the pope in the first place. A powerful patron, then, might on the one hand be a source of security and protection to a religious community (which was, of course, one of the original intentions underlying the concept of monastic patronage), while he might equally be the source of harassment and considerable grief to his monastery or nunnery. During the later Middle Ages, as during the preceding centuries, this was still true for houses of all religious orders, and of both sexes.

Gendering Late Medieval Lay Patronage The surviving evidence for fourteenth- to sixteenth-century monastic patronage relates overwhelmingly to lay patrons of male religious communities. The names of the patrons themselves, too, are predominantly male, and upon closer scrutiny it has emerged that patrons often displayed different attitudes towards their houses of male and female religious. The fact alone that the documentation, both in terms of quantity and character, favours male religious is rather telling. To what extent the attitudes of monastic patrons might be described as ‘biased’, however, is perhaps less easy to say, but we might get some sense of patrons’ attitudes towards their houses of monks and of nuns by comparing bequests made by lay patrons to religious houses, and by assessing their burial preferences. Just like men, medieval women founded monasteries and nunneries, too, but while women were often involved in the foundation of both male and female religious houses alongside men, proportionally significantly more women appear as foundresses in their own right in connection with nunneries.208 Comparing the founders of Benedictine houses of monks with those of nuns, the divergence is quite striking. Although women are often named as founders together with their husbands, sons, or brothers,209 only two Benedictine male

207 208

209

PRO SC7/8/16. Women’s reasons for founding religious houses often differed from those of men. Note Burton’s work on female founders of religious houses in Monastic and Religious Orders, pp.91–93. Folkestone Priory (Kent), for instance, was founded c.1095 by Nigel de Munevilla and his wife Emma (MRH, p.66); the cell of Freiston (Lincs.) was established by Alan de Craon, his wife Muriel and their son Maurice, in 1141x1142 (Mon IV, p.124); and the priory of Snape (Suffolk) was founded by William Martel, his wife Albreda and their son Geoffrey (Mon. IV, p.556).

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monasteries, the cell of Aldeby in Norfolk (fd.c.1100–19) and Canwell Priory in Staffordshire (fd.1131–48), are attributed chiefly, if not exclusively, to the initiative of a woman (in the first case the foundress was Agnes de Beaupré, in the second it was Geva, daughter of Hugh, earl of Chester). In contrast to this, at least nine Benedictine nunneries owe their existence to women founders: Elstow (Beds.) was founded by Judith, niece of William I, c.1178; St Sexburga (Kent) by Sexburga, widow of Ercombert, king of Kent around 675; Nunkeeling (Yorks.) by Agnes de Arches, widow of Herbert St Quintin in 1143–54; Redlingfield (Suffolk) by Emma de Redlingfield in 1120; Seton (Cumberland) by Gunild, daughter of Henry Boyvill, c.1210; Swaffham Bulbeck (Cambs.) probably by Isabel de Bolebec before 1199; Wherwell (Hants.) by Elfrida, widow of King Edgar in the tenth century; Wilton (Wiltshire) by Alburga, widow of Weohstan in the ninth century; and Yedingham (Yorks.) by Helewise de Clere before 1158. The other religious orders follow a similar pattern, women being responsible for the foundation of a much higher proportion of nunneries than of monasteries. However, records regarding both founders and later patrons have to be treated with considerable caution, because men are more likely to occupy a more prominent place in them than women. Where a foundation is attributed to a layman and his wife, it is impossible to ascertain today the exact roles played by these people, that is, a woman who decided to found a religious house might be supported by her husband, father, or brother, whose names might subsequently feature more prominently in the charters than her own. As far as the later lay patrons of the religious houses are concerned, the patronage tended to pass to the male heir of the patron or patroness of a monastery or nunnery, rather than to a, perhaps potentially more interested, female heir, wherever possible. For the patrons of religious houses this meant that, as far as the documentation of the patronage is concerned, women appear both less frequently and less prominently. Assessing the reality behind the identities of the founders and later patrons of English and Welsh nunneries can thus prove to be problematic. For the same reasons, records regarding the activity of lay patrons of nunneries can be equally ambiguous. While gifts to houses of nuns might be initiated by the patroness, the transaction itself was often conducted in the name of her husband, or another male member of the family, as patron of the house.210 An evaluation of the attitudes of lay patrons towards houses of male versus female religious can perhaps best be drawn by comparing the activity and the interest shown by patrons of multiple monasteries. It is worth noting that the majority of lay patrons of nunneries also held the patronage of one or more houses of male religious. Comparing the evidence provided by the actions, or the lack thereof, of patrons of several abbeys and priories will help to show where patrons discriminated in favour of any of their religious houses. The duke

210

For an amusing and rather bleak view of women patrons of religious houses, note Baskerville, in whose words, ‘still worse, as might have been expected, was the fate of the religious houses where ladies were foundresses’ (English Monks, e.g. p.53).


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of Norfolk is a particularly prominent example, for he held the patronage of nineteen or more religious houses, among them at least two Benedictine nunneries, namely Arden Priory in Yorkshire and Bungay Priory in Suffolk. Similarly the religious houses of the earl of Northumberland, nine in total, included three or more nunneries: Handale and Nun Appleton, both Cistercian houses and both located in Yorkshire, and the Augustinian house of Holystone in Northumberland. And at the Dissolution Robert Aske was patron of the Benedictine nunneries of Marrick and Thicket, both in Yorkshire, as well as of Ellerton Priory (Gilbertine canons). An illuminating example of patronal treatment of male and female communities is the case of the de Vere family. Among the eight religious houses of which the de Veres were patrons during the later Middle Ages, were the Benedictine monastery of Earls Colne and the Benedictine nunnery of Castle Hedingham, both in Essex. Of the two houses, the nunnery was more conveniently situated in close proximity to the family’s main residence at Hedingham, but, as the surviving documentation indicates, it was Earls Colne, not Castle Hedingham, that was the family’s favoured house, and that received most of the patronal attention. The monastery, not the nunnery, moreover, was chosen as the main family mausoleum, witnessing no fewer than nineteen burials of members of the de Vere family between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the year 1526. In the case of the de Veres, it seems clear that family members made a conscious choice in favour of one of their monasteries, at the expense of all the others. Although both of their Benedictine houses were founded by members of the family, their attention was firmly focused on Earls Colne Priory. The nuns at Castle Hedingham, however, did not go empty-handed. They did benefit from the patronage of the de Vere family, who did remember the community in their wills, albeit to a lesser extent than the monks at Colne. In 1358 the two houses were the recipients of one hundred marks each for the building of their respective priory churches, granted in his will by their patron John de Vere.211 In the same will he requested burial in Earls Colne Priory. Both houses remained rather humble foundations, the de Veres being among the poorest of the English earls. By the time of the Dissolution, the annual income of Earls Colne Priory was given as £156, as compared with that of the community of nuns at Hedingham, which amounted to as little as £29. Both houses thus fell into the category of lesser monasteries and were dissolved in 1536. 212 Obviously, the degree of interest shown by, and of support given to English and Welsh nunneries by their hereditary patrons varied quite considerably. Less affluent patrons normally founded less prosperous houses, and religious communities established by the lower levels of the aristocracy often struggled against poverty during much of their history. The small Hampshire nunnery of Wintney, a house for Cistercian nuns, has left evidence for such a troubled and mostly destitute existence, despite which struggle the nuns maintained more or

211 212

TV I, no.62. MRH, pp.53, 253.

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less regular contact with their patrons during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The patrons throughout the history of the priory were laymen and laywomen of relatively humble status. They lacked the resources to provide the financial support needed by their indigent nunnery. Yet they appear in the records as interested and active patrons on more than one occasion. These brief documentary appearances aside, very little is known about either of the families who in turn held the patronage of the house in the later Middle Ages. From the original founder in the twelfth century, Geoffrey FitzPeter, the patronage of Wintney Priory had passed first to the Herriard family and eventually, by inheritance, to the Colrith (or Cobreth213) family. The heiress of that family, Christine, married Richard Holt, of whom we know that he showed an active interest in the community, for which he provided some material support. Early in the fifteenth century he financed a programme of building work at the priory, which included a new roof for the priory church. The patroness of Wintney Priory at the Dissolution, Gertrude, wife of Henry Courtenay, marquess of Exeter, was herself a kinswoman of Elizabeth Martyn, the last prioress of the house; a personal element in the link between the patrons and the nunnery was thus maintained. We know the patrons of Wintney gave permission for elections, which were recorded in the cartulary. The patrons of the priory must have been active to some extent to have been mentioned at all in the cartulary. There is also evidence for at least one burial of a later patroness in the house. The burial is that of Dame Diana Colrith, whose heart was buried before the high altar of the conventual church.214 To these relatively ‘obscure’ people, the patronage of a monastery or nunnery, even a minor one, was correspondingly of considerable importance and represented a distinction, an opportunity to make their mark in society. However, despite the continued support shown by the house’s lay patrons, who themselves possessed no more than a very modest fortune, Wintney Priory suffered quite badly from poverty during most of its existence. At some point in the fourteenth century, the poverty of the house was so serious that the nuns were forced to move out temporarily until the problem was solved.215 Wintney Priory was suppressed together with five other Hampshire houses, with the lesser monasteries in 1536, being then the poorest house in the whole county of Hampshire.216 This example illustrates the disparity that often existed between a patron’s ambitions and his ability to realise them. While a layman of more modest fortune might show all the signs of an active, personally interested patron, he often lacked the resources to endow his house generously, or even sufficiently, and to make a noteworthy impact on the community. It has been shown that the endowments which continued to flow into communities of female religious throughout the later Middle Ages from royal

213 214 215 216

VCH Hants. II, p.150. Ibid. MRH, p.277. Ibid., p.272.


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and lay benefactors alike were often of a generous nature.217 With the help of medieval wills an attempt can be made at establishing to what extent the hereditary patrons of the monasteries, male as well as female, contributed to this generosity. Roberta Gilchrist and Marilyn Oliva have argued, in their study of religious women in East Anglia, that the nunneries within the diocese of Norwich were favoured as recipients of benefactions by the local gentry over their male counterparts.218 Using medieval wills, they have likewise shown that ‘both parish gentry and county residents’ preferred burial in houses of nuns to those of canons or monks in that diocese.219 However, the present study has been unable to relate these figures to the hereditary patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries. Indeed, examination of later medieval lay patrons’ wills reveals a rather striking predominance of bequests of every kind to houses of male religious, with male Augustinian communities emerging as the main beneficiaries of these bequests in every collection of medieval wills investigated. Significantly, one of the few documents concerning nunneries and their later lay patrons is a charter of 1450 by John, Chief Baron Fray, patron of the Benedictine nunnery of Rowney in Hertfordshire, by which the patron granted the advowson of the priory to John Markham, justice of the king’s bench, and others, together with the advowson of Munden Furnival. 220 Material benefactions to religious houses aside, an indicator of active and/or interested patronage was the decision made by a patron to choose his or her monastery or nunnery as their burial place. By the fourteenth century this practice was on the decline, as far as the lay patrons of the English and Welsh religious houses were concerned.221 However, the surviving evidence shows that where this custom was continued by lay patrons, they overwhelmingly made their decision in favour of male monasteries.222 The numbers of lay patrons preferring to be laid to rest within the precincts of their male monasteries far outnumbered those who sought burial in female houses. Over 350 late medieval burials of lay patrons in their religious houses are known to us. No more than ten of these are burials in nunneries.223 The request for burial was normally accompanied by benefactions to the religious house, usually in the shape of money, livestock, books or other objects, and consequently it appears that male houses were more frequently the recipients of bequests made by their patrons in this context, too, than were their female counterparts. 217 218 219 220 221 222

223

See especially R. Gilchrist and M. Oliva’s study of East Anglia, Religious Women in Medieval East Anglia (Norwich, 1993), e.g. p.60. Ibid. Ibid., p.62. PRO E315/52/1. But see Chapter 3 below. The choice of a patron’s burial place was affected by a range of issues, of which concern for his soul was crucially important. The perceived spiritual inferiority of female religious houses – nuns could not celebrate mass – might have influenced many a lay patron’s ultimate decision in favour of a male monastery. Undoubtedly further research will identify further patronal burials in both monasteries and nunneries and consequently these figures can only be an estimate.

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Gilchrist and Oliva have argued that nuns often had a different, somewhat closer relationship with the local gentry and nobility than monks had, which resulted in the popularity of female communities and consequently the display of support and generosity by the laity to their houses. As far as the patrons of these houses are concerned, this closeness evidently did not always exist. The phenomenon of multiple patronage, which affected many nunneries and which has already been discussed, meant that patrons did not necessarily reside anywhere near their religious houses and that they did not necessarily have a particularly personal attachment to them. This was as true for female as it was for male abbeys and priories in later medieval England and Wales. Very few nunneries remained in the hands of the same family throughout their history. One that did was the Benedictine priory of Marrick (Yorks.), which had been founded in the 1150s by Roger de Aske.224 By the fourteenth century the patron was another Roger de Aske, and at the Dissolution the patronage was still in the hands of a relative of the same surname.225 The patronage of the Cluniac nunnery of Arthington (Yorks.) likewise continued in the male line of the same family from foundation to Dissolution. The founder in the mid-twelfth century was Peter de Arthington, with whose family the patronage remained until the Dissolution, when the patron was a certain Henry Arthington.226 The fact that perhaps not many more than two English nunneries remained in the hands of the same family in the male line throughout their history is not a noteworthy observation in itself. Seen in comparison with houses of male religious, however, the question arises as to whether lay patrons were more prepared to part with the advowsons of their nunneries than with those of their monasteries, as evidently happened in the case of Rowney Priory in Hertfordshire. There is, however, no evidence to prove that this was a common occurrence. It is clear, then, that while houses of male religious have left considerably more evidence for the identity and actions of their later medieval lay patrons than those of female religious, to speak of active discrimination against nunneries in favour of monasteries in later medieval England and Wales, or of biased attitudes in general, is problematic. The imbalance in the evidence is partly due to the fact that male monasteries included rather fewer of the desperately impecunious and obscure houses, and that male communities have often left more in terms of documentary records. It has to be remembered also that nunneries were greatly outnumbered by houses of monks and canons, who have therefore simply left a much greater amount of documentation overall.

224 225 226

MRH, p.261. Cf. Mon. IV, pp.244–8. Mon. IV, p. 518; MRH, p.270.


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Conclusions Prayers, hospitality, elections or bequests – we can identify without great difficulty a wide range of interactions between late medieval religious communities and their lay patrons. Lay participation in monastic affairs emerges from the evidence as a noteworthy element in the history of the religious houses, to a much more significant extent than has previously been recognised. The amount and nature of patronal activity in late medieval England and Wales must be considered in the context of dwindling numbers of lay patrons, whereby the evidence for those lay patrons who remained active and interested during this period becomes particularly important. Despite the general climate of declining patronal activity, it is evident that a significant number of later lay patrons continued to value the rights and duties which the patronage of religious houses entailed, and they maintained an active relationship with their monasteries and nunneries throughout the period. These men and women must not be ignored, nor their importance – not only for the patronage of religious houses, but also, more broadly, for late medieval lay piety in general – be undervalued.

Burial Preferences of Monastic Patrons

3 The Burial Preferences of Monastic Patrons in the Later Middle Ages

The place of burial held particular significance for the medieval lay community; choosing one’s burial site was a serious consideration and not one to be taken lightly.1 At the heart of choosing a burial place lay the concern of the laity for the welfare of their souls after their death, and they recognised that central to the salvation of their souls were the prayers of those whose lives were dedicated to this purpose. The founders and patrons of religious houses therefore had the great fortune of being able to avail themselves of perpetual intercessory services through their inherited right to be buried in the monasteries and nunneries of their foundation. Burial in the precinct of their monastery was thus an important privilege for the founders and early patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries and one, judging by their wills, which was highly prized and considered very carefully. To be buried within the conventual church or buildings of their religious houses was seen as providing particular physical proximity to the prayers of the monks and hence the greatest possible spiritual benefits, since the prayers of the religious community were believed to help reduce a sinner’s suffering in purgatory, which presented a very real threat to the medieval laity. In fact, burial in any religious establishment was greatly sought after, but to be interred in one’s own family monastery had some particular, additional advantages for its founders and patrons. First of all, there was the personal connection. The founder or patron of a monastery who chose to be buried in his house had the security of being familiar with the monastery and its community, and with the nature of the services. He could therefore expect and depend upon a high level of prayers to be maintained, and his soul was consequently well looked after. Then there were issues of status. Founders and patrons of an abbey or priory, even a small one, had at their disposal a particularly grand potential mauso-

1

On medieval burial, see for example C. Daniell, Death and Burial in Medieval England, 1066–1550 (London, 1997); B. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions: An aspect of monastic patronage in thirteenth-century England’ in England in the Thirteenth Century, ed. W.M. Ormrod (Woodbridge, 1986); P. Binski, Medieval Death, Ritual and Representation (New York, 1996); or N. Saul, Death, Art, and Memory in Medieval England: The Cobham Family and their Monuments, 1300–1500 (Oxford, 2001).

BURIAL PREFERENCES OF MONASTIC PATRONS

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leum. This was significant, as burial within the family monastery was also an expression of a layman’s importance, wealth and standing in society. Quite how important this aspect was for the laity can be shown by the fact that those who were patrons of more than one monastery tended to discriminate in favour of their more prestigious houses.2 Several generations of the Berkeley family, for instance, who held the patronage of numerous monasteries and nunneries, chose the grand Augustinian abbey of St Augustine’s in Bristol, which was their grandest and most impressive house, for their dynastic mausoleum. 3 The choice of a patron’s burial place could moreover be determined by the location of his residence. Changing his residence could influence a patron’s choice of sepulchre for the simple reason that the family’s traditional place of burial might no longer be conveniently situated following the move of the family seat. Traditionally, a family’s main monastery was originally founded in relative proximity to their main residence; however, later patrons who had the choice might prefer another location, move their caput there and choose a different religious house, one that was more conveniently located in relation to their new home, for burial. The decision to be buried in the family monastery was also a financial consideration.4 The choice of a burial place within their own monastery necessitated no special chantry chapel to be erected by the patron; he could instead choose burial in a tomb near his ancestors, either with a brass or modest gravestone, like the brass of John Wingfield (d.1389), patron of Letheringham Priory (Suffolk), or with a more elaborate effigy of wood, alabaster or stone to decorate his final resting place, like those of the patrons John and William, lords Hastings (d.1325 and 1348), in Abergavenny Priory (Monmouthshire), or the somewhat more glamorous effigies of various de Clare earls of Gloucester and their successors in Tewkesbury Abbey.5 As regards the cost of burial, while a patron’s right to be interred in his religious house, without having to purchase the privilege, constituted one of the perks of his position, it was nonetheless customary to provide for one’s funeral. The extent to which this was actually done, however, varied considerably. Thus John de Vere, earl of Oxford, made a vastly generous bequest of money, vestments and other valuables to Earls Colne Priory when he directed that his body

2

3 4 5

The wish to be buried close to the family’s main residence and in impressive surroundings might pose a problem for patrons of Cistercian monasteries, which were traditionally located in remote places, often in wildernesses. And founders of Carthusian monasteries were faced with the dilemma that the conventual churches tended to be rather modest in both size and splendour. While the prayers of these more austere orders were regarded as particularly effective, the concern for the well-being of one’s soul thus came into conflict with the desire to erect an imposing tomb that would be seen and visited. During the fourteenth and again in the sixteenth century, no fewer than nine Berkeleys were interred in the church of St Augustine’s. On burial fees note for instance Daniell, Death and Burial, pp.59–63. Their well-preserved effigies can still be seen in the former conventual churches of Abergavenny Priory and Tewkesbury Abbey today. Also buried in Abergavenny Priory was Lawrence lord Hastings (d.1348).

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be buried in the church there in 1509,6 while Isabel Fauconberg simply left 20s.7 Thomas lord Berkeley’s bequest of ‘a gilt cross with all the relics included therein’ was made in order to secure the privilege of burial wherever it were to take place.8 And Agnes, countess of Pembroke, left certain items to Abergavenny Priory, ‘where my husband lies buried’, while herself asking to be laid to rest at the Minories in London.9 It is, of course, not always known to what extent the individuals in question had been active benefactors of the monasteries during their lifetime, and had provided support, financial and otherwise, to the houses they were to choose for burial. For a patron, then, burial in his monastery brought with it some considerable advantages. As the patron of a house he could expect a high level of commitment from the religious community of the monastery he had chosen as his burial place, especially where the relationship between the patron and the religious community was close. This commitment was reflected in the prayers of the monks, canons or nuns, among which prayers for his own soul were a priority. Thus for example the canons of Haughmond Abbey (Salop) said a requiem for Edmund FitzAlan, earl of Arundel (d.1326), their patron, every Wednesday.10 The great importance attached to the convent’s prayers was also reflected in the laity’s desire to be buried as close as possible to where the intercessory action took place. The position of a tomb was, naturally, of immense importance, as was the tomb itself, and as part of the control he exerted over his monastery, the patron normally had the right to choose his burial place within the house. Wills and other records specifying the location of a patron’s burial inside a monastery give a clear hint as to the laity’s preferences. The conventual church in general, as well as the chapter house, were among the most desired spots. Burial inside the monastic church was usually specified further, the most popular part of the church for burial being the east end, especially the Lady Chapel, both the north and the south choir aisles, as well as the high altar, in front of or beside which many a lay patron was laid to rest. John de Vere was no exception when he requested in his will of 1509 to be buried ‘tofore the Highe Aulter of our Lady Chapell in the Priory of Colne in the Countie of Essex in a tombe whiche I have made and ordeyned for me and Margaret my late wif where she now lieth buried’.11 The burial place of William lord Latimer, who died in the year 1381, is said to have been situated ‘at the high altar of Guisborough Priory’,12 while Robert Ufford, earl of Suffolk, requested in 1368 to be buried in the priory church of Campsey Ash (Suffolk), ‘under the arch

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, pp.310–48. TE I, no.206. TV, p.190. Ibid., p.72. Haughmond Cartulary, no.461. ‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, p.310. GEC VII, p.469.


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betwixt the high altar and St Nicholas Chapel’.13 Although the desired location of the tomb was often specified by the testator in his will, it can not always be established with absolute certainty whether or not the dying person’s wish was actually fulfilled. In fact, in some cases we know that it was not. Despite her request to be interred in her new chantry in Christchurch Priory (Hants.), Margaret, countess of Salisbury, was buried in St Peter’s-ad-Vincula in the Tower of London, following her execution for treason in 1541. 14 If considerable thought was invested in the planning and location of one’s burial,15 the same was often, though not always, true of the physical appearance of the tomb. Sir Robert Tailboys was in no way unusual when he requested in his will composed in 1494 to ‘have a picture of me, and another of my wife’ made over his tomb in his Augustinian priory of Kyme (Lincs.). 16 The initial decision taken by a founder and his relatives to be buried in their monastery frequently developed into a family tradition, with later generations following their ancestors’ example. The significance of the monastery as a dynastic burial site was thus greatly enhanced, as burial in the house henceforth meant proximity not only to the prayers of the religious community, but also to previous generations of family members. The importance of this is evident in patrons’ wills, where the location of the patron’s own tomb is often specified in relation to those of his parents or ancestors who were already buried in the house, as in John de Vere’s will, just mentioned, who asked to be buried with his wife. In this request, de Vere was following the example of his ancestor, another John de Vere, who had asked in his will of 1358 to be buried in the Lady Chapel of Earls Colne Priory, ‘at the head of John and Robert, my sons, who are there buried’.17 The tombs of spouses, and also of parents and, less frequently, of siblings, were regularly chosen for sepulchral company by monastic patrons preparing for death. Thus in 1416 Isabel Ufford, countess of Suffolk, asked in her will to be interred ‘near my husband’ in the church of Campsey Ash Priory, of which nunnery she was patroness,18 and in 1398, Sir Philip d’Arcy requested burial in his Augustinian priory of Guisborough (Yorks.), ‘juxta sepulcrum patris mei’.19 A burial tradition thus established was normally continued by subsequent generations until a conscious decision was made to break it and to choose burial elsewhere. This decision might be taken when a family failed in the male line and the patronage of a house was taken over by a new dynasty. A considerable 13 14 15

16 17 18 19

TV, pp.73–4. GEC XI, p.401. Note V. Harding’s comments on the importance of the burial location (in churches in general). She has pointed out that particular places within the church retained their popularity as burial places, ‘even after the Reformation changed their immediate function’ (Harding, ‘Choices and Changes: Death, Burial and the English Reformation’ in D. Gaimster and R. Gilchrist (eds), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580 (Leeds, 2003), p.389). TV, p.420. Ibid., p.72. Ibid., p.193. TV p.146; TE I, no.185.

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proportion of aristocratic families died out in the direct line in each generation and the patronage of their monasteries passed to more distant family members with a different place of residence. The tradition of family burial might in this case be broken and the house be neglected in favour of a more convenient site for the new patrons. A family might acquire a more prestigious monastery by inheritance and decide to move their mausoleum to the new, more imposing site. A change in fashion-preferences might have the same effect. It is noteworthy that all these cases presuppose a changed situation of some sort in order to break an often long-standing tradition. Susan Wood and Brian Golding have shown that both dynastic ties and the personal attachment of a patron and his family to their monastery presented a strong incentive for the continuation of burial traditions by patrons, and that these traditions tended to be broken only under extraordinary circumstances, such as death abroad or the break of a patron with his house, or indeed the event of the end of a dynasty and the consequent shift of the patronage from one family to another.20 Honouring a family tradition was a key factor which determined the decision to be buried in close proximity to the graves of family members and ancestors. Personal attachment to a monastery, too, was of considerable importance, as were the advantages which resulted from this, such as securing the prayers of a community, which ideally had an established relationship with the family who held the patronage. Golding has demonstrated that these traditions were normally continued where the family line continued, in which case a shift of burial place to a different site was very rare.21 This shift might, however, occur if a patron wanted to show his extreme displeasure with his house, and it could be regarded as a potent signal of the breakdown of the patronal relationship, rather than a demonstration of preference towards a newly acquired foundation.

The Later Middle Ages: Changing Patterns During the earlier period the reasons for both continuity and change of patrons’ burial practices had followed much more clearly defined patterns, whereas by the later Middle Ages, the laity’s burial preferences were changing. From the fourteenth century onwards, laymen and laywomen were increasingly choosing burial places other than those of their ancestors in the family monasteries, or in the religious houses of their own foundation. In growing numbers they can be seen to prefer parish churches, secular colleges or chantries as their choice of final resting-place instead, and the number of lay patrons’ burials in monasteries gradually diminished. Interestingly, at the same time, more mere benefactors sought burial in the monasteries to which they lent their support, financial and otherwise. Burial in monasteries thus became less exclusive. 22 20 21 22

Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.64; Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, p.129. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.74. Note the example of Christchurch Priory (Hants.), which retained its popularity as burial place for its benefactors rather than its own patrons. The surviving burial monuments in


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There can be no doubt that from the fourteenth century onwards laymen and laywomen were showing less interest in religious communities in general; the numerous houses of monks, canons and nuns were no longer the only, or even the main focus of a layman’s generosity or pious attention. Instead, with the growing popularity of alternative types of foundations, patrons who had at some point in their lives invested in the foundation of, for instance, a chantry chapel now had the option, at the hour of death, to choose to be buried in it.23 Thus while the advantages already mentioned caused burial in a monastery to remain an attractive option for some patrons, during the later Middle Ages there was an increasing demand for burial elsewhere. Personal preferences and current fashions encouraged what some have called individualism, which was no longer satisfied with the traditional liturgy provided by the monasteries, which no longer offered the kind of flexibility people now increasingly strove to find. Houses of friars, secular colleges, parish churches and chantry chapels in particular became the focus of patrons’ interest and generosity during the later Middle Ages in England and Wales.24 These types of foundation offered to patrons what the more traditional monasteries could not: a greater influence on the shape of their piety and hence more control over the prayers of the community, as well as often being a grander and more fashionable option for burial. In the case of chantry chapels, prayers and services could be specified by founders in chantry deeds and statutes. The rather more old-fashioned liturgical practices, defined by the increasingly outdated rules of the regular institutions, came to be regarded as less flexible, less personal, and hence less attractive than those of the secular houses, and in some instances chantries were founded by patrons inside their family monasteries, as at Christchurch Priory and Boxgrove Priory. Freestanding colleges, however, were costly foundations and became increasingly so during the later years of the Middle Ages. Although many potential lay founders simply could not afford to establish colleges, several important secular colleges were nevertheless founded by lay folk during this period, and subsequently came to take the place of the monasteries as burial sites. The secular college of Pleshey in Essex, founded in 1394, took the place, albeit for one generation only, of the Benedictine abbey of Walden, also in Essex, formerly the family burial site of the Bohuns, while the earls of Westmorland moved their sepulchre to the college of Staindrop in Durham from the fifteenth

23

24

the priory church bear testimony to this: as many as eight chantries can still be seen in the church of the former monastery. Only one of these, however, can be associated with the actual patrons of Christchurch Priory. On the late medieval laity’s sepulchral predilections and their burial preferences cf. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’; Daniell, Death and Burial; Wood, Monasteries and their Patrons, and also Brown, Popular Piety; Whiting, Blind Devotion; Harding, ‘Choices and Changes’ and Saul, Death, Art, and Memory. Note especially S. Roffey’s work on the changing role of chantry chapels, ‘Deconstructing a Symbolic World: The Reformation and the English Medieval Parish Chantry’ in D. Gaimster and R. Gilchrist (eds), The Archaeology of Reformation 1480–1580 (Leeds, 2003), pp.342–55.

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century onwards.25 Other secular colleges, too, became the focus of endowments by the laity, and the chosen burial places of their families. Cobham in Kent was founded by John Cobham (d.1408) in 1362, who endowed the same with lands and rents. He was later buried there.26 The earls of Arundel built a grand secular college at Arundel, they which briefly used as their sepulchre in the late fourteenth century, though for one generation only, replacing the Cluniac priory of Lewes in Sussex.27 The hospital of Ewelme in Oxford, a foundation of William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, and his wife Alice, was completed in the mid-fifteenth century, and was to become the resting place of several members of the family, who preferred Ewelme to both their Charterhouse at Hull and their college at South Wingfield, former burial places of the de la Poles.28 Alice herself was later buried in the hospital where she had built a magnificent tomb and chantry.29 But the trend was not only towards new, fashionable, often secular, foundations. There was also a clear tendency by patrons to prefer some of the more distinguished monasteries to their own foundations for the purpose of burial. Choosing a burial site was a conscious decision, and patrons who sought to be buried in one of the more magnificent abbeys in the country, such as St Mary’s in York, or St Albans, instead of choosing their own, normally less prestigious monasteries, were not actually turning their backs on monasticism as such. Instead they opted for a monastic burial on a somewhat grander scale. 30 The greater choice of burial options, however, was not the only reason why fewer monastic patrons chose their family monasteries to become their mausolea. The decreasing usage of religious houses as burial sites for hereditary patrons and their families can also be linked to the declining number of eligible patrons, as well as to the growing remoteness between patrons and their monasteries. By the later Middle Ages the number of patrons potentially seeking burial in their monasteries had diminished in two ways: as the patronage of monasteries passed to the crown, fewer houses remained in the hands of the laity, while the phenomenon of multiple patronage further affected the number of laymen seeking burial in monasteries: Patrons of more than one religious house were normally only buried in one of them, with the cessation of heart burials in the later Middle Ages. Before looking more closely at the burial preferences of late medieval English and Welsh monastic patrons, then, it is necessary to consider briefly the issue of multiple patronage and its consequences for overall burial patterns.

25 26 27 28 29 30

On the foundation of Staindrop, see CPR 1408–13, p.35. On John Cobham’s brass in Cobham College, see Saul, Death, Art, and Memory, p.78, for an illustration see ibid. p.91. On the endowment of Arundel College, note e.g. CPR 1347–77, p.129. CPR 1436–41, p.80; MRH, p.358. Cf. J.T. Rosenthal, The Purchase of Paradise – Gift Giving and the Aristocracy, 1307–1485 (London, 1972), pp.71–2. In 1455, for instance, Thomas lord Clifford, patron of the Cistercian abbey of Roche (Yorks.) was interred not in this abbey, but in the grand Benedictine abbey of St Albans.


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Patrons who held the patronage of more than one religious house had to make a decision regarding their burial. This involved discriminating in favour of one of their monasteries and consequently neglecting the others as potential burial places. The Luttrell family, for example, were patrons of four monasteries in the later Middle Ages: the Augustinian houses of Bruton (Somerset) and Flitcham (Norfolk), the Premonstratensian abbey of Torre (Devon), and the small impecunious Benedictine cell of Dunster (Somerset). Interestingly, it was the last that was the preferred burial place of the Luttrells.31 At first glance this seems remarkable. With an annual income of only £37, Dunster was by far the family’s poorest house.32 However, the priory was very conveniently located for the family, whose main seat was at Dunster Castle, whereas, though much grander, Bruton Abbey was at least forty miles away, and Torre Abbey still further. Nor was the family the first to favour the house. Dunster had previously been popular with the Mohun family, who were the predecessors of the Luttrells in the patronage of Dunster, Bruton and Torre.33 If the Luttrells had to choose between four monasteries, the de Veres were faced with the choice of no fewer than eight abbeys and priories as potential burial places. Of their many religious foundations, Earls Colne Priory was the main de Vere mausoleum, being both their most prestigious house and conveniently located near one of the family’s residences. The main de Vere seat was at Castle Hedingham in Essex, so that the most commodiously situated house was their Benedictine nunnery there. Castle Hedingham nunnery, however, was a less splendid option for burial, which, being a nunnery, also happened to be perceived as spiritually less effective. Thirdly, the Stanley family, patrons of the small Premonstratensian house of Hornby (Lancs.), the Benedictine priory of Birkenhead (Cheshire) and the Augustinian priory of Burscough (Lancs.) also, not unlike the de Veres, chose their most prosperous monastery for burial when they opted for Burscough. 34 These examples illustrate how patrons with several religious houses had to decide which of them to elect for their mausoleum. The reasons behind their choices varied from case to case. There is some indication of patrons’ bias towards their wealthier, more prestigious houses, existing family burial traditions, or proximity to home. As far as affluence is concerned, there was, naturally, a connection with a family’s main monastery and the degree of its prosperity, as the monasteries preferred by patrons for burial were normally also the main recipients of their generosity.35 In some cases different generations of patrons of a plurality of houses chose different monasteries for burial, instead of following an established tradition. 31 32 33 34

35

MRH, p.53. Ibid. In 1330, for example, John de Mohun was buried in the house (GEC IX, p.23). Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby requested burial in Burscough Priory, where his ancestors, including his parents, already lay buried, in 1504. Another Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby, did likewise in 1521 (TV, pp.458, 589). Some later family members, on the other hand, preferred Hornby Priory to Burscough. Among them was Edward Stanley, who chose burial in Hornby in 1524 (NCW, no.82). One need only take a look at John de Vere earl of Oxford’s will to find this confirmed (‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, pp.310–48).

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Successive generations of the Ros family did just that. This family, patrons of more than half a dozen religious houses, has been noted for its involvement with its monasteries. The religious houses of which members of the family were patrons included the Cistercian abbeys of Rievaulx (Yorks.) and Warden (Beds.), a house of Benedictine monks (Belvoir Priory in Lincolnshire), as well as several Augustinian monasteries, namely the priory of Pentney (Norfolk), Warter Priory (Yorks.), Kirkham Priory (Yorks.), and the small cell of Carham (Northumberl.). The Yorkshire priory of Kirkham had been the preferred monastery of the family, and their main burial place during the thirteenth century. Two more burials followed in 1316 and 1342,36 and the house then appears to have lost its monopoly as family mausoleum to Rievaulx Abbey during the following century. Our knowledge of burials of patrons at Rievaulx during this period is somewhat scanty, but there is evidence for at least four instances of patrons’ interments in the abbey church, all dating from the fourteenth century and all involving members of the Ros family. In 1314 William de Ros was interred in the abbey.37 Seventy years later, Thomas de Ros (d.1384) chose to be buried there too.38 And in 1393 John lord Ros was laid to rest to the south of the high altar of the abbey church of Rievaulx,39 followed by his wife Mary, lady Ros, who composed her will in 1394.40 Emilia Jamroziak has pointed out that the later patrons of Rievaulx moved their burial place in the abbey from the western part of the church to the more prominent location by the high altar.41 With this move they followed the current trend, which saw the high altar increasingly become the focus of patrons’ burial requests. In the fifteenth century, Beatrice lady Ros moved away from Rievaulx when she sought burial in her Augustinian priory of Warter, ‘infra choram ecclesiæ prioratus’, instead,42 and William and John, lords Ros (d.1414, 1421), chose Belvoir Priory for burial. In the case of the Ros family, then, the continuation of a dynastic burial tradition was treated as secondary to other decisive factors, and the family’s preferences changed over time. The association of the Ros family with their Augustinian priory of Kirkham was moreover manifest in the extravagant display of heraldry on the monastery gate house, a very firm expression of the family’s links with this house. No such large-scale demonstration is known to have existed at any of their other religious houses. The Augustinian priory of Pentney (Norfolk) provides an equally complex example for family preferences of burial sites, despite the fact that comparatively little evidence has been found for burials of patrons in the monastery.

36

37 38 39 40 41 42

J. Burton, in her study on Kirkham Priory, has identified two of their burial places, stating that ‘the marble tomb of William de Ros, who died in 1316, evidently lay at the north side, and the stone mausoleum of his son William (d.1343) at the south’ (J. Burton, Kirkham Priory from Foundation to Dissolution, Borthwick Paper, no.86, p.23). Mon.V, pp.280–1. Ibid. GEC XI, pp.89–108. TE I, no.160. Jamroziak, Rievaulx Abbey, p.50. TE I, no.270.


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Pentney Priory was founded around the year 1130 by Robert de Vaux.43 When a later patron, one John de Vaux, great-grandson of the original founder, died in 1288 without a male heir, the patronage of the house passed to his daughters, Petronilla, wife of Sir William de Nerford,44 and Maud, wife of William de Ros.45 Around that time, in 1291, the Taxatio Ecclesiastica recorded the annual income of the house as around £68, presenting Pentney as moderately well endowed.46 During the fourteenth century, at least three members of the Ros family sought burial in Pentney Priory. Maud de Ros herself was buried in the monastery before 1316, unlike her husband, who favoured his own family’s Augustinian priory of Kirkham in Yorkshire when he died 1316.47 The eighteenth-century antiquarian John Weever noted the tomb of Petronilla de Nerford, who was interred in Pentney in the year 1326.48 The third burial in Pentney during this period was that of John de Nerford, who died in 1328, and who appears to be the same man as the Iohannes de Neirford whose grave in Pentney Priory was recorded but not dated by Weever in the 1760s.49 No further descendants of Petronilla or Maud appear to have chosen burial in the monastery after this date. The descendants of the latter instead preferred other of the Ros family’s foundations, particularly the Benedictine house of Belvoir (Lincs.) and the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx (Yorks.). For families who held the patronage of several religious houses, it was thus not always entirely straightforward to develop a firm family burial tradition which was associated with one monastery only. As time went on, different patrons had different priorities and preferences, and might shift their attention from one of their monasteries to another – or, indeed, to a different type of burial place altogether. This behaviour mirrors the general attitude of patrons of multiple monasteries to their abbeys and priories: they could not normally pay much attention to all or even, in the case of patrons with numerous houses, most of their monasteries and were therefore normally discriminatory.

Family Burial Patterns: Trends and Traditions While the tradition of patronal burial in monasteries was gradually diminishing during the later Middle Ages, it was by no means dying out. Despite the growing choice of alternative burial places and their growing popularity, a considerable number of patrons still chose to be buried in their monasteries, many of which housed the graves of their ancestors, in some cases up to the 43 44 45 46 47

48 49

MRH, p.170. GEC IX, p.469; VCH Norfolk II, p.388. GEC XI, p.97. At the time of the Valor Ecclesiasticus in c.1535, the priory’s income had increased to over £170 annually (MRH, p.170). Maud’s body was interred in the priory church of Pentney, but her bowels were buried in the wall of Belvoir Priory (Lincs.), of which her husband’s family held the patronage (GEC XI, pp.97). Antient Funeral Monuments, ed. J. Weever (London, 1767), p.758. GEC IX, p.470; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.758.

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Dissolution. In doing so, patrons were testifying to a continuing link between themselves and the religious houses under their patronage, all the more significant when considered in the context of the growing range of options and changing fashions of the time. This link, according to Golding, was interpreted differently by the two parties. For the lay patron it was first and foremost a ‘symbol of loyalty to, and continuity with the family’, that is, the generations of his ancestors already buried in the house, while the monastic community perceived it as a symbol of loyalty to the religious house and community.50 It is of course difficult to gauge the exact nature of the sentiments underlying some of the actions of late medieval lay patrons, but seen in the wider context of active patronage during this period, there is a strong sense of a bond which, in some cases, went beyond the immediately obvious continuation of a family tradition. Continuing the family tradition Where the graves of monastic patrons can be identified, or where their wish to be interred in their monasteries is recorded in their wills, whether or not this wish was in reality executed, we can see that different families pursued different patterns of burial preference. The reasons behind their choices were very often obvious. Perhaps the most straightforward choice for a monastic patron in the later Middle Ages was to continue a family tradition begun by previous generations of his forebears. This was an even more obvious choice if the house had been founded by a direct member of his lineage. The priory of Earls Colne is a particularly striking example for a family burial tradition which continued throughout the history of the monastery. The house had been founded by Aubrey de Vere in the twelfth century, and ties between the family and the convent appear to have remained close during the following centuries.51 At least ten instances of burial of a member of the de Vere family can be identified for the fourteenth century alone, as well as three for the fifteenth century and four for the sixteenth century. The first record of a patronal burial in the priory after 1300 relates to that of Alice, widow of Robert de Vere, who was buried at Earls Colne in 1312.52 Further members of the family who sought burial in the priory during the fourteenth century include Robert de Vere (d.1331),53 John de Vere (d.1350),54 and another John de Vere (will dated 1359) and his family: his wife Maud (d.1366) and his sons John and Robert, who had predeceased him.55 Their burials were followed by those of Thomas de Vere in 1371,56 and 50 51 52 53 54 55 56

Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.74. MRH, p.64. Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. Her husband had been interred in the house in 1296, without his heart, which was buried at the Grey Friars’ of Ipswich (GEC X, p.216). Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. GEC X, p.225. TV, p.62; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. TV, p.87; Sepulchral Monuments in Great Britain, ed. R. Gough (London, 1786), I.1, ccii.


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Robert and Richard de Vere c.1392.57 The fifteenth century saw the funerals in the priory church of Aubrey de Vere (d.1400), Richard de Vere (d.1417), and Richard’s second wife Alice,58 and the sixteenth century those of George de Vere (d.1503),59 John de Vere (d.1513),60 and his wife Margaret, who was buried in the priory before him.61 The last burial recorded for a member of the family in Earls Colne Priory is that of yet another John de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who died in 1526.62 The decision made by members of the de Vere family to choose burial in Earls Colne seems to have been the obvious continuation of a family tradition begun several centuries previously. Between the foundation and the suppression of the priory, generation after generation of members of this family preferred the monastery to alternative options for burial, defying the general trend of the time to seek burial elsewhere. Like all houses of the Benedictine order, Earls Colne was dependent upon continued endowments from its patrons and benefactors, and judging by the fact that the religious community of the house continued to grant burial to its patrons, it seems clear that the symbiotic relationship which ideally existed between monasteries and their patrons was still intact in the case of Earls Colne right up to the Dissolution. This impression is more than confirmed upon recalling the will of John de Vere (d.1513) and its enormously generous list of bequests to Earls Colne.63 The de Veres held the patronage of several other monasteries, too, most of which were located in Essex, where the family lived. Among those was another Benedictine monastery, the priory of Hatfield Broad Oak, in which church an earlier earl of Oxford, Robert de Vere, had chosen to be buried in 1221.64 This and some other family burials elsewhere aside, the de Vere family demonstrated a very firm loyalty both to Earls Colne Priory, their preferred religious house, and to dynastic integrity, both in life and in death. The Benedictine abbey of Walden in Essex is another remarkable example of sustained ties between a house and its patrons, which continued even as the patronage had passed out of the hands of the family and to the crown. The Bohuns, earls of Essex, were the patrons of this abbey, which had been founded by Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, in 1136x1144.65 In 1373, following the death of the last Bohun earl, the estates of the family were divided between Thomas duke of Gloucester and Henry duke of Lancaster. The share of the possessions of the latter included the patronage of Walden Abbey, which thus passed to the duchy of Lancaster whence it came to the crown following the

57 58 59 60

61 62 63 64 65

Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372; Sep. Mon. II.2, ii. Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372; TV, p.192. TV, p.445. John de Vere asked to be buried by the altar in the Lady Chapel, ‘in a tomb which I have made for me and Margaret my late wife, where she is now buried’ (ibid., pp.526–7); Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. TV, pp.526–7. GEC X, p.239; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. ‘The Last Testament of John de Veer’, pp.310–48. GEC X, p.197. MRH, p.79.

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accession of Henry of Lancaster as Henry IV in 1399. The other co-heirs of the Bohun estates, the Staffords, were then forced by Henry V in 1421 to exchange their part, that is the Essex part, of the inheritance for the family’s Welsh lands, which included the Augustinian house of Llanthony Secunda (Glos.), but despite the loss of the patronage of Walden Abbey, one further member of the Bohun family nonetheless sought burial in the house. At her death in 1419, Joan, widow of Humphrey de Bohun, the last earl (d.1373), was interred in the abbey with her late husband, who already lay buried there.66 Earlier, during the fourteenth and early fifteenth century, Walden had been a popular burial place for members of the Bohun family, and at least six family members had chosen to be buried in the house, continuing an existing family tradition. Alianore, wife of Robert de Ferrers, earl of Derby, and daughter of Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Hereford, was buried in Walden in 1314.67 Hers was the first Bohun burial in the abbey in the fourteenth century. Two years later, in 1316, Elizabeth, wife of Humphrey de Bohun, was likewise laid to rest in Walden,68 followed, in 1360, by William de Bohun, earl of Northampton,69 and in 1373 by Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Essex, Hereford and Northampton.70 Several other patrons, including members of the de Mandeville family and previous generations of the Bohuns, had been received for burial in the abbey before the year 1300, among them Humphrey de Bohun, earl of Essex, and his wife Maud de Fiennes, who had both died in the closing years of the thirteenth century.71 During the century of the duration of their patronage of Walden, the Bohuns appear to have regarded the monastery as their natural choice of burial place, despite the fact that the family held the patronage of several other monasteries in this country. Walden, however, was the grandest, and also the most impressive of them all and, with an annual income c.1535 exceeding £374, also the wealthiest.72 Among their other religious houses were the Augustinian priories of Llanthony Secunda in Gloucestershire, itself a major monastery, and Berden in Essex, as well as a number of Benedictine and Cluniac houses, including Brecon Priory (Brecknockshire) and Hurley Priory (Berks.) of the former, and Monkton Farleigh Priory (Wilts.) and Prittlewell Priory (Essex) of the latter order, all of which eventually passed to the crown.73 Although Llanthony and Brecon both saw burials of their patrons’ ancestors, none of the above houses 66

67 68

69 70 71 72 73

This Joan was known as a ‘great benefactress’ of Walden Abbey. She was apparently responsible for ‘repairing and adorning the nave, roofing it with lead and rebuilding the belfry’. Moreover, she ‘often gladdened the brethren on saints’ days with bread and wine’, and she gave them vestments and other gifts (GEC VI, pp.473–4). For the will of her husband, see TV, p.89. GEC IV, p.202. Ibid. VI, p.469. Her husband, Humphrey de Bohun, was killed in 1322. He was buried in the house of the York Black Friars, despite his wish, expressed in his will, to be laid to rest in Walden Abbey, near the body of his wife (ibid., p.470). Ibid. IX, p.667. Ibid. VI, p.473. Humphrey died in 1298 (ibid., p.463). MRH, p.57. See the Appendix below.


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appears to have been favoured for burial by later members of the family, despite the fact that both the Cluniac monastery of Prittlewell and the Augustinian priory of Berden, were, like Walden, located in Essex, the location of the chief residence of the Bohun family. Yet Walden Abbey, as well as being a particularly splendid edifice, was the most conveniently located of the family’s Essex monasteries. These practical considerations aside, the reasons why the Bohuns favoured Walden over any of their other monasteries should perhaps also be sought on a more personal level. The evidence of continued family burial suggests that the relationship between the two parties remained active throughout the period of their patronage.74 The kind of continued family tradition evident in Earls Colne and Walden, was quite extraordinary in that it embraced members of the patronal family over many generations. While perhaps less copious than in the above examples, burials in other houses, too, testify to an ongoing bond between the two parties, which, it has already been shown, tended to go hand in hand with continued benefactions to the convent and other types of contact. Nor were these traditions limited to any one religious order. Thus at the eminent Cluniac priory of Lewes (Sussex), numerous instances of patronal burial, and of that of members of their families, took place between the beginning of the fourteenth century and the suppression of the house in 1537. The earliest of these was that of John de Warenne, earl of Surrey, patron of Lewes, in the year 1304.75 A few decades later, the priory saw the burial of John de Warenne, who, in his will of 1347, had requested burial in the monastery, ‘en une arche pres del haut autier a la partie senestre quele jeo ay fait faire’.76 Through their wills we often get a particularly illuminating insight into patrons’ minds as they prepared for death. Their wills give us an indication of their priorities, but also of their anxieties. In his will of 1375, Richard FitzAlan, earl of Arundel and Surrey, asked to have his tomb erected near that of his late wife Eleanor, adding, rather modestly, ‘I desire that my tomb be no higher than hers’.77 This Eleanor, his second wife, was the daughter of Henry of Lancaster and had predeceased her husband in 1372.78 The next burial was that of John, earl of Arundel (d.1379), who asked for burial at Lewes, ‘in the great church there, under an arch near the Funeral chapel’.79 His widow Eleanor also requested burial in the priory when she died in 1404,80 as did Richard, earl of Arundel and Surrey, who specified burial in the priory, ‘behind the high altar’, in his will dated 1392. 81 Lewes Priory was an important English house of the Cluniac order. As well 74

75 76 77 78 79 80 81

The link between the two parties persisted throughout the period, even though the heirs of the Bohun family were responsible for the foundation of the secular college at Pleshey in Essex, which encroached briefly on Walden’s prevalence by taking the abbey’s place for family burial for one generation in the fifteenth century. GEC XII.1, p.500; Sep. Mon. I.1, p.cci. TE I, no.35. TV, p.94; GEC XII, p.512. TV, p.94; GEC I, p.240. TV, p.105; GEC I, p.240. GEC I, p.240. TV, p.129.

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as being the oldest and one of the most prestigious houses of the order in England and Wales, it was also by far the most prosperous of them all. It moreover housed one of the largest communities of Cluniac monks in Britain, still numbering over twenty-three monks at the time of the Dissolution.82 Founded by William de Warenne and his wife Gundreda as early as 1077, Lewes remained in the hands of the Warenne family for several centuries.83 When the earls of Arundel took over the patronage of the monastery from the Warennes, Lewes became their main family burial site until the family moved to their new foundation of Arundel College in the late fourteenth century. They had previously been buried at Haughmond Abbey in Shropshire, near their lordships of Clun and Oswestry, until they acquired the patronage of Lewes Priory, a much more prestigious monastery than Haughmond.84 In 1445 the patronage of the house was vested in Edmund Lenthale, son of one of the sisters and co-heirs general of Thomas, earl of Arundel and Surrey, who was the co-heir to the Warenne inheritance,85 and thereafter in the Mowbrays and Howards, dukes of Norfolk. The connection between the Warenne family and Lewes Priory had thus already been a long-standing one by the fourteenth century, and this family connection was without a doubt an important factor in the later patrons’ choice of burial location. The Arundels, on the other hand, were patrons of numerous monasteries during the later Middle Ages, and had more than one monastery to choose from for the burial of members of their family; and while the ties of patronage appear to have weakened during the fifteenth century, it is significant that this family continued to seek burial in Lewes even at this late date, despite the changing burial fashions which had for some time been emerging. Lewes, though, was a grand and prosperous house, the wealthiest monastery in the county of Sussex, and as such exemplified a particularly attractive mausoleum for a lay patron and his family. But it was not only the grander, wealthier monasteries that were favoured by their patrons, and that served as family sepulchres, often for several generations. Proof of this is the case of the small Trinitarian monastery of Ingham (Norfolk). Ingham was among the last houses of the Trinitarian order to be established in England, founded as late as 1360.86 The founder, Sir Miles Stapleton, second husband of Joan de Ingham, and his heirs maintained a close relationship with the monastery for the next century, and this was reflected in the number of family burials in the house during that period. The founder himself was buried in Ingham after his death in 1364, as was his wife Joan, who died in the following year.87 During the century between 1360 and 1460, at least seven other members of the same family chose burial in Ingham, among

82 83 84

85 86 87

MRH, p.100. Ibid. The relationship between the earls of Arundel with Haughmond Abbey, as the Haughmond Cartulary confirms, had been mutually interested and active, so their move to Lewes was particularly significant. VCH Sussex II, p.69. MRH, p.206. GEC XII, p.353; GEC VII, p.61.


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them another Sir Miles Stapleton (d.1419) and his wife Ela,88 two men named Bryan Stapleton (d.1422 and 1438 respectively),89 as well as the latter Sir Bryan’s wife Cecily, who died in 1432.90 The last recorded burial in the house before its dissolution in 1536 was that of yet another Sir Miles Stapleton, who died in the year 1466, with whose death the male line ceased.91 This Miles Stapleton was succeeded by his daughters Elizabeth and Joan.92 For the Stapletons, Ingham retained its importance as family mausoleum for over a century. Being a late foundation, ties between the family and the religious community were recently wrought and consequently close and personal when the first burial took place in the monastery. Much like Ingham, but on a grander scale, the patrons of the Augustinian priory of Letheringham in Suffolk also maintained a tradition of family burial in the monastery from the time they acquired the patronage of the house in the mid-fourteenth century. There is evidence for nearly twenty cases of burial of members of the Wingfield family between the mid-fourteenth century and 1540.93 The Wingfields inherited the patronage of Letheringham Priory through the marriage of Thomas Wingfield to the heiress of the de Bovile family, who were the original founders of the monastery, and who held the patronage until the year 1348.94 The burials recorded by Weever are therefore certain to post-date this event. This theory is strengthened by the order in which Weever names the various members of the Wingfield family in his work. His list concludes with the name, and date of death, of the last patron of Letheringham, Sir Anthony Wingfield, who died in 1540, three years after the suppression of his monastery.95 Six of the other burials in the house have been dated, namely that of John Wingfield (fourteenth century), that of William Wingfield (d.1398), those of Sir William Wingfield (d.1408) and Sir Robert Wingfield (d. 1409), and those of Sir Thomas and John Wingfield, who died late in the fifteenth century. The undated burials mentioned by Weever include those of two men of the name of Robert Wingfield, a certain Elizabeth Gonsall, wife of one of them, a Sir John Wingfield and his wife Elizabeth, another Sir Thomas Wingfield, Richard, Anne and Mary Wingfield, and yet another Thomas Wingfield, and Margaret.96 Some members of the Wingfield family had 88 89 90 91 92

93

94 95 96

GEC VII, p.61. Sep. Mon. I.1, p.ccii; GEC VII, p.61. GEC VII, p.61. His second wife, Katherine (d.1488), was buried in the Cistercian abbey of Rewley (Oxon.), not at Ingham (GEC VII, p.61). Elizabeth married firstly William Calthrope, secondly John Fortescue, Chief Justice of England, and thirdly Edward Howard. The patronage of Ingham passed to the Calthrope family through her marriage to William and remained in their hands until the Dissolution. Her sister Joan married firstly Christopher Harcourt and secondly John Hudleston. Sep. Mon. I.1, p.cciv; Sep. Mon. II.2, p.i; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.755. Unfortunately, most of these burials are undated, but it is possible to draw some conclusions regarding their dating by considering additional evidence we possess on the Wingfield family and their genealogy. VCH Suffolk II, p.108. Ant. Fun. Mon., p.755. Ibid.

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their tombs decorated with monumental brasses, two of which survive, one, dated 1389, of Sir John Wingfield and another, of 1481, of William Wingfield.97 Remarkably, if we consider the popularity of the monastery as burial place for its patrons, Letheringham Priory was among the poorer houses of the Augustinian order, the annual income of the house amounting to no more than £26 in the sixteenth century.98 The number of canons was likewise low, and by the Dissolution as few as three to four canons were still residing in the house.99 And yet the relationship between Letheringham Priory and its patrons remained active throughout the later Middle Ages, and continued even after the closure of the house, when Sir Anthony sought burial there with his ancestors. The fact that Letheringham appears to have been the family’s only monastery undoubtedly accounted in part for its popularity as a burial place for so many family members. The monastery seems to have been used as a Wingfield mausoleum from as soon as the family’s patronage of the house began in the mid-fourteenth century; it seems unlikely that a particularly personal relationship could have developed between the monastic community and its new patrons quite as soon as this. The Wingfield family seem to have regarded Letheringham Priory as a suitably impressive location for their family mausoleum. By making this choice, they not only forged links between themselves and the religious community at Letheringham, but they moreover made a mark which clearly emphasised their new status as monastic patrons. Patronage and dynastic burial tradition at monasteries like Ingham and Letheringham were evidently very closely bound to one family. In contrast, Guisborough Priory (Yorks.) was chosen as burial place by successive patrons of the house as the patronage passed from one family to another. Founded c.1119x1129 by Robert de Brus of Skelton, the patronage of the priory came into the hands of the Fauconberg and Thweng families, following the death of the childless Peter IV de Brus in 1272, through his sisters Agnes and Lucia.100 Between 1295 and 1411, there were at least nine instances of burial of successive patrons of Guisborough and their families in the monastery. Sir Robert Brus, a relative of the patron, sought burial in the priory in 1295,101 and during the next century and a half several members of the Darcy family did likewise.102 Alongside the Brus and Darcy burials were those of Roger Fauconberg (will 1391)103 and Isabella Fauconberg (will 1401), who asked for burial in ‘Prioratus de Goseburn juxta maritum meum Dominum Walterum Fauconberg’, leaving to the canons 20s with her body.104 In the following year, Constance de 97

Monumental Brasses: The Portfolio Plates of the Monumental Brass Society, 1 (Woodbridge, 1988), nos. 68, 222. 98 MRH, p.141. 99 Ibid., p.164. 100 MRH, p.158. 101 GEC II, p.358. 102 In 1398, for instance, Sir Philip d’Arcy willed to be interred in the priory near his father’s tomb (TV p.146; TE I, no.185). In his will of 1411, John Lord D’Arcy asked for burial at ‘Prioratus Canonicorum de Gysburn’ (TE I, no.260). 103 Ibid., no.120. 104 Ibid., no.206.


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Skelton, first wife of Sir Thomas Fauconberg (d.1407) asked in her will to be buried in the choir of Guisborough Priory.105 The monastery was evidently the grandest burial site available to the successive patrons of the house, who were all able to benefit from their patronal association with the convent, however loose that connection might have been. Somewhat different circumstances were at play at the Augustinian priory of Lanercost in Cumberland. As a patronal burial place, the monastery only became popular when the patronage of the house passed into the hands of a ‘new’ family, the Dacres, who acquired this privilege through a strategic marriage. The priory had been founded c.1166 by Robert de Vaux, and the Dacre family came to hold the patronage of Lanercost following the marriage in the fourteenth century of Sir Randolf Dacre to the heiress of Gilsland, in whom the patronage had been vested.106 This Randolf Dacre, when he died in 1339, was the first member of that family to seek burial in the priory, which was to become the favoured sepulchre of several of his descendants after him.107 His son and heir, William lord Dacre was the next patron of Lanercost to follow his father’s example in his choice of burial location. He was interred in the monastery when he died in July 1361.108 The final fourteenth-century Dacre burial in Lanercost Priory was that of Hugh, lord Dacre, who died in 1383.109 During the century that followed, two further members of the family, Thomas lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1457), and his younger son Humphrey lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1485), were buried in Lanercost.110 The body of the latter’s wife Mabel was received by the canons for burial there some twenty years later, in 1508.111 Their son and heir Thomas was the last member of the Dacre family whose grave, which also contains the remains of his wife Elizabeth (d.1516), has been identified in Lanercost, where it can still be seen.112 He died from a fall from his horse in 1525, only twelve years before the suppression of the house.113 During the two centuries in which the family held the patronage of Lanercost Priory, the house became the foremost place of burial for the lords Dacre and their families. Little is known about burials in the monastery of the earlier patrons of Lanercost, namely the family and heirs of its founder Robert de Vaux, except for the burial of his nephew Rowland, whose tomb still survives in the priory. Following the dissolution of Lanercost Priory in 1537, the Dacre family acquired the site of the house, which they have used as a residence to this day. The Dacres were among the most prominent of the later medieval lay patrons 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112

113

Ibid., no.214. MRH, p.162. GEC IV, p.2. Ibid., p.4. Ibid., p.6. His tomb can still be seen in the former priory church. For a photograph, see J.R.H. Moorman, Lanercost Priory (Gilsland, 1994), p.25. GEC IV, p.20. The inscription on his tomb reads: ‘Here lyeth Syr Thomas Dacre Knyght of the gartier the fourth o/ . . . and fornenst scotland to Kyng Henry viii positu est Ano dm mccccco . . .’ [the date was never completed] (Lanercost Priory, p.17). GEC IV, p.21.

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who held the patronage of several houses during this period. Their monasteries included foundations from various religious orders, among them the Cistercian abbeys of Newminster (Northumberl.) and Sibton (Suffolk), the Premonstratensian houses of Egglestone (Yorks.) and Langley (Norfolk), as well as Blythburgh Priory (Suffolk), a house of Augustinian canons. It is not clear, however, whether any members of the Dacre family sought burial in the precincts of any of these houses in the later Middle Ages. Lanercost Priory evidently occupied a unique position among the monasteries of the family, and in the dynastic sentiment. The house and its Augustinian community was clearly the focal point of Dacre devotion for many generations. The continuing burial tradition, which persisted over nearly two centuries, should not be considered in isolation: such a tradition strongly suggests that more or less regular contact was maintained between the later patrons and the priory also on other occasions. A similar case can be made for the Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow in Essex. Several generations of FitzWalters, later patrons of the priory,114 ‘this noble family’, whose ‘devotion to this priory’ was so praised by Weever in the eighteenth century, chose Little Dunmow as their burial place during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.115 There are no fewer than ten graves of members of this family, dating from this period, of which the first is that of Alianore, second wife of Robert FitzWalter (d.1326), who had predeceased him.116 Two further fourteenth-century burials in the priory were those of John lord FitzWalter (d.1361), and of his wife, another Alianore, who had also predeceased her husband, and was buried with him in Little Dunmow Priory.117 The last burials in that century were those of Joan (d.1363), wife of Sir Robert FitzWalter (d.1328), and of Alianore, wife of Walter lord FitzWalter (d.1386), who died after 1375.118 While the fourteenth century thus saw the greatest number of FitzWalter burials at Little Dunmow, several further members of the family are known to have been interred in the priory during the fifteenth century. They included, firstly, Joan, wife of Walter, lord FitzWalter (d.1406), who died in 1409,119 and next, in 1431, another Walter, lord FitzWalter,120 his wife Elizabeth (d.1464) and an unspecified number of their children.121 In his will, which he composed in April 1431, Walter FitzWalter made detailed arrangements concerning his burial, asking that ‘my executors make an arch in the wall near to the grave of my mother, and that therein my body, and the bodies of my wife and children, as likewise the bones of my mother, be deposited’.122 He also left 60 marks to the convent for the charges for these arrange-

114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122

Cal. IPM, iii (1387). Ant. Fun. Mon., p.388. GEC V, p.474. Ibid., p.477. Ibid., p.479. GEC II, p.435; GEC V, p.482. TV, p.221; Sep. Mon. II.2, p.iii. TV, p.221. Ibid.


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ments. The tomb and alabaster effigies of FitzWalter, who passed away later that year, and his wife Elizabeth, who died more than thirty years later, were described and sketched by Frederic Chancellor in 1890. Although by then damaged, the tomb, which was originally gilded and coloured, had clearly once been a remarkably splendid affair.123 The patronage of Little Dunmow eventually passed to FitzWalter’s heirs, the Radcliffe family, lords FitzWalter and later earls of Sussex, and the burial tradition of the family in the monastery ceased. As long as the FitzWalters still held the advowson of the house, however, it is apparent that Little Dunmow was their preferred burial place, its importance enhanced by the presence of so many family tombs in the priory church, which made it the obvious choice for their family mausoleum. Sometimes, in the absence of physical or documentary evidence, we have to consider contemporary, or near-contemporary, accounts relating to earlier patronal burials in religious houses. Thus Sir Anthony Babington, one of the heirs to the patronage of Beauchief Abbey (Derbys.), and a dedicated patron at the dissolution of the house, asserted in 1536 that his wife’s ancestors were buried in the abbey.124 The abbey, founded c.1173x1176 by Robert FitzRanulph, was for many years in the hands of the Chaworth family.125 They had acquired the patronage in the thirteenth century when Alice, sister of the then patron Thomas de Alfreton, last of the male line of that family, who had died without issue in 1262, married Sir William Chaworth. The son of Alice and Sir William Chaworth, another Thomas, in turn became patron of Beauchief Abbey after his parents, and so generous was his patronage reputedly, that he was soon spoken of as the ‘founder’ of the house.126 This seemingly harmonious relationship was continued by his successors, who proceeded to choose the abbey as their family mausoleum. The great-great-grandson of Alice and William, another Sir Thomas de Chaworth, asked in his will of 1347 to be buried in Beauchief Abbey, ‘juxta tumulum Domini Thomæ avi mei’.127 Half a century later, in 1398, the heir to the patronage of Beauchief, William Chaworth, also asked for burial in the abbey, remunerating the convent with the gift of his best beast and all the lands pertaining to his manor of Norton for a term of twenty-one years.128 The direct heirs of Sir Thomas Chaworth continued to hold the patronage of Beauchief for several generations, and the earlier burials in the house were clearly of considerable significance for later generations of patrons. Anthony Babington specifically cited the burial tradition in Beauchief when he pleaded with the authorities to save the house from dissolution.129 The presence of the tombs of earlier generations obviously 123 124 125 126 127 128 129

F. Chancellor, The Ancient Sepulchral Monuments of Essex (London, 1890), pp.28–9, plate XIII (facing p.28). VCH Derbys. II, pp.68–9. MRH, p.186. VCH Derbys. II, p.64. TE I, no.38. TE I, no.180. The presence of ancestors’ tombs in the monastery was clearly a strong incentive for later patrons to try and save their religious houses from closure, as the pleas by patrons to Cromwell and Henry VIII show.

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enhanced the importance of a house for a family, particularly if their patronage persisted over a long time, as it did in the case of the small Augustinian priory of Kyme in Lincolnshire. Kyme Priory was the family monastery of the Kymes, who had established the house in the twelfth century.130 The founder, Philip of Kyme, was moreover responsible for the foundation of the Gilbertine double monastery of Bullington, also in Lincolnshire, some years earlier.131 The patronage of Kyme Priory remained with the heirs of the founder, the lords of Kyme, until the time of the Dissolution, when the advowson was in the hands of Gilbert Tailboys, titular lord Kyme.132 There is evidence for at least three burials of members of the family in the monastery, although, interestingly, evidence for family interment in the priory before the fifteenth century is sparse indeed. The first of these late medieval burials is that of Sir Gilbert de Umfraville of Kyme who died in 1421.133 In the year 1494, Sir Robert Tailboys of Kyme sought burial in the priory, including in his will the request to be laid to rest ‘on the north side of the choir’.134 The tradition continued into the following century, when Gilbert Tailboys, mentioned above, who died in 1530, less than a decade ahead of the house’s dissolution, was interred in the priory.135 In the case of Kyme Priory, a small and relatively insignificant house with a low annual income (no more than £77 in 1535),136 the lack of adequate documentation regarding the monastery must be held partly responsible for the absence of any additional evidence concerning both further burials of members of the family within the priory, and any other patronal activity. The fact that the house had originally been founded by a direct ancestor of the later patrons, as well as the fact that Kyme Priory was located conveniently near the family residence at Kyme in Lincolnshire, made it in some ways the obvious choice for a family mausoleum. Unfortunately, however, in the absence of any physical evidence for burials in the priory we depend on documentary sources, which, in the case of small, poorly documented monasteries like Kyme Priory, can prove inadequate and unreliable. Patronal family traditions of monastic burial, then, evidently still mattered in late medieval England and Wales. In the case of monasteries such as Earls Colne, Ingham or Little Dunmow, numerous generations of monastic patrons and members of their families still chose to be interred in the precincts of their religious houses, and this tells us something about their relationships with the monasteries under their patronage, namely that real ties must have existed between the two parties for such a choice to be made. While the motives for burial in a religious house had altered slightly over the centuries, closeness to 130 131 132 133

134 135 136

MRH, p.162. Ibid., p.194. Cf. Mon. VI, p.378, no.I. Umfraville died in the Battle of Bangé in Anjou and was originally interred in Calais. His body was subsequently brought back to Kyme for reburial by his steward (GEC VII, p.365). TV, p.420. GEC VII, p.361; GEC XII.1, p.602. MRH, p.141.


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the prayers of the monks of a particular house gradually becoming a less important factor, for many patrons the personal component, the aspect of dynastic tradition, and the presence of the tombs of those dear to them, clearly remained issues to be considered in their choice of burial place. Late commencement of a patronal burial convention Where a long-standing relationship already existed between the patronal family and their monastery or nunnery, the decision to be buried in the house was in many ways the obvious step to take for later patrons, who were thereby consciously honouring an existing tradition. For families who acquired the patronage of an abbey or priory later in its history, the motive for burial in the monastery might be very different, for they did not build upon an established custom. Rather, in some cases, they recognised the potential of their newly acquired house to indicate their own equally newly acquired status. Or, in other cases, they rapidly developed more or less strong ties with a house, despite the lack of a previous connection. Burscough Priory in Lancashire, a small house of Augustinian canons, is an example of a monastery which only became popular as a burial site with its later patrons. Founded by Robert FitzHenry, lord of Lathom and Knowsley c.1190,137 the patronage of Burscough had passed by marriage to the Stanley family, earls of Derby, in the fourteenth century.138 By the late fifteenth century, if not earlier, the patrons of the house were choosing to be buried within its walls. According to his will dated 28 July 1504, Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby (d.1504), then patron of Burscough, sought burial in the priory ‘in the north aisle of my ancestors’ foundation, where the bodies of my father, mother and other of my ancestors lie buried’.139 He moreover requested the erection, above his tomb, of effigies of ‘the personages of myself and both my wives’, for which he bequeathed to the house ‘great gifts of money’ as well as jewels and other ornaments.140 It is unclear whether or not both his wives were in actual fact interred at Burscough Priory as he had requested. Several years later another patron of the house, also Thomas, lord Stanley, earl of Derby (d.1521), requested to be buried in the monastery ‘if I happen to die within the said county’.141 With his burial request, the brief tradition came to an end. To better understand its brevity, we must consider the circumstances. Burscough was no particularly wealthy monastery: in the sixteenth century the annual income of the priory was around £80.142 Nor, and this is perhaps more significant, was the house the only monastery of which the Stanleys held the patronage during this period. For those members of the family who did decide to be buried in the 137 138 139 140 141 142

Ibid., p.151. Cf. GEC IV, p.205. TV, p.485. Ibid. In case he should die elsewhere, the earl asked for burial either in the royal Bridgettine abbey of Syon (Middlesex), or in the house of Bonhommes at Ashridge (ibid., p.589). MRH, p.139.

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priory, the existing burial tradition, alluded to by Thomas Stanley in his will, was obviously a key factor behind their choice, and highlights just how much importance was attached to dynastic ties.143 Those of Stanley’s ancestors who first sought burial at Burscough, on the other hand, had no such tradition to build on. In their case, the newly acquired monastery must have represented a new, particularly grand option for burial because, although not remarkably prosperous, Burscough was nonetheless an impressive edifice and a suitably imposing mausoleum for the family. The situation of the Beaumont family was not dissimilar to that of the Stanleys. The family had assumed the role of patrons of the Gilbertine Priory of Sempringham (Lincs.), after Edward II had granted the manor of Folkingham, in which honour the monastery lay, to his second cousin Henry de Beaumont in 1307.144 Beaumont appears as an active patron acting on behalf of his newly acquired monastery, but there is no evidence that he chose to be buried in Sempringham Priory when he died in 1339. Even if Henry did not request burial in his new priory, however, his descendants certainly did. Three members of the Beaumont family are recorded as having sought and received burial in this priory during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The first of the three was Henry, lord Beaumont, who died in 1369.145 His burial was followed some thirty years later by that of the then patron John, lord Beaumont (d.1396), and another seventeen years later by that of another Henry, lord Beaumont (d.1413), who appears to have been the last member of this family to receive burial in Sempringham priory.146 For families like the Beaumonts, who obtained the patronage of a monastery at a late stage in its history, an abbey or priory might thus be a welcome addition to their existing options for burial, as well as, in many cases, a grander one. Those families were often quick to associate themselves with the house, and to forge links between themselves and the religious community, with which they might not have any previous connection. By initiating a family burial tradition in the monastery they added a lasting, even eternal, aspect to this bond. The patrons of late monastic foundations, on the contrary, found themselves in much the same situation as the founders of religious houses during the late eleventh and twelfth centuries in that, as founders of these monasteries, they tended to enjoy a much more pronounced personal relationship with them than was normally evident between patrons of earlier foundations and their convents during the later Middle Ages. That this was so is evident in the case of such late foundations as the Augustinian priory of Bisham (Berks.), which became the Montague family’s main monastery from its foundation by William Montague, earl of Salisbury, in 1337,147 or that of the Stapletons and their Trinitarian monastery at Ingham. Similarly Thomas lord Wake, founder of the new 143 144 145 146 147

Thomas Stanley’s decision to be buried in the priory was clearly influenced by the fact that his parents and ‘other of his ancestors’ were already interred in the priory church. Golding, Gilbert of Sempringham, p.311. GEC II, p.61. Ibid., p.61. On Bisham Priory and its patrons, see Chapter 4.


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Augustinian priory of Haltemprice (Yorks.), was laid to rest in this house in 1349.148 The same was true for the founders of Carthusian monasteries, and for the early generations of their successors. The ties between these houses and their lay patrons had only recently been established by our period, and were therefore often still coloured by the zeal of the founders and the enthusiasm of their direct heirs. On the other hand, houses of Carthusian monks, with their comparatively small and plain churches, had obvious disadvantages in the eyes of those patrons, who sought grand, impressive surroundings for their tombs. This did not stop some patrons requesting burial in Carthusian monasteries, perhaps partly driven by the prospect of particularly effective intercessory prayers from this most austere of religious orders. The London Charterhouse, for instance, saw the burials of its founders, Sir Walter Mauny (d.1371) and his wife Margaret, duchess of Norfolk (d.1398), soon after its foundation in 1371.149 Sir Walter had humbly asked in his will ‘to be buried at God’s pleasure, but if it may be in the midst of the quire of the Carthusians’.150 Similarly Michael de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, founder of the Carthusian priory of Kingston-upon-Hull, who was interred in that house in 1415, had requested this in his will, more specifically, to be buried under a flat stone ‘betwixt the tomb of my father and mother and the altar’.151 The same year also witnessed the burial of William de la Pole in the same house,152 but thereafter the de la Poles neglected Kingston-upon-Hull as their mausoleum in favour of their chapel at Wingfield College, which came to replace Kingston as family sepulchre. William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk, was buried there following his decapitation in 1450.153 A move in the opposite direction occurred in the case of Mount Grace Priory (Yorks.). Thomas Holland, earl of Kent and duke of Surrey (d.1400), the founder of Mount Grace, which was the last of the Carthusian lay foundations in England, willed that his new monastery become his burial place. Following the construction of the church, the earl’s body was re-buried there in the year 1411.154 Thomas Holland had taken a significant step when he favoured Mount 148

149 150 151 152 153

154

GEC XII.2, p.304. Lord Wake allegedly acquired some renown for his posthumous healing powers (cf. Baskerville, English Monks, p.50), thereby creating a convenient additional income for the religious community. GEC VIII, p.571; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.215; TV, p.85. TV, p.85. ‘Inter tumbam patris et matris meorum et altare ibidem’ (TV, p.189; Sep. Mon. II.2, p.ii; NCW, no.6). NCW, no.29; Sep. Mon.II.2, p.ii; McFarlane, The Nobility of Later Medieval England, p.312. William’s burial at Wingfield, however, was conducted against his wishes. In is will, composed two years before his death, he had asked for burial in ‘my Charterhouse at Hulle, where I wol my ymage and stone be made and the ymage of my best beloved wyf by me, she to be there with me yf she lust, my said sepulture to be made by her discretion in ye said Charterhouse where she shal thinke best, in caas be yat in my dayes it be not made nor begonne’ (NCW, no.29). CPR 1408–13, p.416. The house itself was not actually completed until almost thirty years later.

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Grace over his ancestral place at Upholland (Lancs.), thereby neglecting an existing tradition.155 Perhaps the most urgently expressed link between a Carthusian monastery and its patrons was that between the Mowbray family and the monks of Axholme (Lincs.). The foundation of the house was accompanied by a generous endowment, which included the alien priory of Monks Kirkby (Warwicks.), various lands, rents, and the advowsons of two churches.156 The Mowbrays moreover granted the community an annual allowance of Gascon wine.157 The founder himself, Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, died of the plague in Venice in September 1399 on his return from Palestine. He was buried there in the Abbey of St George.158 His burial took place in Venice for obvious reasons; had he died closer to home, he would doubtless have been interred in his own new Carthusian monastery, and in fact his son, Earl Thomas (d.1405), ordered that his bones be brought back to England from Venice in order that they be re-buried in Axholme Priory, next to the place in the priory which he had chosen for his own tomb.159 The founder’s grandson and successor to the patronage, John Mowbray, was buried in the priory in October 1432.160 It is perhaps not altogether surprising to see such a comparatively high proportion of patrons’ burials in houses of Carthusian monks, considering the relatively late date of their foundation. For the first and second generations of founders and patrons, the personal ties which connected them with their foundations, tended to be much stronger than they were for later generations of patrons, and the full array of patronal activity was often evident in the relationship of early generations of patrons. Breaking the tradition Some of the possible reasons for breaking an established burial tradition have already been suggested. The most severe cause for disrupting a time-honoured burial custom was the breakdown of the patron–monastery relationship following a quarrel between the two parties. This was the case for example with the Courtenay family and their Cistercian abbey at Forde in Devon. Forde Abbey had been chosen for burial by several members of the family before a conflict between the monks and the Courtenays in the fourteenth century caused the latter party to seek burial instead at the parish church of Cowick (Devon), scarcely an imposing or prestigious site in comparison with Forde Abbey.161 For a conflict to escalate to the point where a burial tradition was broken was, however, fortunately very rare. Much more common were other 155 156 157 158 159 160 161

GEC VIII, p.157. CPR 1413–16, p.355. Ibid. GEC IX, p.601. CPR 1413–16, p.416; Dugdale, Baronage, I, 130. TV, p.223; GEC IX, pp.606–7. Mon. V, p.380.


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reasons, which necessitated or invited a change in the existing burial pattern. Particularly prevalent among those were the failures of families, the acquisition of new sites, or the move to different residences. Some families were quite simply spoilt for choice when it came to electing a burial place, and some of them clearly failed to establish an enduring burial tradition in one place. The Stafford family offers a particularly illuminating example of a family who held the patronage of numerous monasteries during the later Middle Ages, all of which represented potential burial places. Among their religious houses were the Augustinian priories of Llanthony Secunda in Gloucestershire, Royston in Hertfordshire, Stone in Staffordshire and Tonbridge in Kent, and the Augustinian abbey of Notley in Buckinghamshire, as well as the Cistercian abbey of Meaux (Yorks.) and the Benedictine houses of Brecon (Brecknock), Hurley (Berks.) and St Neots (Hunts.). During the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the Augustinian priory of Stone fulfilled the role of family mausoleum for the Staffords of Stafford, with several members of the family choosing the house as their burial site.162 While the family evidently preferred Stone Priory to their other houses as their family burial site during those years, their focus subsequently shifted, and there is evidence for burials of members of the family in several of their other monasteries during the period c.1300–1540. So for instance when Ralph, earl Stafford died in 1372, he sought burial in Tonbridge Priory, where his wife had been buried some twenty-five years earlier, in 1348.163 However, fourteen years after Ralph’s demise, at the death of Hugh, his successor to the earldom of Stafford, in the year 1386, he, on the other hand, requested to be buried in Stone Priory,164 where his wife Philippa had been interred some months previously, and where many of his ancestors lay buried.165 Another Ralph Stafford, who died in May 1385, was buried in the Premonstratensian house of Langley in Norfolk.166 Thomas, earl of Stafford, again preferred burial in Stone Priory in 1392, while his brother William, earl of Stafford, was interred in Tonbridge Priory in 1395.167 Unlike some of the other patrons of multiple monasteries like the Berkeleys, the Courtenays or the Montagues, the earls of Stafford did not attach to any one of their houses the function of sole, or even main family mausoleum during the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, as they had done during the preceding centuries at Stone Priory. Instead they individually chose different monasteries under their patronage for burial of themselves and their wives. Comparing the recorded 162

163 164 165 166 167

Among those buried in Stone Priory during this period were Nicholas Stafford (d.1138) and his wife Maud, as well as Robert Stafford, who not only requested burial in the priory when he died c.1180, but who had also been an active benefactor of the house during his lifetime (GEC XII.1, pp.168–9). Some years later, Millicent Stafford (d.1224) was buried in the house with her husband Hervey Bagot (d.1214), and in 1287 another Nicholas Stafford received burial in the priory (ibid., pp.170–2). GEC XII.1, p.177. His request was for burial in the priory of Stone, more specifically ‘near the grave of my wife, if I depart this life in England’ (TV, p.118). GEC XII.1, p.179. Ibid. Ibid., p.180.

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annual income in the sixteenth century of Stone Priory (£119) and Tonbridge Priory (£169), it seems that wealth is unlikely to have been a determining factor in the decisions of the Staffords in their choice of burial place.168 The location of the two monasteries, on the other hand, is significant: Stone Priory was situated in Staffordshire, while Tonbridge was in Kent. It is therefore likely that convenience was a factor which was considered by generations of family members when they made their choice regarding their burial sites. While successive members of the Stafford family made individual decisions regarding their burial places, in the case of the Furnivals, the family made a clear move from one monastery to another when their attention shifted from Croxden Abbey to Worksop Priory in the mid-fourteenth century. The Furnival family had been patrons of the Cistercian abbey of Croxden (Staffs.) from 1316. Their predecessors as patrons of Croxden, the Verdun family, who reputedly maintained a close relationship with the monks of the house, had favoured burial in this monastery and continued to do so until the fourth decade of the fourteenth century.169 The last recorded burial of a member of the Verdun family at Croxden was that of Joan, daughter of Theobald de Verdun, who was interred in the abbey in 1334.170 She was following a tradition which was already well established by her death in October of that year. In 1309, Theobald de Verdun was buried in the abbey church ‘with great honour’,171 and a few years later, in 1316, another Theobald de Verdun followed his example and was interred in the abbey where his wife Maud (d.1312) already lay buried.172 While Croxden Abbey was popular for burial with both the Verdun and the Furnival families until 1334, the patrons then switched their attention to another of their religious houses. The chief recipient of Furnival bequests and bodies from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards was the Augustinian priory of Worksop in Nottinghamshire. In the fourteenth century, the 168

169 170

171 172

Except perhaps in the case of Llanthony Secunda, which was a much more affluent house and had an annual income exceeding £648 in the sixteenth century (MRH, p.141). VCH Staffs. III, pp.226–7. In the chronicle of Croxden Abbey is a record of her death: ‘Lady Joan de Furnival, lady of Alton, who was the daughter and first of the heirs of lord Theobald de Verdun the younger, was taken by untimely death there in childbirth on 2 October; for on the day she died she was only thirty years and almost two months old. On the following 7 January, the next Sunday after the feast of the Epiphany, she was laid with great honour before the high altar of the church by lord Richard of Shepshed, the abbot of the house [. . .]. She was buried near her ancestors, between lord Nicholas de Verdun, the son of the founder, her ancestor, and lord John de Verdun, her great-grandfather’ (BL Cotton Faustina vi, f.82r [transl. L. Boatwright et al.]). Ibid., f.79v. The Croxden chronicler reported his death in the following manner: ‘On 27 July, which was a Tuesday, at early dawn, lord Theobald Verdun, patron of this house, departed from this light at the castle of Alton and was buried at Croxden by the abbot of the place on 19 September, namely on the day of St Sequan the Abbot’ (BL Cotton Faustina vi, f.80r); see also Mon.V, p.661. On his wife’s death, the chronicler wrote that ‘Maud de Verdun, lady of Alton, gave birth to her fourth daughter, named Margery, and on the day of blessed Lambert the Bishop next following, namely 18 September, she departed from this light in the castle of Alton’ (BL Cotton Faustina vi, f.79v).


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patronage of that priory had passed to Thomas Neville, lord Furnival, following his marriage to Joan de Furnival, and thence to the Talbots, earls of Shrewsbury, lords Furnival, who had moved to the vicinity from Shropshire. They soon adopted the tradition of burial in the house, which had been initiated by their ancestors. Thomas, lord Furnival, who died in 1365, was the first of the line who sought burial in the priory after 1300.173 His brother, William, lord Furnival (d. 1383) was also buried in Worksop Priory. Towards the close of the century, Joan Furnival, mentioned above, the wife of the patron, was interred in the priory, as was her husband Thomas Neville, lord Furnival, according to his wishes ‘without any great pomp’, when he died in 1406.174 Their daughter Maud, baroness Furnival, married, in 1407, John lord Talbot of Goodrich (d.1453). She died around the year 1423, and was buried in Worksop with her ancestors.175 Through this marriage the Talbots, from 1442 earls of Shrewsbury, acquired the Furnival estates in Hallamshire, and the patronage of Worksop Priory passed into their hands. Several members of this family subsequently chose to be buried in Worksop. John, earl of Shrewsbury, died in 1460 and was buried in the priory with his mother,176 and in 1473 his successor, another John, earl of Shrewsbury, was also laid to rest there.177 It appears that his was the last of the family’s burials in the monastery. The patronage of Worksop Priory eventually passed to his descendant, George, earl of Shrewsbury, who was still patron of the house at its dissolution in 1538.178 He was not, however, buried in Worksop when he died in that same year, but in his parish church in Sheffield, and he left detailed instructions for his tomb there. 179 Predictably, where families shifted their mausoleum from one foundation to another, the move was normally one towards a bigger, better or grander site. Thus the heir to the patronage of the Charterhouse at Kingston-upon-Hull, Edmund de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, who was beheaded in 1513, chose not his Carthusian monastery, where some of his ancestors lay buried, but the royal house of the Minoresses at Aldgate in London for his burial.180 His wife Margaret, who died in February 1514, did likewise.181 Theirs was an upward move when they preferred burial in this rather prestigious place to both Kingston-upon-Hull and God’s House, their hospital at Ewelme (Oxford). Ewelme had been founded between 1437 and 1442 by William de la Pole, earl

173 174 175 176

177 178 179 180 181

GEC V, p.586. ‘Volo quod expensæ et elemosinæ circa funerariam et sepulturam meam faciendæ fiant mediocriter, et sine vana gloria mundi’ (TV, p.168; TE III, no.8). GEC V, p.591; GEC XI, p.703. His tomb he asked to be located ‘inter altare et tumbam Matildæ matris meæ’ (TE II, no.196). He moreover asked of the religious community at Worksop and their successors ‘for to devyne service for me, my brother and myn auncestors’ (ibid.). GEC XI, p.698. LP, x. 364. NCW, no.104. GEC XII.1, p.453. Ibid.

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of Suffolk, and his wife Alice, and it had previously taken the place of Kingston-upon-Hull and Wingfield as the family’s main burial site.182 There were of course circumstances beyond a monastic patron’s control which might prevent him from making a decision regarding his burial place altogether. One of these was death away from home, and especially death abroad. Where it was at all possible, every effort was usually made on such occasions to bring the body, or at least important bits of it, home in order to facilitate its burial in the ancestral sepulchre. When Robert de Vere, earl of Oxford and duke of Ireland, died in France in 1392, his body was transported home to England for burial in his Benedictine monastery of Earls Colne, but it is not clear whether it was the whole corpse or merely parts of the body that were taken back to be interred there.183 However, transporting the body back was not always feasible, as the burial of the founder of Axholme Priory, Thomas Mowbray, duke of Norfolk (d.1399), in Venice has shown. Some patrons, especially if they were committed to a particular burial site, evidently decided to be sure to avoid a similar fate by allowing for different potential scenarios of demise in their wills. Thus in January 1505, John, lord Dinham, stated in his will that he wished to be buried in the Cistercian abbey of Hartland (Dorset), ‘of which I am founder, if I die within 100 miles thereof’.184 Similarly Richard, earl of Arundel and Surrey, patron of Lewes Priory, in his will composed in March 1392, prepared for all eventualities when he requested that ‘if I die in England, [. . .] my corpse to be privately conveyed to said priory [of Lewes], [. . .] if I die out of England and my body cannot be conveniently brought to the priory, [to be] interred where my executors [. . .] may think proper’.185 If the death of the testator occurred abroad and it was not possible to transport his body home for burial, the option still existed to return only parts of it. Generally speaking, the custom of dividing the body for burial had largely gone out of fashion by the fourteenth century, when it only occurred very occasionally. The practice of bodily fragmentation had been reasonably popular during the earlier period, but we have no more than a few examples post 1300, and those are predominantly associated with executions.186 Where bodies were buried in several locations following an individual’s execution, however, we are hardly dealing with this individual’s free decision to have his head, or heart, buried elsewhere than his body. Sir Hugh Despenser, for instance, was executed in the year 1326 and his head was set upon London Bridge, while his quarters were distributed to Dover, Bristol, York and Newcastle. However, his bones were later taken to be re-buried at Tewkesbury Abbey, of which his family were 182

183 184 185 186

An even more steeply upward move was requested in the will composed by John de Hastings in 1372. Hastings did not ask to be buried with his late wife in the royal nunnery at Aldgate in London, chosen by Edmund and Margaret de la Pole, but instead requested burial at St Paul’s Cathedral, no less, in a tomb to resemble his wife’s (TV, p.87). GEC X, p.216; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.372. TV, p.496. Ibid., p.129. Note the exception, for example, of Maud de Ros (d. before 1316), whose body was buried in Pentney Priory, and bowels in Belvoir Priory. The former was under her family’s patronage, the latter under her husband’s (cf. GEC XI, p.97).


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patrons.187 Similarly, inadvertently generating an unfortunate family tradition, Thomas, lord Despenser, was beheaded in 1400, and buried – without his head – in Tewkesbury Abbey.188 A rather more voluntary act was the execution of the last wishes of another monastic patron, when, a century earlier, in the year 1300, the community of Bonhommes at Ashridge in Buckinghamshire staged the funeral of their recently deceased founder, Edmund, earl of Cornwall. His embalmed heart was buried next to the shrine of St Thomas Cantilupe in the conventual church, while other parts of his body were interred separately, both at Ashridge and in the Cistercian abbey of Hailes in Gloucestershire, of which house the earl was likewise the patron.189 These examples, however, were the exception rather than the rule during the later Middle Ages, and although patrons often made bequests to several houses in their wills, they normally requested that their bodies, undivided, be buried in one place only. The physical evidence for burials, where it has been recorded, or indeed where it still exists, can be misleading. In order to be buried with their spouses, patrons might choose to erect a tomb for both themselves and their wives or husbands. The surviving partner, however, might not choose the same burial place. He or she might opt to seek burial with their own family instead, or they might subsequently decide, or be made, to re-marry, in which case his or her burial might take place with the later partner and his or her family. In either case, the space allocated to this individual in the grave of the earlier spouse, while it might bear the name, even the image of the surviving partner, may never have been occupied by him or her. When Sir John Bourchier, patron of the Premonstratensian abbey of Beeleigh (Essex), died in the year 1495, he stated in his will the request for burial ‘in the abbey [of Beeleigh], near my father and my lady mother, beneath their sepulchre and tomb’ and he willed ‘that a tomb be made there for me and both my wives, according to my degree’.190 His will, however, was not fulfilled, and he was instead interred in Stebbing church, whence he was eventually transferred to Beeleigh Abbey at the instigation of his wife, dame Elizabeth Bourchier, who outlived him and died around the year 1498. She herself left her body to be buried in the chapel of Our Lady in the monastery, along with the bones of her husband after they had been brought there from Stebbing. 191 The bones of spouses or other relatives might thus be subsequently removed 187 188 189 190 191

GEC IV, p.270. Ibid., p.280. Mon. VI, p.511; GEC III, p.433. TV, p.422; VCH Essex II, p.175. ‘I will that the bones of Sir John Bourchier, knight, late my husband, that now rest in the church of Stellinge in Essex, be taken up and carried to the said Abbey of Bylegh’ (TV, p.436). See also VCH Essex II, p.175. Beeleigh Abbey in Essex was for several generations the mausoleum of the Bourchier family, earls of Essex. The first recorded burial is that of Henry Bourchier earl of Essex, who died in 1483 and who was buried in the abbey, more specifically in the chapel of St Mary inside the conventual church. His wife Isabel was buried there with him when she died two years later in 1485. The next member of their family to be interred in Beeleigh was Sir John Bourchier, son of Henry and Isabel Bourchier, who died in 1495.

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from their original burial place in order to be interred elsewhere. It is not always clear whether this was in fact done in accordance with the wishes of the deceased. In his will, dated 4 March 1392, Richard, earl of Arundel and Surrey, patron of the Cluniac priory at Lewes, who also asked to be buried there, ‘in a place behind the high altar’, made the following demand: ‘in case my most dear wife Elizabeth [daughter of William de Bohun] be not there [i.e. at Lewes Priory] interred by me, I charge my executors that they cause my said wife to be conveyed from her present tomb to the said place’.192 In the case of Thomas Stanley, lord Montegle, it was the testator himself who asked for the removal of his body from one burial site to another. In his will of 1524, Stanley asked to be buried in a new chapel he was having built in his Premonstratensian priory of Hornby (Lancs.). But since the chapel was unlikely to be completed by the time of his death, he willed that he be temporarily buried elsewhere, and that ‘on the next day after the dedication of the same chapel my body be exhumed and transferred, with the consent of the prior of Hornby, from the place where it shall rest in the interim’.193 Requests of this nature might also be made at an earlier point in a lay person’s life. Alice Seymour, for instance, petitioned John Waltham, bishop of Salisbury, to have nearly her entire family moved from their local parish church ‘to the more honourable place nearby in the new conventual church of [the Gilbertine priory of] Poulton [Wilts.]’, where they could expect ‘a greater number of daily services’, providing a more ample commemoration of her ancestors. Her request was granted in January 1389 and the bones of her relatives were taken to the priory, which had been founded in 1350 by Alice’s husband.194 Alice made her reasons for this move quite plain. In her eyes the family’s improved status deserved recognition and enhanced spiritual services, which was now within their reach, while at the same time she was eager to preserve an existing family tradition. The wish to be united in death with previously deceased family members was a common one. In some cases this might lead to the burial of successive spouses in one place. There are several instances of husbands buried with two or even three of their wives, such as the case of the earl of Hereford and patron of the Augustinian priory of Llanthony Secunda, Humphrey de Bohun, who was buried in the year 1275 with his first wife Maud (d.1241) and his second wife, also Maud (d.1273), in the said priory.195 Wives, too, might be buried together with more than one husband. In the case of Hugh Despenser (d.1349), who predeceased his wife Elizabeth and was buried at Tewkesbury Abbey, of which

192 193 194

195

TV, p.129. Ibid., p.601. The relatives Alice wanted to be moved to Poulton Priory included ‘Nicholas Seymour; Lawrence Seymour, his son; Nicholas Seymour, Lawrence’s son, and Eve, Nicholas’s wife, and Thomas Seymour, their son, Alice’s husband; Thomas de Lysle, Alice’s brother; and Isolda, her damsel’ (Reg. John Waltham, no.26). GEC VI, p.462.


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he was patron, we find not only Elizabeth (d.1359) interred in Tewkesbury, but also her third husband, Sir Guy de Briene, who died in 1390. 196 Intermittent traditions A monastic patron’s decision to be buried in his religious house did not always develop into a dynastic tradition. There were in fact numerous monasteries, and some nunneries, which saw only sporadic burials of some of their patrons in the later Middle Ages. In 1447, for instance, Sir John Clifton, patron of the Benedictine abbey of Wymondham, sought to be interred in that house,197 as did Sir Edward Knyvet almost eighty years later,198 but there is no evidence for anything resembling a patronal family burial tradition connected with the abbey. Similarly, the only two instances of patronal burial which have been identified in the Cluniac priory of Dudley (Worcs.) for that period, are those of the patron, John Sutton of Dudley (d.c.1488), and his wife, who had predeceased him in 1478.199 And writing about the Cluniac monastery of Horksley (Essex) towards the end of the eighteenth century, the antiquarian Richard Gough mentioned the graves of John and Andrew Swinburn, apparently dating from the fifteenth century,200 while there is also evidence for the burials of two further members of this family, namely those of Sir Robert Swinburn (d.c.1412), and Sir Thomas Swinburn (d.1412).201 Likewise the monks of the Cistercian abbey of Newminster in Northumberland received the body of their patron Ralph, baron of Greystoke, who had died from poisoning in the year 1323,202 and those of Roche Abbey in Yorkshire saw the funeral of Maud, daughter of their patron Thomas Lord Clifford, in 1446.203 And the Gilbertine priory of Ellerton in Yorkshire witnessed the burials of two of its later patrons, and possibly other members of the family, within its precinct.204 Although in some instances the existence of a patron’s grave, even if it is only a single one, in a monastery is the only information we have about the relationship between the two parties, we should not necessarily conclude that this is an indication of the lack of a bond between the patron and the convent.

196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204

Ibid. IV, p.274 Ibid. III, p.308. TV, p.635. In his will, John Dudley asked to be buried in the priory church of Dudley, ‘by my wife, and I will that a tomb be made over us, which shall cost £20’ (TV, p.391). Sep. Mon., II.2, p.iii. Cf. T. Wright, The History and Topography of Essex (London, 1842), pp.444–7. GEC V, p.518. TE II, no.97. These two were Margaret lady Aske (will 1465), who asked to be laid to rest in ‘choro Prioratus B. Mariæ de Ellerton’ (TE II, no.221), and Sir John Aske (will 1497), who requested burial ‘in cancello monasteriio Beatæ Mariæ de Ellerton, coram imagine Beatæ Mariæ, ubi a diacono solet legi Evangelium’ (ibid. IV, no.62). The ties between the family and the priory were acknowledged also by Dame Catherine Hastings, daughter of Sir John Aske, who, in 1506, granted her horse to the prior and convent of Ellerton, ‘for my mortuarie’ (ibid., no.148).

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Conclusions In late medieval England and Wales, the factors determining a lay patron’s sepulchral penchants were evidently more complex and less clear-cut than they had been during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The decision made by some patrons to substantiate the role of the ancestral monastery as family mausoleum and to continue an established tradition shows how important the issue of dynastic integrity still was in lay sentiment. Personal ties with the religious community of a monastery which had long before been founded by an ancestor was also clearly a consideration, as were the grand surroundings of the conventual church of even the smallest monastery. On the other hand, the decision to turn away from an established family sepulchre during this late period, and to discontinue what was often a long-standing tradition, could be motivated by a whole range of factors. Such a decision was sometimes taken by patrons who had recently established or obtained a new foundation, regular or secular, and who decided to make their mark and emphasise their newly acquired status by moving their mausoleum to the new site. The move of the Montague family from Bruton Priory to their new foundation of Bisham Priory for burial is an example for this. The Montagues did not need Bisham, yet they chose to found this new, expensive and very generously endowed monastery to indicate their status as a new magnate family. Although there is some evidence that patrons of multiple monasteries often discriminated in favour of their more prestigious houses, it is perhaps worth pointing out that those abbeys and priories whose patrons maintained relations with their communities, including the wish to be buried within their walls, represent a cross-section on the monastic income scale. And while the size, wealth, prestige and status of a monastery were obviously decisive factors in choice of burial place, so, too, were convenience and accessibility, as well as family tradition and a functioning reciprocal relationship between the patrons and the monks, canons or nuns. No particular preference was shown by late medieval lay patrons to any particular religious order when it came to burial. While the majority of the identified burials of lay patrons took place in houses of Augustinian canons, this merely reflects the proportion of Augustinian houses which were under lay patronage at this time, and which was considerably higher than that of other religious orders during the same period. In comparison with houses of Benedictine monks, the number of Augustinian houses with lay patrons between c.1300 and the Dissolution was more than twice as high, and the comparatively high proportion of lay burials in Augustinian houses is therefore not unexpected. Patrons of Augustinian houses moreover included many men and women from the lesser gentry, who could not normally afford to found and maintain new colleges or other more fashionable establishments, and who were thus more likely to choose their own existing monasteries for burial. Evidence for the burial of patrons in houses of female religious is much less common than that for burials in their male counterparts. This is partly due to


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the economic situation of nunneries: they were often much poorer, as well as more neglected, than houses of male religious. With the noteworthy exception of the old and venerable foundations such as Barking or Shaftesbury, both royal Benedictine nunneries situated in the south of England, the annual incomes of nunneries tended to be low. Nor did their popularity with patrons ever equal that of male monasteries.205 Between c.1300 and the Dissolution, almost a hundred English and Welsh nunneries still had lay patrons who might potentially have requested burial in their houses. However, few more than a dozen actual instances of patrons’ burials in nunneries have been identified for this period. Of these, five interments were those of patrons of Benedictine nunneries, four in priories of Augustinian canonesses, two in houses of Cistercian nuns, and one each in a Cluniac nunnery, and in a house of Minoresses.206 The reasons for this imbalance may be sought partly in the lack of adequate documentation for houses of female religious in fourteenth-, fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England and Wales. However, another explanation for the apparent scarcity of lay patrons’ burials in nunneries can be found in the identity of the patrons in question: a considerable proportion of nunneries in England and Wales were in the hands of families who held the patronage of several religious houses and therefore had to choose between them. Among these are the dukes of Norfolk, patrons of at least two Benedictine nunneries, as well as more than fifteen houses of monks and canons of different religious orders, of which they could realistically choose only one. The successive lords Dacre, too, held the patronage of several nunneries, namely the Benedictine houses of Neasham (Durham), Nunburnholme (Yorks.) and Wallingwells (Notts.), as well as being patrons of numerous houses of male religious. Other later patrons of nunneries include the earls of Northumberland, the de Veres, earls of Oxford, the Arundels and the Berkeleys, all of whom held the patronage of more than one religious house. In terms of evidence for patrons’ burials, however, we are reliant on types of source material which are fragmented in nature and biased in character, and allowance must therefore be made for unrecorded burials of lay patrons, espe-

205

206

In their study on Religious Women in medieval East Anglia, Oliva and Gilchrist have argued to the contrary. Their study of bequests to nunneries in East Anglia seems to indicate that the communities of female religious enjoyed great popularity with lay benefactors but not with hereditary patrons in the later Middle Ages. During the fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, Roger and Robert, lords Scales, sought burial in Blackborough Priory (Norfolk) (TV, p.120), Henry Gloucester in St Helen’s Priory, London (Ant. Fun. Mon., p.205), and Ralph fitz William and Lucy, widow of William Lord Greystoke in Neasham Priory (Durham), all Benedictine nunneries. In the mid to late fourteenth century, Robert de Arthington willed to be interred in the church of his Cluniac priory of Arthington Priory (Yorks.) (TE I, no.124), Robert de Ufford, earl of Suffolk willed to be buried in the Augustinian nunnery of Campsey Ash (Suffolk) (TV, pp.73–4), William de Rothwell was buried in the house of Augustinian canonesses at Rothwell (Northants.) (Sep. Mon. I.I, cci), and the heart of Dame Diana Colrith was laid to rest in her priory of Cistercian nuns at Wintney (Hants.). Roger Warde, finally, requested in his will of 1452 (TE II, no.131) to be buried among his Cistercian nuns at Esholt (Yorks.).

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cially in the smaller and less well-documented monasteries of England and Wales. But, bearing these limitations in mind, it is surely significant that the traditional custom of burial within their religious houses by patrons and members of their families was still practised among the English aristocracy in the later Middle Ages. While, according to Duffy, ‘the majority of the middling and minor gentry in the later Middle Ages seem to have sought burial in their parish church, rather than the precincts of religious houses’,207 a small but significant minority among these men and women continued to choose burial in the monasteries where their ancestors lay. What is significant here is not the general development away from the monasteries, but rather the motives of a small group of people for the maintenance of an existing, very traditional, custom against the newly emerging fashions of the time. Fashion had a considerable impact on burial practices in the Middle Ages, and the importance of this must not be underestimated. The laity, and lay patrons of monasteries among them, was extremely fashion-conscious, and new ideas and trends were followed attentively. Just as the arrival of the new religious orders had been accompanied by great enthusiasm from potential patrons and founders in the twelfth century, the emergence of new types of burial places was welcomed equally enthusiastically by patrons in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. People moreover liked to copy each others’ ideas, and to out-do each other in their display of splendour and style and new types of foundations. The funerary practices of the late medieval nobility were thus in many cases affected by the conflicting interests between tradition on the one hand and fashion on the other, and this decision can not always have been an easy one to make for the lay patron of a monastery.

207

E. Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars. Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580 (Cambridge (Mass.), 1992), p.132.

Monastic Patronage of Five Noble Families

4 The Monastic Patronage of Five Noble Families

Some families, like the de Veres and the Mortimers, and at a lower level the Askes and the Arthingtons, remained intimately involved with the religious houses of which they were patrons, right up until the Dissolution. In some instances these relationships, and the activities of successive members of a patronal family, are particularly well documented and grant an unusually personal insight into the interactions between a religious community and its lay patrons. This was the case with the five remarkable families who have been singled out here, all of whom held the patronage of more than one monastery: the Montagues, the Berkeley family, the de Clares, the Howards and the Scropes of Bolton. The Montague family, first of all, from 1337 earls of Salisbury, expressed their personal preferences by favouring one of their religious houses above the others, by founding a monastery when they were already patrons of numerous other religious houses, and by showing a particular interest in this new foundation, and choosing to be buried in it. The Berkeleys are interesting as a family who were patrons of several monasteries and nunneries throughout the entire period, some of which were of their own foundation, while others they acquired at a later stage. The third family, the de Clares, are of special interest as patrons of numerous religious houses, located on both sides of the English–Welsh border, and also, more importantly, as particularly active patrons of the important Benedictine abbey at Tewkesbury. The Howards as dukes of Norfolk are noteworthy as lay patrons of the largest number of religious houses held by any layman in England and Wales during the later Middle Ages. Several members of the family, moreover, appear during this period as particularly active and interested patrons of the well-documented Cluniac priory at Thetford in Norfolk. And finally, the Scropes of Bolton have been chosen as an example of a less influential aristocratic family, who were comparatively late in acquiring the advowson of a religious house, and who subsequently regularly stood out as active patrons of their Premonstratensian abbey of Easby in Yorkshire during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The five families were moreover active in different geographical areas. The Montagues were associated mainly with the south, the Berkeleys had their main residence in Gloucestershire, the de Clares had lands and estates in the west, in Wales and in Ireland, the Howards were active mostly in East Anglia, and the Scropes of Bolton were a northern family. They therefore represent a selection

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of different types of lay patrons with different interests and from different backgrounds, yet who have all left evidence for active patronage of one or more religious house, sometimes over a prolonged period of time.

The Montague Family In the mid-twelfth century, Richard de Monte Acuto, or Montague, son of Drogo, gave certain lands to Montacute Priory in Somerset, a house of Cluniac monks.1 This is one of the earliest records which link the Montague family with this priory, of which they were later to become patrons as well as benefactors. The same Richard Montague also made several grants to Bruton Priory (Somerset) during this time.2 The Augustinian priory of Bruton, which was under the patronage of the Mohuns, and subsequently passed into the hands of the Luttrells, and of which the Montagues were generous benefactors, was an important monastery for the family. There is some evidence that, as well as being benefactors of Bruton, many of their number chose to be buried in the precincts of the priory during the twelfth, and even as late as the fourteenth century. During the twelfth century, indeed, Bruton Priory was the family’s most important sepulchre. Richard Montague himself sought burial there when he died c.1161.3 His funeral in the monastery was recorded in the Bruton Cartulary.4 The Montagues were a family connected with the southern counties. They were not initially particularly wealthy or influential – Drogo Montague himself has been described as ‘of moderate status within the locality’5 – and they rose to local eminence only gradually, but by 1337, they had been created earls of Salisbury and had obtained the patronage of several religious houses. Richard Montague was merely the first of a succession of heads of the Montague household to be noted as a benefactor of Montacute Priory. His younger sons William (d.c.1217), who eventually succeeded his father, and Richard, confirmed their father’s grants and gifts to Bruton Priory. William de Montague achieved some renown as a prominent court official, and in the early years of the thirteenth century he was sheriff of Somerset and Dorset.6 He was succeeded by his grandson William (d.1270), who obtained possession of the lands he had inherited from his father and his grandfather, in 1234, and two years later he confirmed his ancestors’ grants to Bruton Priory.7 In 1244 William appears as a benefactor of the Augustinian priory of Christchurch in Hampshire (now Dorset), of which house his family subsequently became

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

GEC IX, p.75. Ibid. GEC IX, p.75. Bruton Cartulary (Somerset Record Society), nos. 102, 103, 104. Cownie, Religious Patronage, p.136. GEC IX, p.76. Ibid., p.77.

MONASTIC PATRONAGE OF FIVE NOBLE FAMILIES

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patrons, as well as benefactors, in the 1330s.8 William was succeeded by his son and heir Simon Montague (d.1316), who, in accordance with his wishes, was interred at Bruton Priory, where several of his ancestors already lay buried.9 Simon’s son William, Lord Montague, steward of the royal household, died in Gascony in October 1319.10 His heir, another William Lord Montague (d.1344), was ‘prime mover’ in the fall of Isabella and Mortimer in 1330, which earned him a substantial reward from the king, including ‘the castle and lordship of Denbigh, and other lands, formerly Mortimer’s’.11 William Montague’s close association with the king continued in the years following Mortimer’s seizure. He was summoned to Parliament as Lord Montague in February 1331, and in the same year he travelled with the king to France. His career culminated in his creation, in 1337, of earl of Salisbury, a title he received together with a very generous endowment from Edward III.12 By the mid-fourteenth century, then, the Montague family had acquired not only the earldom of Salisbury, but with it also extensive lands and estates, and, not least, the patronage of several religious houses, among them the honour and priory of Christchurch, formerly held by the Redvers family. The Montagues’ estates, following these endowments, were distributed over Somerset, Dorset, Berkshire and Hampshire, and included houses of Cluniac and Benedictine monks and Augustinian canons. The Montagues were moreover involved with the Augustinian priory of Bourne in Lincolnshire, although they appear to have been enthusiastic benefactors rather than actual patrons of that house. They have also been described as benefactors of Taunton Priory during the fourteenth century.13 They acquired the patronage of all their monasteries, except for that of Bisham Priory, either through inheritance or by royal grant. Looking briefly at each of their religious houses in turn: both of their Cluniac priories had been founded around the beginning of the twelfth century, and had subsequently passed into the hands of the Montague family by inheritance. The advowson of Montacute Priory, situated in immediate proximity of Montacute Castle, their family caput during the twelfth century, was granted to William, lord Montague, earl of Salisbury and Marshal of England (d.1344), in 1339.14 Montacute Priory had been founded c.1100 by William, count of Mortain. By the fourteenth century the patronage of Montacute Priory had reverted to the crown, until 1339, when Edward III bestowed the patronage of the house upon the earl of Salisbury, with whose heirs it remained until its dissolution in 1539. The cartulary of Monta-

8 9 10

11 12 13 14

Ibid. Ibid., p.80. By the time of his death he had acquired a favourable position with the crown. In 1316 he received a royal grant ‘for his good service to the late and present kings’ (CPR 1313–17, p.535). GEC XI, p.386. Ibid. In 1338 William Montague granted the monks of Taunton the manor of Dulverton (Mon. VI, p.167, no.III). VCH Somerset II, p.112.

Somerset

Montacute

Berks.

Hants.

Bisham

Christchurch

Augustinian Canons

Dorset

Lincs.

County

Holme

Cluniac Monks

Deeping St James

Benedictine Monks

Name of House

1150

1337

c.1100

c.1107

1139

Fd.

1539

1536

1539

1539

1539

Diss.

Richard de Redvers

Wm Montague, earl of Salisbury

William count of Mortain

Robert de Lincoln

Baldwin FitzGilbert de Wake

Original Founder

Montague earls of Salisbury

Montague earls of Salisbury

from c.1339 Montague earls of Salisbury

1320s Montague earls of Salisbury

De Wake (1319 Thomas)

Patron c.1300

Table 4.1: Religious houses under the patronage of the Montague family

Margaret ctss of Salisbury





Patron at the Dissolution


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cute Priory includes an edifying entry concerning Edward III’s grant of its patronage to William Montague in 1339.15 The king’s charter, ‘concerning the advowson of the priory of Montacute, granted to William, earl of Salisbury’, runs as follows: Whereas we, Edward, King of England, in consideration of the strenuous worth of William, earl of Salisbury and marshal of England, and the faithful allegiance rendered to us by him, have granted to him, and his heirs, the advowson of the priory of Montacute, for ever, as in our letters patent is more fully contained.16

The charter then sets out some of the rights which the earl of Salisbury was to enjoy henceforth, as remuneration for his ‘faithful and laudable behaviour’ in the king’s allegiance. Among the privileges the earl was to enjoy was the right to ordain and dispose, as shall seem best for their own convenience and the usefulness of the priory, the issues and profits thence proceeding, as well in times of war as of vacation of the priory.17

The Montagues’ second Cluniac house, the priory of Holme (Dorset), founded c.1107 by Robert of Lincoln, was seized by the crown during the French wars, in common with other houses of the Cluniac order. By the 1320s, the priory had come under the patronage of the Montague family, in whose hands it remained until the suppression of the house in 1539. This aside, of the involvement of the Montagues with the majority of their monasteries we know relatively little. Evidently somewhat more important to the family than the houses just mentioned, was the Augustinian priory of Christchurch in Hampshire (now Dorset), also known as Twynham. Christchurch Priory can be considered to have been one of the Montagues’ more prominent monasteries. The monastery had been re-founded by Richard de Redvers in 1150.18 At the death of his heiress, Isabella de Fortibus, countess of Devon, in 1293, Edward I, famously,

15

16

17 18

Two Cartularies of the Augustinian Priory of Bruton and the Cluniac Priory of Montacute, ed. T.S. Holmes, E. Hobhouse and H.C. Maxwell Lyte, Somerset Rec. Soc., viii (1894), pp.213–14. Ibid. See also Dugdale: ‘Sciatis quod cum prioratus de Monte Acuto, dudum a progenitoribus dilecti et fidelis nostri Willielmi de Monte Acuto comitis Sarum et marescalli Angliæ denominationem acceperit, de quorum terris et possessionibus dictus prioratus dotatus extitit et ditatus, nos ad hoc, necnon ad probitatem strenuam dicti comitis, ac impensa nobis per eum obsequia fructuosa considerationem habentes, et sperantes quod idem comes propter gratam dictorum progenitorum suorum memoriam, et propter idemptitatem cognominis sui, et Prioratus prædicti, ipsum Prioratum gratiùs protegeret et foveret, si ejus fieret Advocatus, concessimus eidem comiti, pro nobis et hæredibus nostris, cum honoribus, prærogativis, juribus, et proficuis quibuscumque Advocato dicti prioratus ab antiquo debitis, absque aliquo nobis inde reddendo, imperpetuum’ (Mon. V, p.168, no.VII). Cartularies of Bruton and Montacute, pp.213–14. MRH, p.154.

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made her surrender Christchurch Priory and the Isle of Wight. Her heir, Hugh Courtenay, earl of Devon (d.1335) was recompensed with other lands instead. Edward III later granted the honour, lordship and the priory of Christchurch to William Montague, with whose heirs the patronage remained until the Dissolution. Christchurch Priory was never remarkably wealthy, but neither was it particularly deprived; the annual income of the house in the sixteenth century was in the region of £312.19 The patronage of the priory remained with the Montague family, who showed some interest in the house during the early fourteenth century and again in the sixteenth century. There is some evidence for building work undertaken in the priory church, dating from the early to mid-fourteenth century and from the fifteenth century, in the commissioning and execution of which the patrons of the priory may very well have played a part. No direct evidence has been found to prove this, but the presence of Montague heraldry in the choir, still visible, emphasises the link between the monastery and its patrons, represented by a sculpted angel holding the family arms. The new work included the roof of the south transept and the choir screen, as well as the Lady Chapel, which was added in the early fifteenth century, and the reredos, which dates from c.1450. 20 During the fourteenth century, then, the Montagues as monastic patrons were associated chiefly with their Augustinian priory in Hampshire. Yet despite holding the patronage of this important monastery, which stood close by their principal castle, and which might have seemed an appropriate location for the family mausoleum, the Montagues were evidently not satisfied with this option. In the first half of the fourteenth century, William Montague, earl of Salisbury (d.1344), then patron of the house, set out to found another monastery of the same religious order at Bisham in Berkshire, and over the next century and more, this new priory was to become the nucleus of the family’s generosity and attention above all their other religious houses. Of all the monasteries of which they were patrons, Bisham Priory was the family’s latest foundation, and the only one established any later than the early twelfth century. The priory was founded in the year 1337 on the location of a former Templar site, which had been suppressed in the early years of the fourteenth century.21 From its earliest beginnings the new monastery occupied a special position in the family’s sentiment and attracted the benevolence of its founders and their families. The house received numerous bequests of lands and other gifts, and it was chosen as the family mausoleum by its Montague founders and patrons, and by their Neville successors.22 William Montague, the first earl of Salisbury, was buried in his new foundation as early as 1344, seven years after the Augustinian

19 20 21 22

Ibid. p.139. Cf. M. Stannard, Christchurch Priory (Andover, 1996), p.11. Cf. MRH, pp.292–3. With an annual income of around £185 in the sixteenth century, however, Bisham Priory was a not an outstandingly wealthy monastery, and in fact less prosperous than Christchurch Priory, despite its active, generous patrons (MRH, p.138).


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community first occupied the site.23 His widow, Katharine, daughter of William, lord Grandison, who had made a vow of chastity and not remarried after her husband’s death, died in April 1349 and was buried in Bisham Priory with him.24 Some thirty years later, in 1381, the priory saw the funeral of the founder’s daughter Philippa, wife of Roger, lord Mortimer,25 and in 1397, another William Montague, second earl of Salisbury, the next patron of Bisham, was buried in the monastery.26 As son and heir of the founder he had previously confirmed his father’s charters to Bisham Priory. When William died in 1397 without any surviving sons, the Salisbury title and estates together with the patronage of the family’s religious houses passed to his nephew, John Montague, the third earl, the son and heir of William Montague’s younger brother John. Following John’s decapitation in Cirencester in 1399, his body was not returned immediately for burial in Bisham Priory, but was interred instead in Cirencester, to be reburied at Bisham over twenty years later.27 John Montague was succeeded by his eldest son Thomas, to whom the family lands were restored when he came of age in 1409. When Thomas died in November 1428, he, too was buried in Bisham, according to his will, which also contained instructions for a tomb for himself and his two wives.28 He moreover requested his widow to serve three poor persons daily with food and drink in his memory.29 His widow Alice, daughter of Thomas and granddaughter of Geoffrey Chaucer, was remarried two years after his death to William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk. At her death in May 1475, she was not buried with Thomas Montague and his first wife in Bisham, but chose instead to be interred at the college of Ewelme.30 In the absence of any male heirs of his body, Thomas Montague’s heir was his only daughter Alice, wife of Richard Neville (d.1460). Through his marriage to Alice Montague in 1421, Richard Neville inherited his father-in-law’s title at the latter’s death and became earl of Salisbury. The Nevilles, like the Montagues, became active patrons and benefactors of Bisham Priory, and several members of the Neville family, as lords Montague, were to be buried in the monastery. Richard himself was the first of them, together with his son Thomas and his wife Alice, who had died in 1463.31 Richard and Sir Thomas Neville had been killed in or after the battle of

23 24 25 26 27

28

29 30 31

GEC XI, p.389. College of Arms, MS E4, f.26. GEC XI, p.374; ibid. VIII, p.442. William Montague asked in his will to be interred ‘in the conventual church of Bustlesham Montacute, founded by my lord and father’ (TV, p.145). In 1420, his widow obtained licence to return her husband’s bones to Bisham Priory for reburial (CPR 1416–22, p.312). See also Mon. VI, p.528, no.III: ‘De translatione ossium Johannis de Monteacuto, Comitis Sarum, à Cirencestre usque ad Bustlesham.’ There is a certain urgency in Thomas Montague’s request for burial in the church of Bisham Priory, for he asked to have his body taken to the monastery ‘whatever part of the world I may chance to die’ (TV, p.215). Reg. Chichele, pp.390–1. GEC XI, p.395. In his will, composed in May 1458, Richard Neville asked to be buried in the priory of ‘Bustlesham Montagu’, which, he stated, ‘is under the patronage of me and my dear wife,

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Wakefield (1460); they were originally interred at Pontefract, and were subsequently exhumed and re-interred in their family mausoleum at Bisham, where they received a particularly spectacular funeral on 14 February 1463.32 During the ceremony, Neville’s war horse in full trappings was led down the length of the nave of the church by a fully armed knight, to the great amazement of the congregation. So impressive was the ceremony, that it was later described ‘as the model for the Berynge of an Erle’.33 Another two of Richard Neville’s sons, John Neville, Marquess Montague and his brother Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, ‘the Kingmaker’, were buried in Bisham Priory in 1471; and five years later the wife of the former, Isabel, was buried there with them.34 Edward Plantagenet, lord Montague, earl of Warwick, was the last descendant of the family to be buried in the priory. He was beheaded in 1499 and later buried in Bisham.35 His sister Margaret on the other hand reverted her attention to Christchurch Priory, where, about 1529, she built what was one of the grandest chantries around. Her chantry chapel, known today as the Salisbury Chantry, is a grandiose and very intricate construction, which stands in the north choir of the priory church. This chantry, which Margaret had built as a tomb for herself and her son, the Cardinal Reginald Pole, survives to this day. Its magnificent fan vaulted ceiling once bore the countess’s coats of arms, but its bosses were defaced at the orders of Henry VIII, following Margaret’s execution for treason in 1541. Following her decapitation, Margaret was not buried in her imposing chantry, but was laid to rest instead in the small chapel of St Peter’s-ad-Vincula in the Tower of London, permission to transfer her remains to Christchurch having been refused, and the great Salisbury Chantry was never put to its intended use. Among the many religious houses of which the Montagues were patrons, Bisham Priory was evidently held in special esteem. None of the other monasteries appear to have been selected for burial by members of the family, except for those already mentioned. Remarkably, instead of choosing an existing monastery, either their previously favoured priory at Bruton in Somerset, or their own priory of Christchurch, the Montagues made the conscious decision to found an additional new – very expensive – religious house. On St Dunstan’s Day, 1336, the founder himself, William Montague, laid the foundation stone of the new priory, for the building of which he paid the vast sum of £3850.36 The size of this endowment is quite extraordinary for a religious foundation of a single family, and once completed, Bisham Priory, appropriately, came to be regarded as the spiritual home of the Montague family and their successors. The popularity of the priory with the earls of Salisbury was not confined to

32

33 34 35 36

in her right’ (TV, pp.286–7). Together with his body for burial, Neville made a generous bequest to the canons of Bisham, to obtain their prayers for the good of his soul. M.A. Hicks, Warwick the Kingmaker (Oxford, 1998), p.228; A. Payne, ‘The Salisbury Roll of Arms, c.1463’, England in the Fifteenth Century, ed. D. Williams (Woodbridge, 1987), p.187. Cited by Payne, ‘Salisbury Roll’, p.187. GEC IX, p.79; ibid. XII.2, p.385. Ibid. XII.2, p.394. College of Arms, MS E4, f.26.


155

burial in the house. An indication of the position Bisham Priory held in the dynastic sentiment is given in the Salisbury Roll, which featured depictions of the family’s new monastery alongside its founders.37 During the decades following the foundation of Bisham Priory, the Montagues received several licences to alienate lands to the house, and the Augustinian canons were moreover the recipients of numerous endowments and gifts given to them by members of the patron’s family. As well as supporting Bisham during their lifetime, the earls of Salisbury made bequests to the house to ensure the execution of their last wishes after their deaths. The family’s grants to their priory consisted of both cash donations and more specific items of mostly religious significance. Thus on 21 November 1378, Philippa Mortimer, countess of March (d.1381) and daughter of William Montague, patron of the priory, made to the community – together with the wish to be buried there – a generous bequest consisting of a range of vestments, books and chalices as well as all her chapel furniture.38 Her husband gave to the house the sum of 40 marks for prayers for his soul, specified in his will, before being buried there with his wife.39 William Montague, in 1397, bequeathed £30 in money to his priory and directed 500 marks to be used for the construction of a ‘splendid tomb’ for himself.40 In 1414, Elizabeth Montague directed payment for her funeral and interment, as well as £12 10s for no fewer than 3,000 masses for her soul, and various other services.41 And in 1428, Thomas Montague left to the priory the generous sum of £100 of movable goods, as well as his ecclesiastical vestments, described in some detail in his will.42 Several other members of the family left unspecified sums of money to the house, the prior and the canons, both for prayers and for repairs and building work to the house. The tradition of more or less generous bequests to Bisham Priory was continued by the Neville family after they inherited the patronage from the Montagues, together with the tradition of burial in the monastery. As well as being an indication of a continuing link between a monastery and its patrons during the later Middle Ages, these examples emphasise that bequests made by lay patrons to their religious houses might vary considerably.

37

38 39

40 41 42

For a discussion of the Salisbury Roll, see Payne, ‘Salisbury Roll’, as cited above. Payne mentions the association of the family with Bisham Priory expressed in the Rolls, emphasised by ‘the inclusion of a very handsome picture of Bisham Priory church, flanked by its founder, William Montague, first Earl of Salisbury, and his wife, Katherine de Grandison’ (pp.188–9). TV, p.101. Philippa’s husband, the Earl of March, preferred burial with his wife’s family in Bisham to burial with his own ancestors. For his will, see A Collection of all the Wills now known to be Extant of the Kings and Queens of England (London, 1780), p.110. TV, p.145. Ibid., p.183; Reg. Chichele, p.15. ‘Item legamus dicto monasterio de Bustellisham totam at integram sectam nostram vestimentorum ecclesiasticorum quam habemus de nigro et viridi baudekyn cum melonis de auro cipri una cum toto apparatus de eadem secta ad nostrum lectum pertinenti quem quidem apparatum aptari volumus in capas nostris propriis sumptibus et expensis’ (Reg. Chichele, ciii, pp.390–1).

156


In the case of the earls of Salisbury, the continuing involvement of successive generations of the family with this, their chief monastery, suggests a continuing interest in the house which they evidently preferred to their other priories. The Montagues had no immediate need to found another monastery in addition to their existing houses, yet they made a conscious decision to this effect and built a new and imposing priory according to their own ideas, rather than build upon an existing tradition. This was the confident act of an upwardly mobile family in late medieval England. Being regarded favourably by the crown in the fourteenth century, the family felt sufficiently self-assured to invest in a new family monument and establish a costly religious foundation and with it a new family mausoleum, which simultaneously advertised their rise in society.

The Berkeley Family The name Berkeley was adopted by this family from their residence of the same name, of which Roger, known as ‘senior’, Berkeley was made provost shortly after the Norman Conquest.43 It was his heir, the next Roger de Berkeley, styled ‘junior’, who began building Berkeley Castle early in the twelfth century. His son, another Roger (d.c.1170), completed his father’s work after the death of the former in 1131, before he lost the honour of Berkeley towards the middle of the century.44 Shortly before succeeding to the English throne, Henry of Anjou granted the castle and honour of Berkeley to Robert FitzHarding, merchant of Bristol, styled ‘the devout’ by John Smyth in the Berkeley Manuscripts.45 Henry subsequently, as Henry II, confirmed this grant to Robert FitzHarding, who was thereby created lord Berkeley. The descendants of this family were to become patrons, and, according to contemporary opinion, engaged and generous patrons at that, of at least six religious houses by the later Middle Ages. The ‘devout’ Robert FitzHarding appears to have been a pious man indeed. In 1141 he founded the Augustinian abbey of St Augustine’s in Bristol (Glos.), and in later life he entered the religious community as a canon of the house.46 His wife, Eve, founded a house of Augustinian canonesses on St Michael’s Hill in Bristol, of which community she later became prioress. 47 It was their son and heir Maurice FitzRobert FitzHarding who significantly enlarged Berkeley Castle and began to use it as the family’s caput. Maurice henceforth adopted the name Berkeley for his family, having married Alice, the daughter of Roger de Berkeley, his deposed predecessor, in 1154.48 At his death in 1190, Maurice de Berkeley was succeeded by his son and heir Robert, who 43 44 45 46 47 48

GEC II, pp.123–4. Ibid., p.124. J. Maclean (ed.), John Smyth of Nibley, The Berkeley Manuscripts (Gloucester, 1883–5). St Augustine’s Abbey, Bristol was elevated to the status of cathedral in 1542, unusually for a lay foundation, and continues in use as Bristol Cathedral to this day. GEC II, p.125. Ibid., p.126


157

had married twice. His first wife was Julian, daughter of Robert de Pont d’Arche, who died in 1217, and was buried in Robert FitzHarding’s foundation of St Augustine’s in Bristol as one of the first in a long succession of family members to be laid to rest in the abbey church.49 After the death of his first wife, Robert de Berkeley secondly married a certain Lucy, who survived him and died in 1234. She, too, was buried in the church of St Augustine’s Abbey, as was Robert de Berkeley himself, when he died in May 1220. It is said that he was buried ‘in a monck’s cowle’.50 The tradition of family burial in St Augustine’s Abbey was continued by later generations of Berkeleys during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The Berkeleys had a reputation as involved and generous patrons not only of their Bristol monastery, but also of the Cistercian abbey of Kingswood (Glos.),51 and there is also some evidence for close personal links between the patrons and another one of their religious communities: in 1325, the prioress of the house of Benedictine nuns at Barrow Gurney (Somerset) was Joan of Gurney, a close relative of the Berkeley family.52 They may have been patrons of half a dozen religious houses, but it was St Augustine’s Abbey that was the Berkeleys’ main monastery. The fact that the abbey became their foremost sepulchre over an extended period of time suggests that this house had a special significance for the family. St Augustine’s was not the family’s only burial place, however. On at least one occasion the Kingswood Abbey (Glos.) was chosen for interment by a member of the Berkeley family.53 Both St Augustine’s and Kingswood were particularly magnificent, cathedralesque foundations, and hence much more prestigious than the other monasteries of which the Berkeleys were patrons. The other religious houses of which the family held the patronage during the later Middle Ages, included the Benedictine priory of Leonard Stanley (Glos.), the Premonstratension abbey of Croxton (Leics.) and two houses of nuns, namely the Benedictine house of Barrow Gurney and the Augustinian canonesses at Bristol. Kingswood Abbey and Leonard Stanley were both Berkeley foundations, while Croxton Abbey had passed into their hands much later. The Berkeleys were regarded as the patrons of the house only by the sixteenth century.54 All four of the Berkeleys’ male monasteries had annual revenues exceeding £100 c.1535. Of these Kingswood, Croxton and St Augustine noted incomes as high as £239, £385 and £670 respectively.55 This points to some degree of involvement and maintenance of the houses by the patrons, at a time when poverty among English and Welsh religious houses was wide-

49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Cf. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.71. GEC II, p.126. For some comments on the generosity of the Berkeley family towards religious houses in the thirteenth century, see Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, pp.72–3. VCH Somerset II, p.108. In 1422, Elizabeth, countess of Warwick and baroness Berkeley, the heir general, was buried in the abbey. Cf. GEC XII.2, p.378. VCH Leics. II, p.30. MRH, pp.113, 184, 138.

Bristol

Augustinian Canonesses

Barrow Gurney

Benedictine Nuns

Croxton

Premonstratensian Canons

Bristol St Augustine

Augustinian Canons

Kingswood

Cistercian Monks

Leonard Stanley

Benedictine Monks

Name of House

Glos.

Somerset

Leics.

Glos.

Glos.

Glos.

County

–1173

?–1200

1162

1141

1139

1146

Fd.

1536

1536

1538

1540

1538

1538

Diss.

Eva, wd of Rbt FitzHarding

Member of Gurney family

Wm count of Boulogne

Robert FitzHarding

Roger III de Berkeley

Roger de Berkeley II / III

Original Founder

Berkeley

1283 Berkeley

lay patrons

Berkeley

Berkeley

1224 Thomas de Berkeley

Patron c.1300

Table 4.2: Religious Houses under the patronage of the Berkeley family

Berkeley

Berkeley

Berkeley

Berkeley

Berkeley

Berkeley



159

spread. The two nunneries under Berkeley patronage, on the other hand, Barrow Gurney, which was in the hands of the family from the late thirteenth century, and the Bristol house for Augustinian canonesses, which they founded, were rather destitute in comparison, the former having to survive on around £24, and the latter on as little as £21 per annum. 56 Of their many religious houses, the Augustinian priory at Bristol was evidently the Berkeley family’s most important and most revered monastery, and the house which most strongly attracted the patronage of successive generations of the family. As in the case of the Montagues and Bisham, the preferential treatment granted by the Berkeleys to St Augustine’s Abbey was reflected in the family’s choice of the abbey as family sepulchre. Yet unlike the Montagues, the Berkeleys were building upon an ancient ancestral tradition. Continuing the custom established by their forebears in the twelfth and thirteenth century, at least five members of the family sought burial in the abbey during the fourteenth century. The first of these was Joan, wife of Thomas lord Berkeley, who died in March 1309 and was buried in St Augustine’s in the same year.57 Twelve years later, following his death in July 1321, her 76-year-old husband was in all probability buried in the abbey with her.58 Their tomb can still be seen, in an elegantly executed star-shaped niche in the north wall of the fourteenth-century Berkeley Chapel, which is adjacent to the south wall of the south choir aisle of the abbey church. Their son, Maurice lord Berkeley, died in 1326 at Wallingford and was buried in the Benedictine monastery there, but his remains were eventually removed from their original burial site and laid to rest in St Augustine’s Abbey, together with those of his ancestors.59 His tomb with his well-preserved effigy is situated close to that of his parents in the south choir aisle, next to the tomb of his thirteenth-century ancestors Thomas and Joan. Neither of Maurice lord Berkeley’s wives, both of whom predeceased him, were apparently buried in the abbey, nor was Thomas, his son and heir by his first wife, who died in October, 1361.60 He was instead interred in Berkeley church (Glos.), as was his second wife, Katherine (d.1385).61 His first wife, Margaret, daughter of Roger Mortimer, earl of March, on the other hand, was buried in St Augustine’s Abbey in 1337.62 Her tomb is in the Elder Lady Chapel in the north transept of the abbey church where it still stands today. Buried in the same tomb as Margaret lady Berkeley were her son Maurice, who had died aged thirty-seven of the wounds he had received at Poitiers, and her grandson

56 57 58 59 60

61 62

Ibid., pp.253, 278. GEC II, p.127. Ibid. Ibid., p.129. Thomas Lord Berkeley chose not to be buried in St Augustine’s despite his earlier ordination of a perpetual chantry in the abbey church, for which he received episcopal confirmation in April 1348 (Reg. Bransford, no.907). GEC II, p.129. Ibid., p.130.

160


James (d.1405). In his will, dated 1400, James Berkeley had stated the wish to be buried ‘in the tomb of my lord and father’.63 Following the entombment of James Berkeley in 1405, more than a hundred years elapsed before the abbey saw another Berkeley funeral, as several generations of family members preferred to be buried in the house of Grey Friars in London, at Berkeley church and in nearby Wotton-under-Edge (Glos.) instead. It was not until the year 1533, less than seven years before the abbey was closed and the canons expelled, that the Berkeleys returned their attention to their Augustinian abbey in Bristol. For several generations, then, successive members of the Berkeley family had preferred to be buried elsewhere and thus discontinue the family’s tradition of burial in the Berkeley mausoleum in their Augustinian abbey. The first patron to break with the dynastic tradition in the fifteenth century was Thomas, lord Berkeley, son and heir of Maurice, lord Berkeley (d.1368). He chose not to be laid to rest in the abbey where his father, his younger brother James (d.1405), and his grandmother lay buried, but was instead interred in the church of Wotton-under-Edge, together with his wife Margaret (d.1392).64 Following his death without a male heir, the Berkeley title and estates passed to his nephew, James. The inheritance of the barony of Berkeley by James Berkeley, however, was bitterly disputed by his cousin Elizabeth (d.1422), the daughter and heiress general of Maurice lord Berkeley. Elizabeth, through her husband Richard Beauchamp (d.1439) countess of Warwick, likewise had a strong interest in her father’s inheritance and actively tried to prevent James Berkeley from taking possession of Berkeley Castle and its estates. Her attempts, however, proved ultimately unsuccessful. When she died in 1422, she sought burial in the Cistercian abbey of Kingswood in Gloucestershire in what might be interpreted as a gesture of disaffection with the family’s main abbey.65 James lord Berkeley died at Berkeley Castle in November 1463 and was buried, according to his wishes, in Berkeley church.66 He was succeeded by his son William, during whose lifetime the quarrel regarding the Berkeley inheritance was continued. The heirs male of the family kept the part of the inheritance which included Berkeley and the Bristol monastery. William, lord Berkeley was created Viscount Berkeley in April 1481, earl of Nottingham in June 1483 and, finally, Marquess Berkeley in January 1489.67 In the absence of a male heir, he settled the Castle and Honour of Berkeley, as well as the majority of his lands and manors, on the king in tail male. When William died in his sixty-sixth year in February 1492, the Marquessate of Berkeley and the earldom of Nottingham became extinct. He chose to be buried not in either of the family’s preferred monasteries, but at the house of the Austin Friars in 63 64 65

66 67

TV, p.165. GEC II, p.131. Ibid. XII.2, p.378; John Rous in the Rows Rol (ed. W.H. Courthorpe, 1859), no.51, does not reveal her burial place, but mentions her daughter Elizabeth’s burial ‘in the castel of Warrewik’ (RR, no.53). GEC II, p.132. Ibid.


161

London.68 His second wife Joan (d.1484) was buried there with him.69 William was succeeded by his elderly brother Maurice, whom he had previously disinherited, but who managed to recover a considerable portion of the family’s former manors and estates during the seven years which followed. He died in September 1506, aged seventy, and was buried, like his brother, in the house of the London Austin Friars.70 His elder son and heir, another Maurice Berkeley, who died in Calais in September 1523, was buried in France.71 In the sixteenth century, popularity returned to St Augustine’s Abbey, but it was not until the death in January 1533 of this Maurice’s brother Thomas, younger son of Maurice Berkeley (d.1506), and his brother’s heir, that family burials in the abbey were resumed. When Thomas lord Berkeley died in 1533, he was buried in St Augustine’s Abbey, together with his first wife, Eleanor (d.1525).72 His second wife, Cicely, survived him, and when she died in 1558 she was likewise buried in St Augustine’s, which had by then become Bristol Cathedral.73 It was another two generations before the Berkeleys once again obtained possession of the estate of Berkeley, granted by William lord Berkeley to the crown in 1487, following the death without male heirs of Edward VI in 1553. The Berkeleys, then, much in line with current fashion, replaced St Augustine’s Abbey with more recent, up to date foundations, first at Wotton, and later at Berkeley, where they had a splendid chantry at the east end. Since considerable importance was attached to the choice of burial place of a family member, the rejection of St Augustine’s as family sepulchre over a span of 150 years provides some information about the nature of the patron–monastery relationship. The moves of the Berkeley family were conscious decisions. Wotton was a modern foundation; Berkeley was close to the family residence. It may be assumed that ties between the family and their Augustinian abbey had weakened during the fifteenth century, the Berkeleys making use of alternative options for burial, regardless of the preferences expressed by their ancestors a century and more previously. There is no evidence, in any case, that any of the family’s other religious houses, with the exception of Kingswood in one instance, came to replace the Bristol house as burial site for the Berkeleys. The explanation for the temporary abandonment of St Augustine’s may thus simply lie in the changing fashions of the time. In contrast to so many other patrons and their families during the later Middle Ages, however, the Berkeley family eventually returned to their traditional family burial place in their religious house in the sixteenth century. The reason for this may have been the purely personal choice by the current patron and his wife. Thomas Berkeley may have recognised the importance of this prestigious abbey for his family; he

68 69 70 71 72

73

For his will see TV, pp.407–8. GEC II, p.134. Ibid., p.135. Ibid. Ibid., p.136. In his will, which he composed in the previous year, however, Thomas Lord Berkeley had requested burial not in St Augustine’s but ‘in the parish church of Mangollsfield, in the place where I used to kneel’ (TV, p.655). GEC II, p.136.

162


may have been aware of the dynastic significance of this house as his ancestral burial site. Golding has argued that ‘burial in one place over several generations did represent solidarity, but it was the solidarity of the family descent rather than the solidarity between family and community’.74 The fact that the Berkeleys were noted by contemporaries for their generosity towards St Augustine’s Abbey, a fact which is reinforced by the evidence of such a high number of family burials in the abbey church, and by repeated bequests to the religious community, indicates that the relationship between the monastery and its patrons was intact and, to some extent at least, mutually interested. Significantly, the monastery kept chronicles and genealogical information about the Berkeley family. The duration of their patronage of St Augustine’s and other monasteries is quite remarkable, and in their case the element of family tradition was evidently particularly important and lay, perhaps, at the heart of their renewed interest in the abbey in the sixteenth century.

The de Clare Family75 The great family who became known as the de Clares had descended from Richard FitzGilbert ‘de Clare’ (d.c.1090), also known as ‘de Bienfaite’ or ‘de Tonbridge’, son and heir of Gilbert, count of Brionne, who had fought for his kinsman William I at the Battle of Hastings.76 In the years after the Norman Conquest, towards the end of the eleventh century, William I rewarded his loyal cousin with lands and estates located mainly in the southern counties of Suffolk, Essex, Surrey and Kent, and centred around the lordship of Clare in Suffolk. At Richard’s death around 1090, his inheritance was split between his two older sons, Roger and Gilbert. The former received Richard’s estates in Normandy, while the latter inherited the honour of Clare and the manor and castle of Tonbridge in England. Following a series of strategic marriages, as well as ‘favourable connections’ the family came to hold lands widely across England, Wales and Ireland,77 and by the early fourteenth century, the de Clares had become one of the top two families in Britain and Ireland. 78 They were a family of outstanding importance during the thirteenth, and the first quarter of the fourteenth century, and a look at the long list of their manors and estates more than confirms this view.79 Between the mid-thirteenth century and 1314, the family held lands, often valuable ones, in the southern

74 75

76 77 78 79

Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.72. For two studies of this family, see M. Altschul, A Baronial Family in Medieval England: The Clares, 1217–1314 (Baltimore, 1965), and M. Hicks, ‘The Early Lords: Robert FitzHamon to the de Clares’ in Morris and Shoesmith (eds), Tewkesbury Abbey, pp.11–18. Altschul, Baronial Family, p.18; GEC III, p.242. Golding, ‘Burials and Benefactions’, p.20. Note also Hicks, who has pointed out that by the thirteenth century, the family held 456 knights’ fees (‘The Early Lords’, p.16). In the words of Altschul, ‘the head of the house of Clare was one of the greatest landholders in the British Isles’ during this period (Baronial Family, p.3).


163

counties of England, as well as in Northamptonshire, Worcester and Norfolk. They moreover held large estates in the south of Wales and the border region, especially in Glamorgan and Monmouth. As well as holding ample lands and important, wealthy estates, the de Clares also held the patronage of more than a dozen monasteries and nunneries in England and Wales. Richard FitzGilbert made an early appearance in the historical records in connection with a monastery. It was he who, in c.1078, was responsible for the foundation of the first of the family’s many religious houses in England and Wales, that is the Benedictine priory of St Neots in Huntingdonshire.80 While the family came to hold the patronage of as many as fifteen religious houses during the fourteenth century, only one other monastery, the Augustinian priory of Tonbridge in Kent, was actually founded by a direct ancestor of the family. The remaining houses all passed into the de Clares’ hands by means of inheritance and through marriage. The monasteries of which they were patrons during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries included houses of both monks and canons, nuns and canonesses of many religious orders. In terms of wealth and importance, too, the houses differed a great deal. Their wealthiest monastery was Tewkesbury Abbey, with an annual income of £1598 c. 1535, while at the bottom end of the scale stood the small priory of Rothwell (Northants.), a house of Augustinian canonesses (c.1249), with an annual revenue of no more than £5. 81 Successive generations of the de Clare family were involved with several of their monasteries and nunneries over the years during which they held the patronage. Among the surviving documents relating to the Augustinian priory of Tonbridge (Kent) are a number of letters from the prior to lady Margaret de Clare, Gilbert III de Clare’s sister (d.1342). In one of these letters, the prior expressed his gratitude for the gift of a gown sent to him by lady Margaret, while in another, he asked ‘for an allowance of the balance of a debt due to her of £11 9s 2d in consideration of the damage done to their manor of Tunbridge Hall’.82 The relative closeness of the relationship, which appears to have been maintained between the canons of Tonbridge and the lady Margaret, inevitably brought with it also the potential for conflict. In an undated petition, the prior asked Margaret to ‘prevent her officers from levying fines and holding courts etc. within the moiety of the old manor of Bodekesham, granted to the priory of Tonbridge by Richard de Clare, formerly earl of Hereford, her ancestor’.83 Fortunately, judging by the continuation of a cordial relationship between the prior and canons of Tonbridge and lady Margaret de Clare, the situation seems

80

81

82 83

For a discussion of the religious foundations of the de Clares in England, see also J.C. Ward, ‘Fashions in Monastic Endowment: the Foundations of the Clare Family, 1066–1314’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, vol.32, no.4 (October 1981), pp.427–51. Rothwell Priory was apparently poor from the outset, having been inadequately endowed by the founders in the first instance. By the fourteenth century the priory was impoverished, and in the sixteenth century Rothwell Priory was apparently the poorest house of Augustinian canonesses in England (MRH, p.282). Calendar of Charters and Rolls, ed. Coxe and Turner, p.134, no.s. Ibid., no.v.

Glos. Glam. Dorset Monmouth Hunts. Glos.

Monmouth

Glamorg. Glamorg.

Cambs. Somerset Herts. Kent Norfolk

Monmouth

Benedictine Monks Bristol, St James Cardiff Cranborne Goldcliff St Neots Tewkesbury

Cluniac Monks Malpas

Cistercian Monks Margam Neath

Augustinian Canons Anglesey Keynsham Royston Tonbridge Walsingham

Benedictine Nuns Usk

Augustinian Canonesses Rothwell N’hants.

County

Name of House

–1249

–1236

12th c. 1172–3 1173–9 –1192 c.1153

1147 1130

–1122

c.1137 –1147 1102 1113 1078–9 1102

Fd.

1537

1536

1536 1539 1537 1525 1538

1536 1539

1539

1540 1403 1540 1450 1539 1540

Diss.

Member of de Clare family

Richard de Clare

Henry I Wm earl of Gloucester Eustace de Merk Richard de Clare Geoffrey de Favarches

Robert earl of Gloucester Sir Richard de Granville

Winibald of Caerleon

Robert earl of Gloucester Robert FitzHamon Haylward Snew Robert de Chandos Richard FitzGilbert de Clare Rbt FitzHamon earl of Glos.

Original Founder

De Clare Earls of Gloucester

De Clare earls of Gloucester

De Clare earls of Gloucester Gilbert de Clare until 1314 Scalar family > Gilbert de Clare Hugh Audeley the younger De Clare

De Clare > Despenser De Clare > Despenser

De Clare earls of Gloucester

De Clare earls of Gloucester De Clare earls of Gloucester De Clare earls of Gloucester Gilbert de Clare > royal Gilbert de Clare earl of Gloucester De Clare earls of Gloucester

Patron c.1300

Table 4.3: Religious Houses under the patronage of the de Clare family

?royal

York > royal 1461

Royal Co-heirs Mortimer / Stafford Stafford > royal 1521 York > royal 1461

By 1487 royal ?royal

Royal

Despenser > royal by 1487 Despenser > royal by 1487 Cell of Tewkesbury —— Earls of Stafford > royal 1521 Despenser > royal by 1487



165

to have been resolved peacefully and not escalated into a more serious dispute. The family emphasised their bond with the priory not only in life, but also in death. Margaret de Clare was buried there in 1342, as was Hugh Audley, her husband, in 1347.84 At the division of the de Clare estates in the fourteenth century, the patronage of Tonbridge Priory passed via Margaret’s second husband, Hugh Audley, to the Staffords, and thence eventually came to the crown.85 The monastic associations of the de Clare family extended over a wide geographical area, centred on their estates in the southern counties. Among their possessions in the south of Wales were the small dependent Benedictine priories at Cardiff (Glamorgan) and Goldcliff (Monmouth), the Cluniac house of Malpas (Monmouth), two Cistercian abbeys, one in Neath, the other in Margam (both in Glamorgan), and the Benedictine nunnery in Usk (Monmouth).86 The two Cistercian abbeys of which the de Clares were patrons, were among the more important houses of the order in Wales. Margam Abbey in particular was a house of comparative prosperity in the late thirteenth century, when the annual income was recorded as exceeding £255, making Margam the wealthiest Cistercian abbey in Wales.87 In the sixteenth century the annual income of Margam Abbey was still valued at £181, falling just below the £200–line set by Henry VIII’s commissioners to denote ‘lesser’ monasteries. In terms of inmates, too, Margam Abbey was considerably large. In 1336 the abbey housed 38 monks and 40 lay brothers, as well as numerous other staff.88 Today the remains of the house are in a poor state. The former abbey church itself remains remarkably intact, but the conventual buildings have all but disappeared. Only a few walls remain of the cloisters. The octagonal chapter house still stands, bar its roof, which collapsed in the last century. Altogether the compound is a ruinous, but nonetheless forceful, reminder of the importance of Margam Abbey in its heyday in the thirteenth century. The family’s other Cistercian monastery was Neath Abbey,89 described by an impressed John Leland in the 1530s as ‘the fairest abbey of all Wales’.90 The abbey was founded originally as a Savignac house in 1130 by Sir Richard Granville and was united, together with the other Savignac houses in the country, to the Cistercian order in 1147. In the year 1224 Neath Abbey was burnt to the ground by the Welsh and had to be rebuilt.91 Despite this misfortune, the annual income of the community exceeded £209 in 1291, and was thus only slightly lower than that of Margam Abbey. At the dissolution of 84 85

86 87 88 89 90 91

Ant. Fun. Mon., p.322. Members of both families, Audley and Stafford, chose to be buried in Tonbridge Priory during the fourteenth century. They included Hugh Audley (d.1347), Ralph Earl Stafford (d.1372) and William Earl Stafford (d.1395) among others. On the de Clare’s rule of their Welsh territories, note Davies, Age of Conquest, pp.281–3. MRH, p.122; see also Walter de Grey Birch’s study of the History of Margam Abbey (London, 1897). MRH, p.122. For a study of the monastery and related documents, see Walter de Grey Birch, A History of Neath Abbey (London, 1902). Cited by D.M. Robinson, Neath Abbey (Cardiff, 1997). MRH, p.122.

166


Neath Abbey in 1539, the Cistercian community numbered eight monks and an unrecorded number of lay brothers and servants. The income of the house was then valued at £132 annually.92 Following the closure of the house, parts of the monastic buildings were transformed into a Tudor mansion, the remains of which can still be seen today. Although the two Welsh Cistercian abbeys were by no means at the centre of the de Clares’ devotional attention, the family can nonetheless be unquestionably linked to both houses, not least upon scrutiny of the archaeological evidence from the two abbeys, among which a number of heraldic tiles emblazoned with the arms of the de Clare’s successors are perhaps the most conspicuous indication.93 The family’s involvement with several of their religious houses is reasonably well documented. This is due not least to the relative prosperity of some of their abbeys and priories during this period. Among the de Clare’s monasteries, there were at least three houses which still had an annual income exceeding £200 in the sixteenth century. The Augustinian abbey of Keynsham in Somerset, founded in 1172–3 by William Fitzcount, earl of Gloucester, recorded an income as high as £419 p.a. in c.1535, four years prior to its suppression.94 And the Norfolk house of Walsingham, another house of Augustinian canons, had an annual income in the range of £391 at the same time.95 Walsingham Priory had been an important pilgrimage destination from the earliest days of its existence, because it housed the miracle-working statue of Our Lady of Walsingham. The community of Walsingham was large and reasonably prosperous, thanks largely to the popularity of the Lady of Walsingham, who attracted, among many others, royal pilgrims during the later Middle Ages. The most prosperous by a long way of all the family’s religious houses, however, was the great Benedictine abbey at Tewkesbury. Tewkesbury Abbey, more than any of the de Clares’ other monasteries, was evidently held in high regard by the family, as it had been by their ancestors, and, indeed, would be by their successors.96 The abbey had been re-founded, originally as a cell of the Benedictine abbey of Cranborne (Dorset), on the site 92 93

94 95 96

Ibid. At Neath Abbey, fragments of these tiles are still in situ in the eastern and the northern ambulatory. Heraldic tiles from both Neath and Margam, sporting the de Clare three chevrons have also been preserved in the National Museum of Wales in Cardiff. Cf. J.M. Lewis, The Medieval Tiles of Wales (Cardiff, 1999), p.31 (ill.107, p.122) and A.L. Jones, The Medieval Heraldic Inlaid Paving Tiles of Neath Abbey, Heraldry in Glamorgan, vii (Bridgend, 1996), p.30. MRH, p.141. Ibid., p.144. In 1898, J.H. Blunt, in his preface to the first edition of Tewkesbury Abbey and its Associates, bemoaned the lack of sources relating to the abbey when he claimed that ‘the materials for the history of Tewkesbury Abbey are but scanty in quantity’. The existing sources, he continued, ‘consist chiefly of an early register and cartulary, and of a small compilation written in the latter half of the fifteenth century, and also entitled a register’ (Blunt, Tewkesbury Abbey, p.3). Fortunately, Blunt’s rather bleak view has since been modified, as the registers of Tewkesbury have been examined by generations of scholars who have generally recognised their value and who have added their own work to the gradually increasing corpus of knowledge regarding both Tewkesbury Abbey and its patrons.


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of an earlier priory, which was itself a re-foundation of an eighth-century hermitage, during the opening years of the twelfth century.97 The first earl of Gloucester, Robert FitzHamon, is held to be responsible for the re-establishment of the abbey and the building of its church, and he is generally regarded as the founder of Tewkesbury Abbey. He is depicted, together with his wife Sybil, in an early sixteenth-century illustration in the abbey’s remarkable Book of Founders.98 In this illustration Robert FitzHamon and Sybil are shown jointly holding a model of the abbey church in their hands, accompanied by their respective arms, which also incorporate the so-called Tewkesbury Cross. The portraits of founders and patrons aside, the Founders’ Book moreover provides a unique and invaluable insight into the abbey’s affairs during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as well as noting events surrounding the lives and deaths of successive patrons of the abbey. Towards the end of the twelfth century, the patronage of the monastery passed from Robert FitzHamon’s descendants through the marriage of his greatgranddaughter Amice and Richard de Clare to the Clare family. Although the de Clares were patrons of a considerable number of religious houses, it seems clear that Tewkesbury Abbey held particular significance for successive generations of the family.99 From the time the de Clares first held the patronage of the abbey and the earldom of Gloucester in the early thirteenth century, it was the grand edifice of Tewkesbury which they chose as their family mausoleum, and which saw the burials of several members of the family. Previously, some members of the family had been buried in the Benedictine alien priory of Stoke by Clare in Suffolk, which was another Clare foundation.100 As well as being chosen as the main family burial site, the Benedictine community at Tewkesbury was moreover the focal point of the generosity of members of the de Clare family, and the fortunate recipient of the greater part of their benefactions. Family burials were normally accompanied by gifts or grants to the community which received the body for burial, and which was consequently responsible for maintaining an appropriately high standard of prayers for the souls of the deceased. The first recorded burial of a family member in Tewkesbury Abbey was that of Gilbert I de Clare, earl of Gloucester and Hertford (d.1230), son of Richard I de Clare, the first Clare lord of Tewkesbury. He died while he was abroad in Brittany at the order of Henry III, in October 1230, and, according to his specific wishes, his body was returned to England for burial in the church of Tewkesbury Abbey. The manner of his arrival in England and the procession of his body through Devon, Somerset and Dorset are described in 97 98 99

100

MRH, pp.77–8. Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Top. Glouc. d.2, f.13r. See also Luxford, ‘The Founders’ Book’, pp.53–64. In the Inquisitions Post Mortem, the family were noted as good patrons of their religious houses: ‘Neither the said earl [Gilbert de Clare, d.1314] nor his ancestors took anything of the said priories [under their patronage] in time of vacancy, but the convents of those houses shall seek licence to elect a prior’ (Cal. IPM, i, [1315]). The priory had been founded by Gilbert FitzRichard de Clare in 1090 and moved by his son Richard to Stoke by Clare in 1124 (MRH, pp.87,92). In 1152, for instance, Gilbert de Clare was interred in the house (GEC III, p.244).

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the Annals of Tewkesbury Abbey.101 In order to provide for his funeral, the earl gave to the abbey certain woodland and a ‘rich silver gilt cross’.102 His widow Isabel Marshal (d.1240) also requested burial in the abbey, but was instead interred in Beaulieu Abbey, recently founded by her second husband’s father, King John.103 Her heart, however, was buried, in ‘cuppa argentea decenter deaurata’, in her first husband’s tomb in Tewkesbury Abbey.104 It was during the patronage of the next earl, Gilbert and Isabel’s son Richard II de Clare, that contacts between the monks and the family were particularly active. In July 1242, Abbot Robert of Tewkesbury travelled to Glamorgan on behalf of his patron, in order to help restore the peace in the vicinity.105 On several occasions during the 1240s, the abbot of Tewkesbury was moreover involved in providing a range of financial services for the de Clares, which included standing as fidejussores to the earl of Cornwall on earl Richard’s behalf in 1243,106 and organising a loan of 100 marks for him from Jewish moneylenders in 1249.107 Richard de Clare for his part confirmed his father’s grant of the wood of Mythe and other bequests to the convent.108 On at least one occasion he spent Christmas in the abbey. His death and burial in the abbey in 1262, in the presence of the bishops of Worcester and Llandaf and eight abbots, was duly recorded in the Annals.109 His widow famously decorated his tomb, which was covered with ‘his image yn silver’,110 quite lavishly indeed with religious and secular paraphernalia, including some of the earl’s military trappings, turning it into a shrine to his memory, if we are to believe the Tewkesbury chronicler.111 Richard II de Clare was succeeded to the patronage of Tewkesbury by his son and heir Gilbert, the second de Clare earl of that name. This Gilbert, like his

101

102 103 104 105 106

107 108 109

110 111

‘Gilebertus de Clare comes Gloucestriæ et Herefordiæ obiit in nocte Sanctorum Crispini et Crispiniani, apud Penros in Britannia, et legavit corpus suum ecclesiæ beatæ Mariæ Theokesberiæ, ubi nunc requiescit’ (Annales de Theokesberia, ed. H.R. Luard, Annales Monastici, Rolls Series, xxxvi (1864), pp.76–7). ‘Legavit etiam eidem ecclesiæ boscum de Muþa et crucem argenteam bene deauratam’ (Annales, p.76). GEC III, p.431. Annales, p.113. Ibid., p.124. ‘Nos incepimus fieri fidejussores Ricardi de Clare versus dominum comitem Cornubiæ, de ccc. libris, per chartam nostrum, et prædictus Ricardus chartam suam nobis fecit de indemnitate’ (ibid., p.134). ‘Nos pro eodem [Ricardus de Clare] mutuavimus in Judaismo c. marcas pro c. libris’ (ibid., p. 137). Cf. Mon. II, p.61. ‘MCCLXII. Obiit vir nobilis et omni laude dignus Ricardus de Clara comes Gloverniæ et Herefordiæ, idus Julii. Et sepultus est apud Theokesberiam quinto kal. Augusti, ad cujus sepulturam interfuerunt episcopus Wygorniæ Walterus de Cantilupo, et Willelmus episcopus Landavensis, et viii. abbates’ (Annales, p.169). Thus goes Leland’s description of the tomb, cited by Lindley, ‘The Later Medieval Monuments’, p.163. ‘Et posteà uxor ejus ornavit tumbam ejusdem auro et argenteo et lapidibus pretiosis, cum gladio et calcaribus quibus utebatur vivus’ (cited in Mon. II, p.61).


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predecessors, was also buried in the abbey, near his father and grandfather in the choir, when he died in 1295.112 One of his executors in 1301 was none other than the abbot of Tewkesbury, thereby confirming, even strengthening, yet again the ties between the family and the religious community.113 In addition to bequests to Tewkesbury Abbey in their wills, the de Clares are known to have shown their generosity to the convent also during their lifetimes. In 1307, for instance, Isabel, daughter of Gilbert II de Clare by his first wife Alice, applied for licence to alienate to her father’s monastery certain lands in Gloucester.114 Gilbert II’s heir was his son Gilbert III de Clare by his second wife, Joan of Acre, daughter of Edward I. Gilbert III died young from wounds he received in battle at Bannockburn in 1314, and he was interred with his ancestors in Tewkesbury Abbey.115 In November of that year, together with the body of their patron, the abbot and convent of Tewkesbury received royal licence, ‘for the good of the soul of Gilbert de Clare, sometime earl of Gloucester and Hertford, buried in their abbey’, to alienate in mortmain the churches of Thornbury and Fairford.116 Buried with Gilbert de Clare in the abbey church were his wife Maud de Burgh (d.c.1320) and their infant son John (d.1312).117 With the death of Gilbert de Clare in 1314, the male line of the family came to an end, and the de Clare inheritance was split between his three sisters as co-heiresses.118 The advowson of Tewkesbury Abbey belonged to the part of the inheritance that was assigned to Eleanor de Clare (d.1337) and her husband, Hugh Despenser, and during the fourteenth century several members of this branch of the family were involved in, or perhaps even initiated, a range of building programmes at the monastery.119 Most prominently of these, Eleanor herself and her son Hugh (d.1349) were allegedly responsible for the grand-scale remodelling of the house’s choir and presbytery in the Decorated style.120 The role of Tewkesbury Abbey as family mausoleum for its patrons was

112 113 114 115 116 117 118

119 120

Ibid., p.53; GEC III, p.244. Reg. Winchelsey, p.741. Cal. Inq. ad quod Dampnum, p.220. Mon. II, p.55. CPR 1313–1317, p.198. Mon. II, p.53; GEC V, p.712. The Cal. IPM (1315) names as Gilbert’s heirs his three sisters (Eleanor, wife of Hugh Despenser the younger, Margaret, wife of Piers de Gaveston, and Isabel, wife of Thomas de Burgh), ‘unless his wife is pregnant’. See also Cal. IPM, v, no.538. On these building programmes, see also R.K. Morris, ‘Tewkesbury Abbey: The Despenser Mausoleum’, TBGAS 93 (1974), pp.142–55. Other building work carried out under their patronage during the 1340s included the completion of the vaulting of the nave and the chancel, and the ornate ambulatory with its many chapels. Another member of the family, Edward Despenser, contributed to the building programme by commissioning the intricate chantry chapel of the Holy Trinity within the abbey church. Edward is depicted, together with his wife, on a fourteenthcentury mural in this chapel. See Morris and Shoesmith, Tewkesbury Abbey, plate 12 for a photograph of the mural. The good relationship between the abbey and the de Clares during the fourteenth century is further illustrated by the presence of depictions of the patrons and their arms in the fabric of the house.

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continued by those who succeeded the de Clares to the patronage of the house.121 Several members of the Despenser and the Burghersh and Beauchamp families, later patrons of Tewkesbury, sought burial in the abbey church during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.122 The de Clares, and the Despensers, when they succeeded them, evidently took their rights and duties as patrons of Tewkesbury Abbey, their ‘spiritual home’,123 very seriously, judging by the wide range of activities in which the family were involved on behalf of, or in connection with the abbey. In addition to the building work undertaken by members of the family, their commemorative representation in the stained-glass windows, and on the tiles and the walls of the house, as well as the bequests made by members of the family to the community, of which we have but scanty evidence, they were also involved in other aspects of the patronage, notably the election of a new abbot, in the mid-fourteenth century.124 Throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the Despensers, and the Beauchamps after them, continued in their role as patrons of the abbey. They confirmed their ancestors’ charters to the house and continued the tradition of burial there. The Founders’ Book of the monks of Tewkesbury was continued throughout this time, and as late as 1476, which is the year of the death of Isabel, duchess of Clarence, who was buried in the house, behind the high altar.125 Her husband George, duke of Clarence died in 1478, and was the last member of the family to be laid to rest in the abbey, together with his late wife. In 1487, not long after Clarence’s death, Tewkesbury was conveyed to the crown and became a royal house, and consequently Clarence’s surviving children were buried elsewhere. The abbot of Tewkesbury henceforth sat in the House of Lords. The comparative wealth of surviving information regarding the de Clares as patrons of Tewkesbury Abbey stands in stark contrast to the lack of evidence relating to their role as patrons of any of the other fourteen monasteries and nunneries of which they were patrons during the fourteenth century. Having chosen the Benedictine abbey to be their family monument, and with it the

121 122

123 124

125

See Hicks, Warwick, pp.59–60 for a discussion on the descent of the Despenser line, and on burial in Tewkesbury Abbey. These included Sir Hugh Despenser (d.1326), William la Zouche, husband of Hugh Despenser’s widow (d.1336), Hugh Despenser (d.1348), his wife Elizabeth (d.1359), her third husband, Guy de Briene (d.1390), Edward Despenser, earl of Gloucester (d.1375), his wife Elizabeth (d.1409), Thomas Lord Despenser, earl of Gloucester (d.1400), Richard Despenser, lord Burghersh (d.1414), his father, Richard Beauchamp, earl of Worcester (d.1421), Isabel, Baroness Burghersh (d.1439), her second husband, Richard Beauchamp (d.1439), Henry, duke of Warwick (d.1445), Anne Beauchamp (d.1449), Isabel, duchess of Clarence (d.1476), and the duke of Clarence (d.1478) among others. Hicks, Warwick, p.60. In August 1347, Hugh Despenser, son of the last Gilbert de Clare’s daughter Eleanor (d.1337), granted to the prior and convent of the abbey his licence to elect a successor for the recently deceased abbot of the house (Reg. Bransford, pp.160–61). She is shown, adorned in heraldic attire, in prayer in front of an image of the Virgin, in the Founders’ Book. For an image, see Morris and Shoesmith, Tewkesbury Abbey, plate 6.


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chief beneficiary of their generosity, the de Clares, like the Montagues and the Berkeleys, evidently did not regard it as a priority to demonstrate a similar level of involvement to any of their other religious houses. There can be little doubt that some of the basic patronal duties were met, that endowments were made and gifts given to at least some of their other abbeys and priories – significantly, members of the family founded two new houses for religious women, one at Usk and another at Rothwell in the mid-thirteenth century. Nevertheless, and bearing in mind the problems of the surviving evidence, it is clear that all their religious houses were treated as secondary in comparison to Tewkesbury Abbey. Being a particularly splendid monument, the abbey served its purpose, that is, to impress, only too well. The abbey was moreover conveniently located for its patrons. It was therefore in all respects most profitable for the family to focus their attention upon this, their chief monastery.

The Howard Family At the Dissolution in the sixteenth century, Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, held the patronage of no fewer than nineteen houses of monks, canons and nuns. This made him the lay patron of the highest number of religious houses in England and Wales during the later Middle Ages, and even exceeded the number of religious houses of which the de Clares had been patrons during the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Shortly after the Conquest, perhaps as early as 1067, the earldom of Norfolk was granted to one Ralph ‘the Staller’, who had come into William I’s favour.126 Between the late eleventh and the early fourteenth centuries, the earldom was held by the Bigod family, until, at the death without issue of Roger Bigod in 1306, under agreement with Edward I, both the earldom of Norfolk and the marshalcy of England reverted to the crown.127 It was during the twelfth century, and under the Bigod family, that the monastery which was to become the spiritual home of the earls of Norfolk in the later Middle Ages was first established. Thetford Priory was founded in 1103x4 by Roger Bigod, a close associate of William the Conqueror.128 The first twelve monks came to Thetford from William de Warenne’s Cluniac foundation at Lewes and settled at a site within the township of Thetford, making use of an existing church there. Within a few years, this site became too small for the growing community of monks, and work was begun on the new priory, with the permission of the founder, who himself laid the foundation stone of the new church very shortly before he died in September 1107.129 Shortly after the lands and estates 126 127 128 129

GEC IX, p.570. Ibid., p.596. MRH, p.103. Mon. V, pp.151–2. He allegedly founded the monastery instead of going on pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was not, however, buried in his new foundation at Thetford (which was not completed until seven years after his death), but in Norwich Cathedral, although the monks of Thetford likewise tried to claim his body (cf. GEC IX, p.578, note [c]).

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of the Bigod family had passed once more into the king’s hands in 1306, Edward II granted them to his half brothers Thomas Brotherton and Edmund of Woodstock in 1310. Two years later, Thomas Brotherton was created earl of Norfolk. In the absence of any surviving sons at his death in 1338, his inheritance passed his two daughters Margaret and Alice as co-heiresses.130 The elder of the two, Margaret, eventually, in 1375, became the sole heiress of her father’s estates, and in 1397 she was created duchess of Norfolk.131 She died in 1399 having outlived her children, and was buried according to her wishes in the choir of the London house of Friars Minor, to which house she made a generous donation.132 At her death, the dukedom of Norfolk, together with the Norfolk lands, passed to her grandson Thomas Mowbray, who had been created duke of Norfolk in 1397.133 A year earlier, in 1396 he had obtained royal licence for the foundation of a Carthusian priory at Axholme in Lincolnshire.134 On his return from the Holy Land, Thomas Mowbray succumbed to the plague in 1399 and died in Venice, where he was buried in the abbey of St George. 135 The Mowbrays, after the acquisition of the Norfolk lands in 1399, and their Howard successors after them, chose to focus their monastic patronage on East Anglia and to sideline their religious houses elsewhere. These included major Cluniac and Benedictine monasteries like Lewes and Wymondham, Cistercian abbeys like Byland and Tintern, the latter particularly favoured by Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk (d.1306), and two more recent Charterhouses.136 Within East Anglia the modest house of Thetford, not too far from the family residence at Framlingham, and repository of Bigod tradition, came to be preferred over the monasteries of Wangford, Bungay, Dodnash, Weybridge and Wymondham. The Norfolk inheritance, together with the patronage of numerous religious houses, passed briefly to Thomas Mowbray’s son Thomas, who was executed in 1405 and buried in the house of the Grey Friars in York.137 Following his execution, he was succeeded by his younger brother John, who was created duke of Norfolk in 1425, and who was buried in his grandfather’s Carthusian foundation at Axholme in 1432.138 His son and heir, also John Mowbray, succeeded to his titles in 1432. When he died in November 1461, he asked for burial in the family’s Cluniac priory at Thetford, and by doing so revived the tradition of his

130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138

When he died in 1338, he was buried in the royal abbey of Bury St Edmunds (Norfolk), not in any of the numerous monasteries of which he was patron. On the controversy surrounding the succession to the earldom of Norfolk following Brotherton’s death in the summer of 1338, note GEC IX, p.599, note [e]. Several years before her death, Margaret had paid for new stalls in the church, investing 350 marks (ibid., p.600, note [h]). Ibid., p.603. CPR 1396–99, p.77. GEC IX, p.604. Due to his generosity towards Tintern Abbey, Roger Bigod became known as the monastery’s ‘second founder’. GEC IX, p.605. He asked to be laid to rest ‘en nostre priore de Charterhouse deins nostre Isle d’Axholm’ (NCW, no.19); TV, p.223.


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predecessors over a century and a half after the last entombment of an earl of Norfolk in the monastery.139 The revived burial tradition at Thetford Priory was continued by his only son, John Mowbray, who died suddenly and without a male heir in 1476.140 His daughter and heiress Anne, wife of Richard, duke of York, who died a minor in 1481, however, did not maintain the revived tradition, but was instead buried at the London Greyfriars.141 At Anne’s death the Norfolk inheritance passed to her coheirs, the descendants of the last duke’s daughters, whereby most of it came into the hands of John, lord Howard, the first duke’s grandson.142 The dukedom of Norfolk, and with it the patronage of by then as many as nineteen religious houses in England and Wales, henceforth remained with the Howard family until the Dissolution of the monasteries in the mid-sixteenth century. Being thus, at least nominally, patrons of such a great number of religious houses all over England and Wales, in an area extending from Kent in the south to Yorkshire in the north, brought with it certain complications.143 The Howards were unable to look after each and every one of their monasteries, nor, indeed, were they particularly concerned to do so. Naturally, in those cases where houses were especially remote, the patron was often unable to fulfil his patronal duties or enjoy his patronal rights. As a result the head of the Howard family was patron in name only (and it is doubtful that even this was always clear) of several of his monasteries and nunneries. Consequently, despite the large number of religious houses of which the Howards were patrons and benefactors, they came to favour some of their religious houses over others. The most ancient of the family’s monasteries was the Cluniac house of Lewes in Sussex. Lewes Priory was founded c.1077 by William de Warenne and his wife Gundreda, being merely one of the numerous religious houses which were founded by the couple.144 During the fourteenth century, the priory had been one of the main burial sites of the earls of Arundel and Surrey, and as such benefited from the bequests which normally accompanied aristocratic burials. Despite being a comparatively wealthy monastery – the annual income of the house exceeded £920 in the sixteenth century – the monastery never achieved the same kind of popularity with the Howard family as it had done with their forebears. Nor did any of their other abbeys or priories, despite the fact that some of them were reasonably grand, others prosperous enough, and some had been favoured by their predecessors. Thus Tintern Abbey (Monmouth) had received considerable attention from the Bigods in the twelfth century, and Chacombe Priory (Northants.) had been popular with its patrons during the

139 140 141 142 143

144

Ant. Fun. Mon., p.827. GEC IX, p.609. Ibid., p.610. Ibid. In addition to holding the patronage of the above abbeys and priories, the Howards were also benefactors of a considerable number of religious houses of which they were not patrons. MRH, p.100. For some of the couple’s other foundations, see Table 4.4.

Northd.

Norfolk

Tynemouth

Wymondham

Norfolk

Norfolk

Suffolk

Sleves Holm

Thetford

Wangford

Lincs.

London

Axholme

London Charterhouse

1371

1397

Monmouth 1131

Tintern

Carthusian Monks

Yorks.

1177

1159

1104

t.Stephen

1077

1107

1089

1095

Fd.

Byland

Cistercian Monks

Sussex

Lewes

Cluniac Monks

Kent

County

Folkestone

Benedictine Monks

Name of House

Robert de Mowbray

Nigel de Munevilla & Emma

Original Founder

1537

1538

1539

1539

1540

1540

1537

1537

Sir Walter Manny

Thomas Mowbray

Walter FitzRichard de Clare

Gundreda, widow of Nigel de Albini

?‘Ansered of France’

Roger Bigod

Wm de Warenne, earl of Surrey

Wm de Warenne, earl of Surrey & Gundreda

c.1538 Wm de Albini

1539

1535

Diss.

Sir Walter Manny

Thomas Mowbray

Roger Bigod III earl of Norfolk

1349 Mowbray

1376 John Hastings earl of Pembroke

Earls of Norfolk

1309 John earl of Warenne

Earls of Warenne / 1347 Arundel

Sir Robert Tateshall

(royal)

1264 Crevequer > Arundel / Norfolk

Patron c.1300

Table 4.4: Religious Houses under the patronage of the Howard family

Lay patrons / ?Howard / ?Berkeley

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk / Knyvet

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk


Suffolk

Yorks.

Beds.

Surrey

Norfolk

Norfolk

Yorks.

Dodnash

Newburgh

Newnham

Reigate

Thetford

Weybridge

Woodkirk

Yorks

Suffolk

Arden

Bungay

Benedictine Nuns

N’hants.

Chacombe

Augustinian Canons

1175

1147

1135

1225

c.1260

1217

c.1166

1145

c.1188

1536

1536

1539

1536

1536

1536

1540

1538

1525

t. Henry II 1536

Roger de Glanvill & Gundreda

Peter de Hoton (Hutton)

Wm count of Warenne

Hugh Bigod earl of Norfolk

Wm de Warenne earl of Surrey

Wm de Warenne earl of Surrey

Simon de Beauchamp

Roger de Mowbray

Wimer the Chaplain

Hugh de Chacombe

Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk

1405 Geoffrey Bigod

Arundel 1347

Roger Bigod, son of Hugh

1281 Warenne > 1347 Arundel

Earl of Surrey > 1347 Arundel

Wm de Beauchamp > 1392 Mowbray

John de Mowbray

Bigod Earl of Norfolk

Segrave

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

?Norfolk/ ?Berkeley

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

Duke of Norfolk

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fourteenth century, particularly with the Segraves.145 Several of these houses were remembered in their later patrons’ wills, where they were allocated modest bequests, but they ultimately failed to establish long-lasting, personal ties between themselves and their patrons. Like the de Clare family, the Howards followed their predecessors, the Bigods and the Mowbrays, in their choice of main family monastery when they showed particular interest in their Cluniac priory of St Mary, Thetford.146 We are fortunate to possess a relative wealth of evidence regarding this priory, thanks chiefly to a surviving register of the house, covering the years 1482–1540.147 By listing the expenses of the convent from year to year, the accounts in this register grant an insight into the day-to-day affairs of the priory and thus illuminate certain activities of the community and the prior, as well as occasions of contact between them and the house’s later lay patrons and benefactors, who feature regularly in the Register. Significantly, it emerges from these accounts that Thetford Priory was much more than merely a convent of monks fulfilling spiritual services for their patrons. The services provided by the monks, indeed, were not always particularly spiritual in nature. Food, beer and wine were served to the Howard family on numerous visits to the house. On the occasion of the feast of St John the Baptist during the financial year of 1514/15, the prior of Thetford, Robert Weeting, expended no less than 11s 5d on ‘brede, ale and beer, capouns, chekouns and flessh’ et c’ for the duke of Norfolk,148 and in the following year, 2s 10d were spent by the convent ‘in expensis pro Domino Howard et Domino Philippo Tylney’.149 Particularly noteworthy in relation to Thetford’s patrons was William Burden alias Ixworth, the last prior of the monastery, elected in 1518, who left some unusually insightful evidence for maintaining more or less regular contact with the patrons of the house, with whom he evidently had a close relationship. Under his rule of the priory, we learn of repeated meetings between himself and the Howards and their family and associates. At these meetings wine and/or beer were normally consumed, accompanied by a range of meals, some more elaborate than others, and often enough they were enlivened by the entertainment of minstrels and jugglers. Thus entries recording payment (normally 1s) for the ‘menstrell’ Domini Ducis Norff’’, or for the duke’s jugglers, repeatedly appear in the Register.150 As well as being catered for by the convent’s staff, occasionally the Howards brought their own cook when they came to stay in the priory.151 The food served to members of the family in the monastery was

145

146 147 148 149 150 151

For some of the Segrave family’s grants to Chacombe Priory, see PRO E315/32/153; PRO E315/35/179; PRO E315/38/161; PRO E315/42/138; PRO E315/46/13; PRO E315/53/130. Members of both families had chosen burial in the monastery prior to the Howards’ acquisition of the dukedom. Cambridge Add. MS 6969. Cf. also Dymond, Register. Dymond, Register, p.319. Ibid., p.341. E.g. ibid., pp.555, 620, 664. During the financial year 1525/26, the priory’s expenses for the cook of the duchess


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impressive. Fish and venison is mentioned repeatedly, as is wine and beer.152 Henry Howard, earl of Surrey, the patron’s son, evidently favoured the latter, which he was frequently served by the convent during the 1530s.153 The duchess, Elizabeth, on the other hand, clearly preferred wine when she visited the priory, and the convent catered well for her needs. 10d were spent on wine ‘pro Domina Ducches. Norfolche’ in 1523/24, and in the following year payment for the same on two occasions amounted to 8d and 1s 4d.154 During this period she maintained an active relationship with the convent. As well as enjoying a glass or two of wine in the priory, she took advantage of other services provided by the community, as in 1525/26, when the priory paid 2d ‘pro le custom pro halfe a barell of samown for my lady’, as well as transportation costs for her purchases at Stourbridge Fair.155 On another occasion, in 1526/27, 4s 9d were spent on behalf of the duchess for chopping and transporting wood to her residence.156 And on another occasion she received the gift of three great bustards from the prior.157 Undoubtedly the priory was remunerated for these services by the duchess, but payment from the patrons to the monastery is not normally mentioned in the accounts. We can be certain, however, that the kind of relationship which emerges from the Register presupposes the active patronage of several generations of the Howard family.158 Visits, meals and personal meetings between the prior and the Howards seem to have been a fairly regular occurrence at Thetford Priory. However, in 1527, Ixworth excelled himself when he organised a veritable feast for his patron and Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk. Judging by the long and extravagant list of expenses for this dinner, this was indeed an elaborate affair. Under the heading ‘Pro expensis Domini Ducis Norff’ & Domini Ducis Suff’ quando prandebat [sic] cum priore’, the expenses included 1s 4d and 1s 8d for big, and 1s 9d for small eels, generous quantities of dates, figs, almonds and raisins at between 4d and 10d, two pounds of prunes worth 8d, and wine worth 1s 2d. The total cost for the meal as described by this entry amounted to the sum of £22 9s 8d.159 In the following year, the duke was again at Thetford Priory. This time, the food

152

153

154 155 156 157 158 159

amounted to 1s (ibid., p.500). In 1528/29 the duke’s cook came with him to the priory and was paid 1s 8d (ibid., p.534). In 1520/21, on the feast of St John the Baptist, the convent spent 10s on ‘le vele & motun, chekenys, grene geys & ceteris’ for their visitors, the dukes Thomas Howard and Charles Brandon (ibid., pp.402–3). Thus, for example, in 1536/37, 1s 10d were spent ‘pro halfe barell of bere pro Domino Surrey’ (ibid., p.665). Not long afterwards, he was again served beer worth 5d (ibid., p.670). Ibid., pp.443, 462, 468. Thus ‘4d pro le portage of my ladys stuffe’ and ‘1s 5d pro le cariage of my ladys stuffe from stirbyche’ (ibid., p.481). ‘Pro le makyng & cariage of C wode & halfe pro Domina Ducessa 4s 9d’ (ibid., p.507). Ibid., p.514. A gesture to this effect was made by the dowager duchess of Norfolk in 1527/28, when she asked Prior Ixworth for the payment of £2 to the monks of his priory (ibid., p.522). Ibid.

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served to him, prepared by his own cook, involved the use of such commodities as nutmeg (3s 4d), cinnamon (1s 8d), dates (2½d) and prunes (3d).160 On at least one occasion a meeting was reciprocated when Ixworth visited Thomas Howard at Lavenham for a ‘personal conference’ in 1526.161 In addition to the personal meetings between the prior and the Howard family, contact was maintained through the ducal servants, who delivered messages and goods and collected rents from the priory, and whose service is frequently alluded to in the Register.162 But the relationship between the two parties went still further. A certain Thomas Hodmyn, seemingly a servant of the priory, was paid 2s 4d in 1528/29 for the work he did ‘glazyng le armys Domini Ducis Norff’, a nice reference to the heraldry of the patrons, which was on display in the monastery.163 In 1530, Ixworth sent a wedding present to Dorothy, daughter of Thomas Howard, which involved the service of the same Thomas Hodmyn, who delivered the gift.164 Through the Register we also know of the written correspondence between the priory and its patrons, of which now little survives bar some fragments of the undated draft of a letter written by Ixworth to the duchess in the late 1530s. There is also a reference to the delivery of letters from the prior to his patrons.165 These letters, what limited knowledge we have of them, confirm the very personal nature of the relationship between the community of Thetford Priory and the Howard family, a relationship which continued for several decades until it was ultimately brought to an end by the Dissolution. At the heart of the Howards’ interest and involvement in their Cluniac priory lay the graves of their ancestors.166 Thetford Priory presents exemplary evidence for a continued sepulchral tradition in the family’s ancestral burial place: between the fourteenth and the sixteenth century, successive generations of earls and dukes of Norfolk and their families sought burial in the monastery. Dugdale mentioned the tombs of the Bigod and Howard families in the priory church, while other sources mention specific graves of several members of these families and their descendants.167 John Howard, the first Howard duke of Norfolk, and patron of Thetford Priory, was among the first members of this branch of the family to be buried in the monastery. He died fighting at the Battle of Bosworth in 1485 and was originally interred at Leicester, whence his

160 161 162

163 164 165 166 167

Ibid., p.534. Ibid., p.37. Numerous entries relate to payment of servants for a whole range of services. In 1530/31, for instance, the duke of Norfolk’s servants were served wine worth 10d by the monks (ibid., p.569). Ibid., p.543. This mission took Hodmyn seven days, the total expense amounting to 8s 2d (ibid., p.569). Ibid., p.504: ‘Richardo Spendlowe of Norwyc’ pro le cariyng of letterys to London \to the Duches of Norff’ at Lambeth/: 4d’. On the family’s graves, see also R. Marks, ‘The Howard Tombs at Thetford and Framlingham: New Discoveries’, Archaeological Journal, 141 (1984), pp.252–68. Mon.V, p.137.


179

remains were subsequently taken to be reburied in Thetford Priory.168 His son and heir, Thomas Howard, seventh duke of Norfolk, had fought with him at Bosworth, where he was wounded and taken prisoner. He succeeded in restoring his favour with Henry VII, however, and, at the culmination of a successful career in the king’s service, he was created earl Marshal under Henry VIII in 1510, and, four years later, duke of Norfolk.169 He died at Framlingham in 1524, and was interred, according to his wishes, in the church of Thetford Priory, in a splendid tomb in front of the high altar, where he asked for ‘pictures of us and of Agnes our wife to be set together’ upon his tomb.170 Agnes, who was his second wife, survived him, and when she died in 1545, she was granted burial by her husband’s side.171 Thomas Howard was the last duke of Norfolk to be laid to rest in Thetford Priory. When his son and successor, also Thomas, died in 1554, the tombs of his ancestors had already been removed to Framlingham church, where he was buried alongside them. His first wife Anne, however, had been interred in the priory church of Thetford at her death in 1511.172 Some five years after her burial, her grave was in need of maintenance and repair, which was carried out by one John Swette, who was paid 3d ‘pro makyng le grave Domine Anne’.173 From the Register we also get a sense of the kinds of spiritual services provided by the monks of Thetford for their deceased patrons. There are regular references to masses said for the souls of members of the family, including the 10s 8d spent ‘pro le dirige Domini Ducis Norff’ shortly after his death.174 Following the dissolution of their priory, and thus the destruction of their spiritual focus, the Howard family turned towards Framlingham parish church, beside their principal seat and castle, where they moved the graves of their forbears, and which became the mausoleum for later members of the family. The event of the Dissolution itself prompted Thomas Howard and his wife to interfere for the last time on behalf of their house. During the second half of the 1530s, the duke and duchess of Norfolk had evidently become concerned about what they increasingly perceived as a threat to their monasteries. A few years prior to the suppression of Thetford Priory in 1540, therefore, Thomas Howard wrote a series of letters to Henry VIII. In one letter, written around the year 1536, he pleaded with the king to spare Thetford Priory from the Dissolution and turn the house, of which, he argued, his ancestors had been patrons for many generations, and in which many of them, as well as some of the king’s

168 169 170 171 172 173 174

GEC IX, p.612; Ant. Fun. Mon., p.827. Following his creation as duke of Norfolk, he resigned his previous title of earl of Surrey to his son and heir Thomas (GEC IX, p.614). He allowed no less than £133 for the erection of his tomb (TV, p.602); see also Mon.V, p.146. Ant. Fun. Mon., p.827. Agnes’s remains were later transferred to a tomb she had prepared for herself in Lambeth (GEC IX, p.615). Ibid., p.619. Dymond, Register, p.360. Ibid., p.469.

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own family, including his son, lay buried, into ‘a very honest parish church’.175 A couple of years later Thomas Howard had changed his proposal somewhat and now suggested that the house be converted into a college of secular canons instead.176 Around the same time, Prior William Ixworth composed a letter to the duchess. In this undated letter the prior thanked his patroness for her support whereby, he wrote, she ‘sett me in a synguler comfort in that [she] certefyed me that I shuld nott nede to fere the suppression of your howse here of Thetford, nor of myn’ own’ puttynge owte of the same, that notwithstondynge now that greatter howses then this is are suppressyd in sundry places’.177 In the same letter the prior praised the duchess’s support of the monastery and asked her ‘to contynew your graciouse favour & to shewe your self to this \your/ said howse as a veray moder and a foundrice as allwayes hederto you have don’.178 Ixworth here perhaps alluded to the financial support granted by the duchess during this period, including payment for work done to the priory church. In the year 1529 her contribution amounted to £1 towards some work to the ceiling of the Lady Chapel of the monastery.179 There are clues to further gifts to the monastery, which evidently also functioned as a place of safekeeping of valuables for its patrons. Thus in the same letter to the duchess, Ixworth requested her counsel concerning ‘such ornamentes & juelles as ye have leffte here in thys howse for the honour of God & [. . .] merite of your sowle’.180 In the case of the Howard family, their patronal support in the face of the suppression of their favourite priory was exemplary. And it went further still. In addition to personally campaigning for the survival of Thetford Priory, Thomas Howard appears to have donated certain of the possessions of Castle Acre Priory (Norfolk), which had been granted to him by the king following its suppression in 1537, to his own community at Thetford. The monks of Thetford apparently helped in the deconstruction of Castle Acre Priory and, presumably with their patron’s permission or even at his instigation, ‘rescued that priory’s most revered relic, the arm of St Philip’, which they took back with them and kept at Thetford Priory.181 Ultimately, however, despite the royal connections of the priory, the duke’s petition and the duchess’s efforts came to nothing: Thetford Priory was dissolved on 16 February 1540. With the deed of surrender, signed by Ixworth and thirteen monks in February 1540, the conventual life of Thetford Priory came to an end. Not so, 175

176 177 178 179 180 181

Ibid., p.56. As Howard pointed out, he had lately invested a considerable amount of money in the priory church, ‘havyng alrady made twoo Tombes, one for the saide Duke of Richmond [the king’s son] and an other for himself, which have alredy and woll cost hym, or they can be fully set uppe & fynisshed, iiij’ li. at the least’ (cited in Marks, ‘The Howard Tombs, pp.260–61). Dymond, Register, p.56; F.J.E. Raby and P.K. Baillie Reynolds, Thetford Priory (London, 1984), p.16. Dymond, Register, p.735. Ibid. Ibid., p.37. Ibid., p.735. Ibid., p.56.


181

however, the link between the priory and the Howards, who were fortunate enough to be granted permission to purchase the lands and property of their former monastery by Henry VIII.182 This purchase came at a high price, but it made Thomas Howard an even more powerful landowner than he had previously been.183 That patrons had very different ways of dealing with their different religious houses in the face of the Dissolution is shown by a memorandum from the same duke of Norfolk, penned in 1536, in which he stated that he ‘had the possession of [the Benedictine nunnery of] Bongay [Suffolk] at Saint Andrew tide past last, and not one nun left therein. Before it was suppressed I showed the King and Mr Secretary that the nuns would not abide in the house; so, the house being void, I, as founder, lawfully entered thereunto’.184 The duke, who had made such a passionate appeal for the preservation of Thetford Priory, evidently had different plans for the small nunnery, which, however, was also under his patronage and thus, at least theoretically, under his protection. In December 1537, Henry VIII granted him the ‘site, soil, &c.’ of the dissolved nunnery of Bungay.185 Conducted in a similar vein were the duke’s dealings with his Augustinian priory of Newburgh (Yorks.). Immediately prior to the house’s suppression in 1538, the canons had contacted Thomas Howard to ask for his patronal assent to an election of a new head of house, following the decease of its prior. In response, Howard wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell, in which he suggested to jointly take charge of the election, ‘to the intent that we both conjointly together may so order the matter as to us shall be thought convenient’.186 In July 1540, Howard moreover received a royal grant of his former Cluniac priory of Wangford (Suffolk).187 We are particularly fortunate to possess such detailed evidence as the Thetford Register provides. Reading between the lines of monastic accounting, a rather more personal picture emerges which allows us to catch a rare glimpse of the reciprocity apparent in the functioning relationship between a lay family and a religious house in the later Middle Ages. The Howards must be regarded as one of the most remarkable of all the families of lay patrons in England and Wales during this period. No other family held the patronage of an equally high number of religious houses as they did. A century earlier, the de Clares, too, had been patrons of as many as fifteen monasteries and nunneries, but by the fifteenth century their estates, and with them the advowsons of their monas182 183

184 185 186

187

In his letter to Howard, Henry VIII asserted that he was ‘pleasid and contentid’ about this sale (LP, xv (ii). 15). For this privilege, Howard paid the king no less than the impressive sum of £1,000, as well as the manors of Hardewyke, Kencote, Brunesnorton, Wideforde, Coggs, and the farm of Coggs (LP, xv (i). 942). Ibid., x. 1236. Ibid., xii (ii). 1311 (24). Ibid., xiii (i). 743. On the other hand, in May 1537 Howard wrote a letter to Cromwell on behalf of the prior of his Benedictine monastery of Tynemouth (Northumberl.), also under his patronage, pointing out his position as ‘founder’ of the priory (ibid., xii (i). 1185). Mon. V, p.161.

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teries, had been divided between co-heirs. The Howards, on the other hand, held on to the patronage of their religious houses until the Dissolution in the sixteenth century, when they were granted the lands and property of a number of them. Their case is an interesting one. As patrons of such a large number of monasteries, they had an unprecedented choice of burial places available to them, but they nevertheless chose to follow their predecessors’ example and seek burial in their Cluniac house at Thetford, despite having founded their own new Carthusian priory at Axholme at the end of the fourteenth century. They did of course remember some of their other monasteries and nunneries in their wills, and they undoubtedly visited some of them, although the evidence for any such activity is scanty. Their choice of family monastery was a conscious one. Thetford Priory was neither the family’s grandest nor their most prosperous monastery.188 The decisive factors determining the choice of the Howards were the continuation of dynastic tradition on the one hand, and convenience on the other.

The Scropes of Bolton There is some uncertainty regarding the origins of the Scropes of Bolton, but by the early thirteenth century they were associated chiefly with the north, more specifically with Yorkshire. One of the first references to the family’s interest in monastic benefaction was noted around that time, when Henry le Scrope of Flotmanby and Wensley granted to the Augustinian priory of Bridlington certain lands in Flotmanby, Folkton, Hunmanby and Willerby.189 When Henry Scrope died in the thirteenth century, he was buried in Wensley churchyard (Yorks.) beside his father, ‘under a stone’.190 His son and heir, William Scrope (d.c.1312) was a knight of some renown during his lifetime. His contemporaries Thomas Ros of Kendal and Sir William Acton praised his chivalric skills, calling him the ‘most noble tourneour of his time’, and he was knighted in 1298 at the battle of Falkirk.191 It was during his lifetime, and thanks to his efforts, that the family acquired many of their estates and manors, including those of East Bolton and Little Bolton.192 It is not known with any certainty where he was buried when he died in 1312, nor has the burial site of his wife Constance been identified. At his death he was succeeded by his son and heir Henry, to whom he had transferred the manors of East Bolton and Little Bolton during his lifetime, and who was appointed Chief Justice of the King’s Bench in the mid-fourteenth century.193 Henry Scrope was an active figure on the political 188 189 190 191 192 193

With an annual income exceeding £312 in the sixteenth century, Thetford was a moderately prosperous priory (MRH, p.103). GEC XI, p.533. The date of his death is uncertain. GEC XI, p.533. Ibid., p.534. Ibid. Ibid., pp.534–5.


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stage of fourteenth-century England, and a new addition to the baronage. He is also known to have made various bequests to a number of religious houses, including the grant in 1302 to the prioress of Marrick (Yorks.) of the use of certain woodland.194 It was during his lifetime that the Scropes of Bolton first became closely associated with the Premonstratensian abbey of St Agatha’s at Easby in Yorkshire. By the later Middle Ages the Scropes of Bolton were patrons of two religious houses (Table 4.5). Their patronage of the small Augustinian priory of Bradley in Leicestershire dates back to at least the mid-fourteenth century, when William lord Scrope of Bolton (d.1344) was named as patron of the house.195 The family held on to the patronage of the priory for several generations and made sporadic bequests to the community, as in 1400, when Richard lord Scrope gave the canons of Bradley 20 marks and a fine vestment.196 In 1458 the patron was Henry lord Scrope of Bolton.197 In the sixteenth century Leland, in his Collectanea, described the then patron as ‘dominus Scrope fundator modernus’ of Bradley Priory.198 Little is known about the nature of the relationship between Bradley Priory and the Scropes of Bolton. Bradley Priory was a house with a very modest annual income indeed, which was as low as £20 in the sixteenth century.199 At the Dissolution there were reputedly no more than two canons left in the monastery, which was closed in 1536. 200 In the mid-fourteenth century, the Scrope family made what was to become their most important monastic acquisition, when they purchased the patronage of the Premonstratensian abbey of St Agatha at Easby in Yorkshire, which quickly became the heart and focus of the family’s pious attention. Easby Abbey had been founded in 1151 by Roald, the constable of Richmond Castle.201 During the first half of the fourteenth century, the founder’s lineal descendant and then patron of Easby, Thomas de Burton, as representative of his family, sold the patronage of the house to Henry lord Scrope of Bolton (d.1336), who was then described as ‘founder’ of Easby,202 and whose successors were consequently regarded as patrons of the abbey from this time onwards.203 The 194 195

196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203

Ibid., p.535. ‘Juratores dicunt, &c. quod Willielmus filius Henrici le Scrope chivalier, tenuit die quo obit, &c. advocationem ecclesiæ de Medeburne in comitatu Leicestriæ, ac patronatum prioratus de Bradley in eodem comitatu, &c.’ (Mon. VI, p.494, no.I); see also VCH Leics. II, p.24. ‘Item Prioratui de Bradley xx marcas, et vestimentum meum integrum cum candidâ viridi’ (TE I, no.200). Mon. VI, pp.493–4. Cited in ibid., p.494. MRH, p.138. LP, x. 1191 (p.496). MRH, p.188. GEC XI, p.535. In the answers to Bishop Redman’s fifteenth-century visitations of Premonstratensian abbeys, the patron [‘fundator (sive patronatus)] of Easby is named as ‘Dominus de Scrope de Bolton’ (Coll. Anglo-Prem., ii, no.166). See also Mon. VII, p.921; VCH Yorks. III, p.246.

Leics.

County

Easby

Yorks.

Premonstratensian Canons

Bradley

Augustinian Canons

Name of House

1151

–1216

Fd.

1536

1536

Diss.

Roald constable of Richmond Castle

Robert de Burnebi (patron in 1234–5)

Original Founder

De Burton > Lord Scrope (from +1327)

1302 William de Kirkeby

Patron c.1300

Table 4.5: Religious Houses under the patronage of the Scropes of Bolton

Lord Scrope of Bolton

16th c. Lord Scrope of Bolton



185

Scropes took an active interest in the monastery, which was reflected in their generous bequests to the canons of Easby and their decision to transfer their family mausoleum to the house. Not long after the exchange of the rights of patronage, the first burial of a member of the new patronal family took place in Easby Abbey, and from this time onwards the house became the burial place of successive generations of the family up to the end of the fifteenth century. Henry Scrope himself, who died in the year 1336, was the first of the Scropes to be buried in the house.204 Eight years later, his son William (d.1344) likewise sought burial in the abbey.205 A family tradition thus initiated was keenly continued by subsequent generations. Fortunately the wills of several members of the Scrope family have survived. They grant us an insight into the mind of the testator, and they reflect to some degree the relationship which existed between the testator and the monastery of which he was a patron, and in the case of the Scropes, their wills reveal a rather personal relationship between successive patrons and Easby Abbey during the fifteenth century. In most instances, the bequest specified in the will was made in conjunction with the testator’s wish to be buried in the abbey. Richard lord Scrope of Bolton (d.1403), brother and heir of William (d.1344), was buried in the abbey in the same year as his younger son Roger.206 During his lifetime, Richard Scrope had made repeated grants to Easby Abbey, including, in 1393, the ‘magnificent bequest’ of a rent-charge valued at £150 upon several manors in Yorkshire.207 This was intended to provide for a number of additional canons to the monastery, and it had attached to it the obligation to pray for the donor’s soul after his death, as well as for the souls of his ancestors, and for his good estate while he was alive. The abbey was moreover obliged to support twenty-two poor persons, likewise for the good of the patrons’ souls. Richard Scrope had also granted the community one of his manors some years previously.208 The relationship between the successive lords Scrope of Bolton and the Premonstratensian canons at St Agatha’s, Easby was evidently an amicable one. The patrons provided material support for the community, and among their donations to the abbey were what can only be described as personal gifts, and they received spiritual and other benefits from the canons in return. The mutually loyal nature of this relationship between the family and the abbey became particularly evident when Abbot John spoke out in support of lord Scrope during the hearing between Scrope and Robert Grosvenor in 1385, already mentioned.209 Making the case on behalf of his patron, the abbot pointed out the display of Scrope heraldry throughout the conventual church, where it could be seen in the stained-glass windows, embroidered on drapery and vestments, and painted on to altar panels.210 204 205 206 207 208 209 210

GEC XI, p.538. Ibid., p.539. TV, pp.156, 160; TE I, nos.200, 228. Mon. VII, p.921. Ibid. Nicolas, The Controversy between Scrope and Grosvenor. See also Chapter 2. Cf. Colvin, White Canons, p.297.

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When he composed his will in August 1400, Richard lord Scrope bequeathed an impressive range of vestments, candelabra, his best chalice, a censer, and other items to the abbey, as well as £40, and he moreover made a range of personal bequests to abbot John.211 To the canons of the house he gave 13s 4d each, except to John Thornyngton, who received 100s.212 The long list of bequests to religious houses which follows gives us an idea of the connections of the Scropes during this time. It includes donations to canons, monks and friars, most of whom received cash payments in the region of 20s. 213 Richard died in May 1403, and was succeeded briefly by his second son, Roger (his elder son William, earl of Wiltshire, having been beheaded in 1399). Roger Scrope of Bolton, whose will is dated 23 September 1403, asked for burial in Easby and donated 6s 8d for each canon of the house, as well as a further £20 to be distributed among the poor.214 For his funeral in the abbey, for which he left instructions, he gave the sum of £40.215 Following his death in December of that year, the patronage of Easby and Bradley passed to his son Richard (d.1420). Shortly after Roger’s untimely death, the abbey saw the burial of his brother Stephen, third son of Richard I lord Scrope of Bolton, who (in his will dated 1405) likewise requested burial in the abbey of St Agathae juxta Richmond (i.e. Easby), next to his father’s grave.216 Together with his body he left to the abbot of Easby two silver fonts and the sum of five marks to pay for his burial.217 In addition to this bequest, he gave to each canon of the house 20 shillings, except to John de Thornyngton, who was this time the recipient of five marks.218 And finally, for the memory of his soul, he gave to the abbey a gilt chalice and an additional 20 marks.219 Richard lord Scrope of Bolton (whose will was composed in 1420), likewise requested burial at Easby, without further specifying the location, and left £10 in gold to the abbey.220 Perhaps the most remarkable of the family’s wills, however, is that of John lord Scrope of Bolton, grandson of the above Richard. His bequest to the convent of Easby was of a strikingly personal nature and, judging by the detailed description of the intended gifts, he had put a considerable amount of 211

212 213 214 215

216 217 218 219 220

‘Item lego predictæ Abbathiæ melius vestimentum meum cum omnibus apparatibus, cum albâ, almetâ et stolâ broudatâ, et cum meliori turibulo meo, cum meliori calice, et duobus candelabras melioribus deauratis, cum duobus cruettis deauratis, una cum parvâ campanâ deauratâ, et hoc pro principali meo. Ac eciam eidem Abbathiæ quadraginta libras’ (TE I, no.200). Thornyngton was allocated the sum of 100s ‘ad libros emendos’ (ibid.). Ibid. TE I, no.228 ‘Item volo quod ad obitum meum nulla fiat congregacio neque solempnizacio, sed quod sint quinque tapers cerae circa corpus meum, et quod servicium fiat per Abb. et Conv. Stae Agathae, et per aliquos alios Abbates, secundum quod videret executoribus meis’ (TE I, no.228). ‘Juxta tumbam domini Ricardi, patris mei, ibidem’ (TE III, no.7). ‘Unam pelvem rotundam argenteam, cum uno lavacro argenteo’ (ibid.). Ibid. ‘Item lego abbati praedicto, in memoria pro anima mea, unam calicem de auro et xx marcas’ (ibid.). TE IV, no.1.


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thought into the distribution of these gifts. In his will dated 1494 he stated that he wished to leave to the abbey my Bybill inprented, and my book, also inprented, called Cronica Cronicarum. To the saide abbey ii hole sutes of vestmentes of velvett, the one sute to be blewe and violett, palled, orfreyed with cloth of golde; the iide sute to be blak velvett, orfreyed with cloth of golde.221

John, who died in the year 1498, was the last member of the family to choose the abbey as his burial place. Subsequent family members returned their attention to their former sepulchre at the parish church of Wensley instead, where several Scropes of Bolton were buried from the early sixteenth century onwards.222 The patronage of Easby Abbey, however, remained with the Scrope family. In 1534, shortly after another John lord Scrope of Bolton (d.1549), who, as heir of the family estates and title had taken over as patron of Easby Abbey, a charter was issued by the abbot, confirming his status as patron of the house. While the charter is in many ways a mere formality, it is nonetheless of great interest for its naming of lord Scrope as ‘true and undoubted founder’ of the abbey, and for its definition of certain of his rights as patron thereof, including benefit of the prayers of the canons.223 At the dissolution of Easby Abbey in 1537, the patronage of both Easby and Bradley Priory was still in the hands of the Scropes of Bolton, and John lord Scrope had lease of Easby’s buildings and lands,224 but little is known about the nature of the relationship between the two parties at that stage. There is sparse further evidence, as far as it has been established, for benefactions of any kind to their two religious houses after the fifteenth century, nor is the patron’s 221 222

223

224

Ibid., no.46. Henry lord Scrope of Bolton (d.1506) and his wife Elizabeth both requested burial there, as did Henry Scrope (d.1533) and his wife Mabel (d. post 1533). The latter’s two sons Henry and Richard, who both died young and unmarried in the year 1525, were also buried in Wensley church (GEC XI, pp.546–548). The charter runs as follows: ‘Be it knawen unto all people present and for to come, that we, Robert th’Abbott of the monastery of our blessed Lady Saynt Marie and Saynt Agath, virgyne and martyre, nye unto Rychemonde, of the order of Premonstratense, having recevede the day of makinge herof, the Right Honorable John, Lord Scrope, of Bolton, as veray trewe and undoubted founder of our saide monastry, with procession and suche other solempnitie and ceremonies as doth apperteyne and belonge thereunto, accordinge as our predecessours have hertofore at all times receyvede his noble ancestours as founders of the sayme. Graunting unto the saide John, Lord Scrope, of Bolton, and his heires for ever, by thes presents, as much as in us is, not onely to be partakers of all our praers, suffragies, and other devoute and meritorius actes and good deids, but also all other customes, dueties, pleasours, and comodites which dothe apperteyne and belonge unto the juste title and right of a ffounder, and as haith bene accustomede and done by our predecessours unto his ancestours, our ffounders, hertofore. In witness wherof, we, the said abbott and convent, have put our seale to thes presenttes the seconde day of Auguste, in the xxvi yere of the reigne of our moste drede Sovereigne Lorde, King Henrie the Eight’ (cf. T.D. Whitaker, An History of Richmondshire, in the North Riding of the Country of York, 2 vols (London, 1823), i, p.110). GEC XI, p.548.

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reaction to the suppression of his houses known. The fact that lord Scrope obtained the lease of his Premonstratensian abbey in September 1536, at the cost of £300, indicates perhaps that he did not explicitly challenge royal authority on behalf of his religious community, who reportedly resisted the suppression of their monastery.225 For the duration of a century and a half the Scropes of Bolton showed an acute interest in the house and community of St Agatha’s, Easby. An interest, in fact, which in the cases of Richard (will 1400) and John lord Scrope (will 1494) went beyond the conventions of what was expected of a patronmonastery relationship, as is evidenced in the nature of the gifts given by both men to the religious community. Although the family became patrons of the abbey at a comparatively late stage, i.e. nearly two hundred years after its original foundation, they developed strong ties with the convent. These were expressed by the personal nature of the gifts, the display, significantly, of the patrons’ heraldry in the church and on vestments, as well as by their choice to be buried in the monastery. It seems clear that with the acquisition of the Premonstratensian abbey, the Scropes realised their opportunity to make their mark. The edifice and surroundings of the monastery, more imposing than anything else in the family’s possession, served this purpose exceptionally well, and by creating and strengthening the ties between themselves and the abbey, by moving the family mausoleum from its previous location in the graveyard of Wensley parish church to this much grander place, the Scropes of Bolton sent out a powerful message to their peers as well as taking particular care of their spiritual needs.

Conclusions The study of these five aristocratic families provides the opportunity to view them in their wider social and geographical context. Each one of the families is in its own way remarkable, and each family is of particular interest in the study of monastic patronage. Each of these families held the patronage of more than one religious house, and in each case one monastery was preferred above the others by successive generations of the family. In the case of the Scropes of Bolton, this was perhaps an obvious decision made when the family acquired the patronage of Easby Abbey and with it the opportunity of a grander burial place than those which had previously been at their disposal. In the case of the de Clares and the Berkeleys, the favoured monastery was the most imposing one of which the family held the patronage during this period, and in the case of the Howard family, tradition and convenience were additional consider225

LP, xi. 481; ibid. xii (i). 479. As well as the loss of the abbey’s religious function, its significance as a monument to the Scrope’s dynastic continuity was ultimately destroyed at the Dissolution, for, in the words of Colvin, ‘the whole history of a great feudal family lay enshrined in freestone and alabaster in the choir of an abbey church, and the Dissolution destroyed not only the religious houses [. . .], but also the memorials of the great who had been so intimately connected with their existence’ (White Canons, p.298).


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ations. The Montagues, on the other hand, founded an entirely new house which was to become their family monument and a mausoleum of particular importance. While the de Clares, the Berkeleys, the Howards and the Scropes were satisfied to turn an existing house into their own family mausoleum, when they acquired the patronage of their respective monasteries, the Montagues were quite intent on making a special mark, even if at a considerable cost. Because of the amount of surviving information about these five monasteries, they illuminate in some more detail what monastic patronage could mean to a layman in late medieval England and Wales. Certainly there were other families, too, like the de Veres, the Verduns and the Clintons, all of whom have left evidence for an active involvement with the religious house(s) of which they were patrons. We should bear in mind that all of the above families are somewhat unusual in that they have left a considerable amount of evidence regarding their role as patrons of their monasteries and nunneries, and in that the evidence which has survived is almost entirely positive. It portrays these families as enthusiastic and often active patrons of one or more of the religious houses under their patronage. Reading between the lines of the surviving evidence, the five families in these case studies have thus provided what the majority of aristocratic families in late medieval England have not: a rather more personal perspective on monastic patronage.

Patrons at the Dissolution

5 Patrons at the Dissolution

Whatever one’s ideological view of the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII, it can scarcely be denied that this episode represents a series of events which brought about profound and enduring changes that affected the religious, social, and economic landscape. The years 1536–40 saw the destruction and dismantling of some of the country’s finest and most imposing edifices. This ultimately contributed to the redistribution of the nation’s wealth and brought to an end a way of life, the legitimacy of which was increasingly debated.1 Much work has been done on different aspects of the suppression of the English and Welsh monasteries, even from the immediately aftermath of the Dissolution, when the dust had barely settled on the ruins of the former abbeys and priories, and right up to the present day. Amidst much controversy, and often coloured by an inevitable denominational rift, historians like G.G. Coulton, Francis Gasquet, Geoffrey Baskerville, David Knowles, and more recently Joyce Youings, Claire Cross and Eamon Duffy have ensured that the plight of this suddenly unemployed workforce of praying men and women, as well as the fate of the former monastic buildings and lands, was brought to the attention of a wider audience. 2 1

2

And while this study argues for the vitality, on many levels, of pre-Reformation monasticism, it has to be recognised that by the mid-sixteenth century this had, perhaps, in the eyes of some, long belonged to a bygone era. Youings has pointed out that ‘historians of widely different religious persuasions are today in remarkable agreement that the monasteries of early Tudor England and Wales were no longer playing an indispensable role in the spiritual life of the country’ (J. Youings, The Dissolution of the Monasteries (London, 1971), p.14). But while perhaps no longer indispensable, the pre-Reformation monasteries were still in many ways intrinsically implicated in sixteenth-century religious life and, whatever they represented to the lay community at that time, their sudden disappearance can not have been perceived with indifference. The present study offers neither the opportunity nor the scope to delve further into more general issues surrounding the Reformation in general, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in particular. The question is here very specifically: what did the monasteries represent for their hereditary patrons in the 1530s, and how did they cope with the Dissolution? G.G. Coulton, Five Centuries of Religion, 4 vols (Cambridge, 1923–50); F.A. Gasquet, Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (London, 1922); J.J. Scarisbrick, Henry VIII (London, 1968); Baskerville, English Monks; Knowles, Religious Orders III; Youings, Dissolution of the Monasteries; A.G. Dickens, Late Monasticism and the Reformation (London, 1994); C. Cross, ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Yorkshire Church in the Sixteenth Century’ in J.C. Appleby and P. Dalton (eds), Government, Religion and Society

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The patrons of the religious houses at the time of the Dissolution, in contrast, have to date received rather little direct attention.3 However, these men and women must have felt the impact of the suppression of the monasteries, many of which housed the graves of their forebears, cared for their ancestors’ and their own souls, and which were generally such a familiar element in the medieval landscape.4 But what did the looming suppression of the religious houses mean to their patrons? How, if at all, did they react to the unfolding threat to their houses? Although the answers to these questions cannot now always be known, certain tentative assumptions can nonetheless be made in respect of the former, while from the numerous surviving documents some more explicit answers emerge to the latter. For the lay patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries, the dissolution of their abbeys and priories under Henry VIII clearly meant many different things, depending on their attitudes to, and their relationships with, these houses of monks, canons and nuns. Most of what we know about their reactions to the dissolution of their abbeys and priories comes from their surviving written correspondence, with the royal authorities on the one hand, and with the heads of their religious houses on the other. It is, of course, problematic to assess the actions of these men (and they were mostly men) outside the context of a wider appraisal of the Dissolution itself, for many of them, notably the duke of Norfolk, were most directly involved in the events

3

4

in Northern England 1000–1700 (Stroud, 1997), pp.159–71; Duffy, Stripping of the Altars. Note also M. Kaartinen, Religious Life and Culture in the English Reformation (Basingstoke, 2002). On Wales, see also Williams, Wales and the Reformation. On the psychological state of religious men and women during and after the Dissolution, see P. Cunich, ‘The Ex-Religious in Post-Dissolution Society: Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder?’ in Clark (ed.), Religious Orders, pp.227–38. In the words of Colin Richmond, ‘the unglorious revolution of the so-called English Reformation’ (Richmond, ‘The English Gentry and Religion, c.1500’ in Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, ed. C. Harper-Bill (Woodbridge, 1991), p.121. They have not, however, been entirely overlooked. Note especially Thompson’s work on the patrons of Norfolk monasteries (‘Monasteries and their Patrons’, pp.103–23), as well as his essay ‘Habendum et Tenendum: Lay and Ecclesiastical Attitudes to the Property of the Church’ in C. Harper-Bill (ed.), Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England (Woodbridge, 1991), pp.197–238, and his earlier study of ‘The Church and the Aristocracy: Lay and Ecclesiastical Landowning Society in Fourteenth-Century Norfolk’ (unpublished PhD thesis, Cambridge, 1990). Thompson pointed out that even at this late stage in their history, monastic patrons were often all too aware of their patronal role. ‘The patrons’ awareness of their position in reacting to the Dissolution’, Thompson stated, ‘makes it even more difficult to explain why they allowed it to happen at all’ (‘Monasteries and their Patrons’, p.119). He sought to explain the reactions of monastic patrons to the dissolution of their houses, and their failure to halt their suppression, by the growing remoteness between the two parties by the 1530s: ‘Patrons had probably lost interest [. . .] in most of the monasteries by the 1530s; and once the smaller (and less spiritually justifiable) houses had been swept away in 1536, it was even easier to remove the larger because their patrons were usually the crown or the higher nobility’ (ibid., p.121). Note also P. Lindley, ‘ “Disrespect for the Dead”? The Destruction of Tomb Monuments in Mid-Sixteenth-Century England’, Church Monuments, 19 (2004), pp.53–79.

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on a political level, too.5 These aspects of the English Reformation, however, which have been dealt with at great length elsewhere, would exceed the scope of the present study. Despite the comparative wealth of information regarding the actions of lay folk during the 1530s, ascertaining who the legal patron of a monastery or nunnery was in the sixteenth century is not always a simple task. The problems relating to the identification of lay patrons of sixteenth-century monasteries are rooted, as ever, in the nature of the evidence. By the time of Henry VIII’s reign, the nature of monastic patronage had changed. Frequently, in the case of disinterested patrons, the relationship between lay patron and religious community had evolved into a mere formality. Contact of all types might in this case be less frequent, and records involving both parties consequently less abundant. In some cases, the religious community itself claimed to be unaware of the identity of its patron, as in the examples of Kirklees Priory (Cistercian nuns), Sandwell Priory (Benedictine monks) and Cockersand Abbey (Premonstratensian canons), whose inhabitants were apparently unsure as to who held the rights of patronage over their communities by the 1530s.6 Where the rightful patron had withdrawn his support, shown a general lack of interest, or had become so remote that even the monks, canons or nuns of his abbey or priory were oblivious as to who he was, local benefactors often stepped into the patronal shoes and, on occasion, made forceful claims to the patronage of the house, as in the previously cited example of William Bardolf and Adam de Everingham’s disputes over the advowson of Shelford Priory in Nottinghamshire.7 Consequently, the line between patrons and benefactors is in these instances often blurred. By the time the Dissolution was underway and the documentation thereof is accordingly plenteous, we are faced with the additional problem of Dissolution documents naming the king as patron of those houses that had already accepted his supremacy, and in these cases the actual, hereditary patron is occasionally superseded in the records by his more powerful sovereign. It has already been established that, by the sixteenth century, and even prior to Henry VIII’s intervention in the 1530s, a considerable proportion of religious houses had passed out of the hands of the laity and into those of the crown, and while the figures have to be regarded as tentative and need to be treated with considerable caution, they nonetheless provide a lucid indication of the developments within monastic patronage towards the end of the monastic era in England and Wales. At least 185, and at most 379, of the approximately 631 monasteries and nunneries extant by 1535, were still under lay patronage by the sixteenth century. Of some lay patrons during this period we know little more than their name.8 Others appear much more prominently, mostly due to their 5

6 7 8

Thus the duke of Norfolk, the earl of Shrewsbury, and other monastic patrons, were directly involved on the king’s behalf in the Lincolnshire Rising in 1536, and shortly after its failure, in the Pilgrimage of Grace (for ample documentation of both see LP, xi). Cf. LP, x. 364 (Kirklees); Mon. IV, p.190 (Sandwell); LP, x. 364 (Cockersand). Reg. Melton, no.197. Such limited, and not always entirely reliable, information can be found for example in LP, x. 364.


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activities during the dissolution process. Some of these have already been mentioned. Where their identity is known it is noteworthy that among the lay patrons of the religious houses in the sixteenth century were some of the wealthiest and most influential aristocrats in the country. Perhaps the most powerful of these was Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, whose patronal activities at Thetford Priory have already been highlighted. Among the rest, names such as the earls of Rutland, Oxford and Derby stand alongside the likes of Sir Peter Edgcombe, Sir Simon Harcourt and Thomas West, lord de la Warr. In a few cases the patronage of a house continued in the hands of the same family from foundation to dissolution, as at Earls Colne, Castle Hedingham or Hatfield Broad Oak, all de Vere foundations dating from the twelfth century, or at the Cluniac nunnery of Arthington (Yorks.), which was throughout its history under the patronage of the Arthington family, whose members were also buried in the convent. The lay patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries included both old, long-established families and relative newcomers. Among them were enormously wealthy magnates who held the patronage of a dozen religious houses and more, as well as those of a much more modest fortune who were patrons of no more than one small priory. In short, they comprised men and women from all levels of upper class society. Many late medieval English and Welsh monasteries shared a patron, who was usually a high-ranking member of the nobility of the calibre of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland, Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland, or Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby.9 The phenomenon of multiple patronage among a handful of powerful English magnates had considerable repercussions for the houses at the receiving end of this relationship, commonly, though not always, resulting in remoteness, physically and otherwise, or lack of interest on the part of the patron. In the 1530s, much more than during the preceding decades and centuries, a distant patron–monastery relationship might have particularly grave consequences for the religious communities, as, one by one and with increasing acuteness, they came under threat; at a time when they needed it most, many monasteries thus lacked the support and protection of an engaged patron. In the event, of course, even the support, however active and forceful, of the most involved patron ultimately came to nought. A glance at the survey of monastic patrons at the Dissolution reveals that the different religious orders followed slightly different patterns of patronage in

9

In the sixteenth century, the following lay patrons (among others) held the patronage of several religious houses: the earl of Arundel (7 or 8 monasteries), Robert Aske and his wife Elizabeth (3), lord Berkeley (7), Marmaduke Constable (2), Henry Courtenay (6), the Cliffords, earls of Cumberland (4), lord Dacre (6), Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby (3), Sir Peter Edgcombe (2), Sir Andrew Luttrell (4), Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk (19 or 20), Henry Norres (3), Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland (10), John de Vere, earl of Oxford (8), Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland (7), Margaret, countess of Salisbury (6), Charles Brandon, earl of Suffolk (4), George Talbot, earl of Shrewsbury (2) and Thomas West, lord de la Warre (3).

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the sixteenth century. Predictably, the orders of canons, namely the Augustinians, Premonstratensians and Gilbertines, counted a particularly high proportion of laymen and laywomen among their patrons, whereas houses of Benedictine monks in particular were to a much greater extent in the hands of the crown. Carthusian, Cistercian and Cluniac monks were predominantly patronised by the laity, though in the case of the two latter orders, there was a notable royal and ecclesiastical element among the sixteenth-century patrons. In all cases the figures are somewhat skewed by the number of patrons who are unknown or remain unidentified. Common features of sixteenth-century English and Welsh monasteries under lay patronage were their size and wealth, both of which were normally moderate. Large, imposing and prosperous abbeys like Tewkesbury were the exception among them. What the dissolution of England’s and Wales’s religious houses meant to these men and women is not always possible to know nearly half a millennium after the event. We can only judge by their words and actions, or the lack thereof, but what ultimately motivated these words and actions can only be conjectured. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the event of the Dissolution prompted patrons to react, which they did in varying manner and to varying extent, as events began to unfold. We do, therefore, possess a relative wealth of evidence in the form of letters and papers documenting the process, allowing us to draw some conclusions regarding patrons’ attitudes and interests during this period. While the circumstances in which their names appear in these documents vary widely, it is nonetheless fair to say that the Dissolution impelled many a lay patron to become active. More than one patron of a sixteenth-century monastery in England or Wales must have been rather perturbed upon hearing, or being made aware of, the following passage from Henry VIII’s Act for the Suppression of the lesser monasteries in 1536, which declared that the lords and commons of this present parliament most humbly desire the King’s Highness that it may be enacted by authority of this present parliament, that his majesty shall have and enjoy to him and his heirs for ever all and singular such monasteries, priories and other religious houses of monks, canons and nuns, of what kinds or diversities of habits, rules or orders soever they be called or named, which have not in lands and tenements, rents, tithes, portions and other hereditaments above the clear yearly value of two hundred pounds.10

But the same Act also contained the following passage purporting to protect patrons’ rights in the face of the suppression of their religious houses. Monasteries and nunneries under the yearly value of £200 were to be closed saving always, and reserving unto every person and persons, being founders, patrons, or donors of any abbeys, priories, or other religious houses, that shall be suppressed by this Act, their heirs and successors, all such right, title, interest, possessions, rents, annuities, fees, offices, leases, commons, and all other profits

10

For the full text of this Act, see for example H. Gee and W.J. Hardy (eds), Documents Illustrative of English Church History, pp.257–68.


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whatsoever, which any of them have, or should have had, without fraud or covin, by any manner of means, otherwise than by reason or occasion of the dissolution of the said abbeys, priories, or other religious houses, in, to, or upon any the said abbeys, priories, or other religious houses, whereof they be founders, patrons, or donors, or in, to, or upon any the lands, tenements, or other hereditaments appertaining or belonging to the same, in like manner, form, and condition as other persons and bodies politic be saved by this Act, as is afore rehearsed, and as if the said abbeys, priories, or other religious houses had not been suppressed and dissolved by this Act, but had continued still in their essential bodies and estates as they be now in; anything in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding.11

This, then, was the theory. But how did it translate into practice? Notwithstanding the above assurances to the contrary, patrons evidently realised that they were facing the potential loss of their religious houses, together with the lands and property belonging thereto, which in many instances represented a considerable portion of the family patrimony. However, judging by their words and actions, it appears that they were quite unable to foresee the magnitude of the events which were about to befall their houses. It appears that, to put it simply, the patrons of the monasteries and nunneries had essentially three options. They could choose to remain passive and refrain from getting involved at all, letting the events run their course. They could, secondly, decide to act on behalf of their houses and plead to the crown for their continuation; acting thus as protectors of their religious communities and effectively opposing the authority of the king was a decision made only by those patrons whose relationship with their house was close and interested. Thirdly, they could try to turn the situation to their advantage and attempt to gain from it for themselves. All three of these options, and combinations thereof, were chosen by different patrons in the tense atmosphere of the 1530s. Where patrons remained passive it cannot always be known whether they chose not to get involved, whether they were in fact unaware of their link with the house, or whether it is merely a case of inadequate documentation or patchy evidence. Of those who did get involved, on the other hand, in one way or another, considerably more can be said. Some patrons were evidently gravely concerned about the fate of their monasteries, and prepared to go some length to try to preserve them from suppression. They did this by approaching the authorities, and either vouching for the good and virtuous living of the prior or abbot and the community, stressing their importance for the benefit of the local lay community, or by highlighting the significance of the house for themselves, normally in connection with its role as family mausoleum, or both. In either case, they identified themselves as patrons of the abbey or priory in question, thus emphasising their patronal authority in connection with the house. How far patrons were prepared to push their claim, and the language used to present this, varied from case to case. What is clear, however, is that a noteworthy number of lay patrons were moved to take action on behalf of their monasteries.

11

My italics. Cf. Gee and Hardy, Documents, p.267.

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Their pleas to Cromwell or Henry VIII demonstrate that one particularly pressing incentive for the continuation of a religious house was the presence of the tombs of their forebears within its walls. These were frequently mentioned in patrons’ letters to Cromwell and others, which made their appeal the more urgent. Thomas West, Lord de la Warr, patron of the Benedictine monastery of Boxgrove in Sussex, whose ancestors were buried in this house, as was his wife’s mother, and who himself had built there, in his words, ‘a power chapell to be buryed yn’,12 beseeched Thomas Cromwell in 1535 to spare Boxgrove Priory from suppression, pleading: ‘wherfor yf hit myght stand with the kynges gracys pleasure, for the power servyce that I have doyn his highnes, to fforebere the subpressyng of the same, or else to translate hyt ynto a college of suche nombre as the landes wyll bere’.13 In order to strengthen his request, West suggested an alternative use of the house, which doubled as his parish church, in a bid to see his community continue, albeit in a changed form.14 Despite his efforts, West’s pleas were ultimately overruled by the king and his commissioners, and the dissolution of Boxgrove Priory went ahead in the following year with the destruction of the nave of the priory church and the conventual buildings; Thomas West’s chantry chapel, however, remains there to this day. Shortly after the suppression of the priory, West himself, having initially obtained the lands of his dissolved house, was forced by royal order to exchange his lands of Boxgrove for those of the Benedictine nunnery of Wherwell in Hampshire, which was suppressed in 1539. 15 George, earl of Shrewsbury, lord Talbot, was also evidently concerned about the looming suppression of the religious houses under his patronage, and he aimed to fulfil his role as protector of at least one of his religious communities. On 3 May 1536, he wrote a letter to John Scudamore, one of Henry VIII’s surveyors of the English monasteries. In this letter he asked Scudamore to spare the Augustinian priory of Wormsley (Hereford) and refrain from dissolving the same, so that it might ‘stand and continue’.16 The priory, which, he stressed, ‘is of my foundation’, and in which ‘many of mine ancestors lie’, was evidently of some concern to the earl, who stated very explicitly that he ‘would be very sorry 12 13 14

15

16

Wright, Suppression, p.119. Ibid. As well as pleading for the survival of his priory, however, West considered the alternatives. In the same letter, West asked Cromwell to be considered favourably for the ‘prefarment of the farme, with all such other thynges as the pryor yn his tyme had for the provysyon of his howse’. For which he beseeched him ‘that I may have youre lawfful faver, good wyll. and helpe hereyn’ (ibid.). PRO E315/47/177; note also J. Hare, The Dissolution of the Monasteries in Hampshire, Hampshire Papers no.16 (1999), p.13. Early in 1537, before receiving the property of his suppressed monastery, West had written to Cromwell regarding the manor and lands of Boxgrove Priory. He offered to exchange his share of the manor of Shepton Mallet (Somerset), ‘whereof the King has one half and I the other’, valued at £33 12s 9½d, for the manor of Boxgrove, valued at £58 4s 5½d. ‘Pleasith it your good lordship’, he continued, ‘I would exchange this my part of Shepton Mallet for Boxgrave [sic], and where Boxgrave is the more valuable by £24 11s 8d I desire that the King will give me this for my services, or else I will buy it’ (LP, xii (i). 2). Cook, Letters to Cromwell, p.104.


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it should be suppressed’.17 A similar initiative was taken by the patron of another monastery, Sir Anthony Babington, who also tried to protect his abbey, the Premonstratensian house of Beauchief in Yorkshire, against dissolution. Beauchief Abbey was the burial site of several of his wife’s ancestors,18 among them Thomas and William Chaworth, patrons of Beauchief in the fourteenth century, who had requested burial in the house in their respective wills, in which, incidentally, they also mentioned a number of graves of their own ancestors in the abbey church.19 The presence of family tombs in a religious house was evidently still a very powerful incentive for many a lay patron to try and prevent the communities of their monasteries from being broken up and discontinued, and one which was regularly cited by them as a cause in their pleas for sparing the house. At least one patron evidently felt passionate enough about the protection of his religious house to choose to resort to unusually strong measures, even threats. In the year 1537 Henry, lord Morley, patron of the Augustinian priory of Beeston in Norfolk, considered taking the somewhat extreme, and ultimately futile, step of suing Henry VIII for the suppression of the house, ‘whereof’, he said, ‘sometime I was founder’.20 Unsurprisingly perhaps, his efforts to prevent the dissolution of the priory were to no avail, and the house was closed two years later, in 1539. Perhaps the most remarkable example of a lay patron campaigning for the survival of his monastery is that, already mentioned, of Thomas Howard, duke of Norfolk, who personally and repeatedly petitioned the authorities to spare the Cluniac priory of Thetford, his favourite religious house and the burial site of many generations of his ancestors and predecessors. The surviving correspondence between him and his wife, and the prior of Thetford, grants a valuable insight into the hopes and fears of a layman and the religious community of which he was patron during those most uncertain times.21 The amount and detail of information regarding a lay patron’s initiative on behalf of his house at the Dissolution that survives in the case of the duke of Norfolk’s letters and the entries in the Thetford Priory Register, is sporadic. The vast majority of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries, which were still in lay hands at the Dissolution, have not left any comparable records regarding the behaviour of their patrons in the event. That some of them acted, either on behalf of their houses, or in order to obtain for themselves the lands and property thereof, is clear. How their individual pleas were received at the royal court, on the other hand, we can often only guess.

17 18 19

20 21

Ibid. VCH Derbys. II, pp.68–9. The will of Thomas de Chaworth, dated 1347, is reproduced in TE: ‘Corpus meum ad sepelliendum in ecclesiâ beatae Mariae de Bello Capite in choro coram altari juxta tumulum Domini Thomae avi mei’ (TE I, no.38). William Chaworth’s will, dated 1398, can be found ibid., no.180. Together with his body for burial he gave to the abbot of Beauchief his best beast and various lands. LP, xii (i). 728; see also VCH Norfolk II, p.373. Cf. Dymond, Register, pp.735–6.

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In some cases, although they were few and far between, the initiative of an involved patron helped, if not to evade suppression, then at least to delay it for some time. In 1536, the small Augustinian house of Shulbred in Sussex, for instance, was under threat of suppression under the bishop of Chichester, but escaped closure at his hands thanks to the initiative of its patron, the earl of Northumberland.22 Despite his efforts, however, the priory was dissolved later in the same year, together with the other ‘lesser’ monasteries, at royal orders. Thomas Howard, too, was probably instrumental in delaying Thetford Priory’s dissolution until 1540. In some cases the religious communities themselves succeeded in extending their lifespan, normally through payment of a fine, as at Strata Florida Abbey in Cardiganshire, the Cistercian monks of which house evaded the closure of the same until as late as 1539, following their permission to pay the crown the sum of £66 for the privilege.23 Ultimately, of course, no monastery or nunnery escaped suppression, and their possessions were redistributed. Naturally, not all the efforts made by patrons on behalf of their houses were entirely charitable in nature. Some of the patrons who campaigned in support of their monasteries clearly had their own gain in mind.24 More than one of the letters among the Dissolution correspondence contains injunctions relating to patrons’ own interests in the monastic lands and property. One such individual was Sir Peter Edgcombe, patron of two religious houses in Devon (the Benedictine priory of Totnes and the small priory of Cornworthy, a house of Augustinian canonesses). On Annunciation Day 1536, he wrote a letter to Thomas Cromwell in which he gave voice to some of the confusion and uncertainty felt by himself and many of his contemporaries regarding the looming suppression of the lesser monasteries. His correspondence, significantly, provides an insight into patrons’ own concerns in this respect. ‘There is much communication and bruits’ Edgcombe said in this letter, ‘that all abbeys, priories and nunneries under the clear yearly value of £200 shall be suppressed, notwithstanding it is not as yet in these parts [i.e. in Devon] openly known the occasion of suppression, nor who shall most benefit thereby, nor to what use it shall rest at length. But true it is’, he continued, ‘that I am by grant from the king’s father, by his grant to my poor father and his issue male, founder [i.e. patron] of the priory of Totnes and the nunnery of Cornworthy in Devonshire, and every of them to be under the value of £200.’25 As the patron of these two religious houses, Sir Peter Edgcombe decided to interfere. In his letter he essentially did two things. Firstly he praised the prior of Totnes, ‘a man of good virtuous conversation and a good housekeeper’, stressing the godliness of Totnes Priory in what must be regarded as a plea to reconsider the house’s suppression, and secondly he reminded Cromwell that he, Peter Edgcombe, was the patron of these two 22 23 24

25

LP, ix. 533. Williams, Wales and the Reformation, p.88. Note also Shagan’s comment that in the popular participation in the destruction of religious houses, ‘greed often trumped spiritual conviction in the minds of the men and women who participated’ (Popular Politics, 163). Wright, Suppression of the Monasteries, pp.117–18.


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houses, by royal grant, no less, and that he should have at least some share in the temporal possessions of his priories.26 By doing so, Edgcombe here typifies two of several possible reactions shown by patrons to the Dissolution: he did try to promote the religious community under his patronage, thus petitioning for it to be allowed to continue, in the same or a changed form. At the same time he shows an interest in the property of the community, should he be unable to save it from suppression. In this, his request resembled those of several of his contemporaries who, not quite able to judge the extent of the changes taking place on England’s monastic map in the 1530s, were eager to take action, while not quite knowing what to do. Proposing to prolong a monastery’s lifespan by converting it into a different type of institution was an idea shared by a number of monastic patrons. Thus in 1536, the earl of Derby, Edward Stanley, sent an appeal for support to Sir William FitzWilliam, treasurer of the king’s household, in which he pleaded for the preservation of the church of Burscough Priory (Lancs.), where his ancestors, who were founders of the house, lay buried. He would be glad, he told FitzWilliam, ‘that the church might stand in good reparation, although the priory remain, as it is, suppressed’. For this purpose he intended to find, at his own cost, a priest to do divine service for his said ancestors, and ‘for the ease and wealth of the neighbours’, in the church.27 In the same letter, Stanley complained about the behaviour of the royal commissioners, who ‘have valued not only the glass and bars in the church windows of Boriscogh [ ], and in the hall and chambers of the prior with the paving, but also all other goods there, at a higher price than they be well worth’. As well as asking for ‘a reasonable deduction’ of the price of these goods from that which had been set by the king’s commissioners, he asked FitzWilliam to help him buy the bells and the lead of the former priory.28 In May 1537, Stanley wrote again to FitzWilliam. This time he made no more appeals for his former priory of Burscough, but asked him instead for the lease of the suppressed house, on the grounds that he was its founder.29 Similarly, in a letter dated 2 April 1536, Sir Simon Harcourt campaigned for the survival of the Augustinian priory of Ranton in Staffordshire, of which he was hereditary patron. This priory, he explained to Cromwell in his letter, was ‘built and endowed by my ancestors, to the intent that they might be prayed for perpetually, and many of them are buried there’.30 He argued that the house should be allowed to continue, and asked Cromwell to act as mediator on his behalf, since he ‘would gladly be a suitor for it to the king, but I dare not, for I know not his pleasure’. If, on the other hand, the king should be ‘determined to dissolve’ the house, he humbly asked Cromwell to act in his interest and ‘move 26

27 28 29 30

Edgcombe’s statement ran as follows: ‘And I to have the temperal possessions of parte thereof, the sunner ffor concyderacyons that I am ffounder off bothe howssys’ (Mon. dioec. Exon., p.240). LP, xi. 517. Ibid. Ibid., xii (i). 1115. Ibid., x. 613.

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the King’s Highness for me that I and my heirs may have the aforesaid monastery, and all the lands and commodities thereunto appertaining to fee-farm; forasmuch as it was sometime founded by my poor ancestors, and lieth very commodiously for me, by the reason that it joineth upon such small lands as I have there in that county’.31 Having stressed his rightful claim to the house, on account of his status as its legal patron, and having emphasised the added importance of the priory as his family mausoleum, Harcourt made his intentions quite clear. He was not, however, the only person who was paying keen attention to Ranton Priory. In another letter addressed to Cromwell, Henry, lord Stafford, likewise expressed his interest in the monastery, for which, he informed Cromwell, he was not only ‘the first suitor’, but he was moreover the more deserving applicant, being quite aware of Simon Harcourt’s efforts to obtain the priory for himself: ‘Howbeit, I understand Sir Simon Harcourt maketh great labour for it, and without your special favour, is like to obtain it, whereof our Lord knoweth he hath no need.’32 In the event, neither of the two petitioners succeeded in acquiring the site, which was instead granted to one John Wiseman following the dissolution of the priory shortly afterwards. While men like Peter Edgcombe and Simon Harcourt demonstrated at least some support for their threatened religious communities, others showed decidedly less initiative. Indeed, there is some evidence of patrons failing to oppose the suppression of their monasteries in the obvious hope of profiting from the house’s lands and wealth themselves. Notorious among these is the case of Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland, patron of the Cistercian abbey of Rievaulx in Yorkshire. Here the patron evidently had his own personal gain in mind, for, having received the site and the home estates of Rievaulx by grant from the king following the surrender of the abbey on 3 December 1538, Manners soon set about dismantling the conventual buildings and demolishing the abbey,33 evidently not overly concerned with patronal protection of the Cistercian community. The patron of the small Augustinian priory of Stavordale in Somerset, Richard Zouche, seemingly had similar plans. Some time in 1535, Zouche wrote to Thomas Cromwell, stating the following: Where I dwell is a poor priory, a foundation of my ancestors, which is my lord father’s inheritance and mine, and by the reason of a lewd prior that was there, who was a canon of Taunton before, brought it to be sold unto Taunton, and now it lies destroyed and there are but two canons, who are of no good living, and that is great pity, the poor household be thus treated. Wherefore if it may please your good mastership to be so good master to me to get me the poor house which is called Stavordale, I were bound to pray for your mastership, and also I shall bear you my hearty service and be at your commandment, by the grace of God, who ever preserve your good mastership.34 31 32

33 34

Ibid.; Cook, Letters to Cromwell, p.94. Stafford pleaded his case to Cromwell by pointing out that he had twelve children and the meagre income of no more than £40 per year, wherefore the possession of the said priory would help him greatly (LP, xii (i). 638). G. Coppack and P. Fergusson, Rievaulx Abbey (London, 1994), p.10. Wright, Suppression, p.51.


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In common with his fellow petitioners, in this claim he emphasised his rightful position as hereditary patron of the house. Similarly, some months later, Humphrey Stafford of Blatherwick Hall (Northants.) composed a letter to Thomas Cromwell in which he asked the Vicar General for ‘the gift of the priory of Fineshade, a house of canons in the county of Northampton’. In the same letter he moreover asked Cromwell to be ‘so good master unto me as to help me to Woodspring Priory [Somerset], where’, he said, ‘my father is founder thereof’.35 This house of Augustinian canons was actually under the patronage of the Courtenay family and not, as he claimed, in the hands of Humphrey Stafford. Another similar example of a lay patron looking after his own interests at the suppression of his monastery is that of Sir Ralph Longford, patron of the Augustinian priory of Calwich in Staffordshire. In April 1532, following negotiations between himself and the crown, the two parties came to ‘an agreement’ regarding the suppression of Calwich Priory, by which Longford ‘was to have the lands of the monastery in tail male, subject to a rent agreed by indifferent persons’.36 Calwich Priory’s history did not end with its suppression. The house was eventually, in 1543, granted to John Fleetwood, who ‘converted the church into a dwelling, making a parlour of the chancel, a hall of the church, and a kitchen of the steeple’.37 Despite their best efforts, patrons had only limited success in acquiring their abbeys and priories from the crown at their dissolution. Nonetheless, occasionally the site and buildings of a dissolved monastery were indeed granted to the house’s former patron, who might use the estates for himself or sell them on. Famously, the de Vere family, earls of Oxford, were granted both their chief monastery at Earls Colne, and their neighbouring nunnery of Castle Hedingham, ‘the late house or priory of St Mary, St James and Holy Cross Hedyngham ad Castrum, Essex’, with their churches and their steeples, their churchyards, granaries, houses, and ‘divers other of their lands’ in Essex, after the houses were suppressed.38 Castle Hedingham Priory was located in close proximity to the family caput and hence was a most convenient acquisition for the family, who had for generations been active patrons of this and another seven or more religious houses. In similar fashion, the patron of the Augustinian priory of Little Dunmow in Essex, Robert Redcliffe, earl of Sussex, was granted the possessions of his former monastery after the closure of the house in 1536. He obtained a royal ‘grant, in tail, of the site, ground &c. of the late priory of Donmowe, alias Dunmowe Parva, Essex, lately suppressed’, in consequence of which Redcliffe received the church, bell tower, churchyard, all messuages, manors, rents and mills. He also got the Benedictine nunnery of Easebourne (Sussex).39 And there were others, too, whose requests to the crown for their former 35 36 37 38 39

Ibid., pp.121–2. VCH Staffs. III, p.239. LP, iv. 2836. Ibid. xi. 45. Ibid., 202.

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monastic lands or property were met with success. In June 1536, Sir Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp and his wife Anne also succeeded in obtaining for themselves a ‘grant in tail male of the site, ground, &c. of the late priory of Holy Trinity, Eston [Wilts.], dissolved by parliament’. With this grant they received all the former priory’s messuages, advowsons of churches, and other property.40 In September of the same year, Thomas Manners, earl of Rutland was granted the church, buildings, lands, and so on, of his Augustinian priory of Warter (Yorks.).41 And in the following April, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, was the recipient of a similar grant for his recently suppressed Premonstratensian abbey of Leiston (Suffolk). 42 It should be emphasised, however, that the above individuals represent the exception, rather than the rule. It would be an overstatement to pretend that royal grants of monastic property to their former patrons were a frequent occurrence. Many of the former monastic patrons were awarded parcels of former church estates, but they were not normally those of their own suppressed religious houses. This notwithstanding, the royal grants continued to be made, gradually redistributing the lands and properties of the former abbeys and priories, sometimes several years after their dissolution. That negotiations regarding the distribution of the monasteries were conducted not only between the patron and the crown, but also between the patron and the religious community in question is illustrated by the – somewhat delicate – case of the Trinitarian house of Ingham in Norfolk in November 1535. Here a certain Richard Wharton, acting on behalf of Edward Calthrope, patron of Ingham Priory, complained to Cromwell about the sale of the monastery and its lands to a third party, ‘one William Woodhowse, a near dweller to the same’.43 This sale, he told Cromwell, had been conducted without the knowledge of the founder, Sir Francis Calthrope, and contrary to the promise of the said prior and convent to Edward Calthrope, nephew and heir to Sir Francis [. . .], to give him the first offer of it.

As a reward for his intervention, Edward Calthrope, who evidently still considered himself to be a figure of some authority over the priory, was prepared to pay Cromwell the sum of £100.44 Not all patrons who received all or part of the monastic buildings of their religious houses demolished them in the manner of Thomas Manners at Rievaulx Abbey; some chose instead to alter the existing structures and turn them into dwellings for themselves, as had been done at Calwich Priory. The results of this can sometimes still be seen today. A well-known example is the Hampshire abbey of Netley, which was a house of Cistercian monks and had been under the patronage of the Bishop of Winchester. In the wake of the

40 41 42 43 44

Ibid. x. 1256 (6). Ibid. xi. 519 (1). Ibid. xii (i). 1103 (11). LP, ix. 785. Ibid.


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Dissolution the abbey was acquired by William Paulet, marquis of Winchester, who converted the monastery into a ‘great country house’, the ruins of which still exist.45 Other examples of monastic buildings converted by their post-Dissolution owners for personal use were Lacock Abbey (Wilts.), Beaulieu Abbey (Hants.), Neath Abbey (Glamorgan), Titchfield Abbey (Hants.), and Mottisfont Priory (Hants.), to name but a few. The transformation of a monastery into a dwelling or a farm sometimes ultimately assisted the survival of at least parts of its buildings.46 Like many other former religious houses, the small Cistercian abbey of Valle Crucis near Llangollen in north Wales still bears clear evidence of its post-Dissolution use as a farm, and it is probably thanks to this adapted function of the abbey that so much of it survives to this day. Where the site and/or the estates of a monastery or nunnery were granted to the former patrons of the house, they did not always remain in their hands for very long. The buildings of the Augustinian priory of Butley in Suffolk were granted by the king to the house’s last patron, Charles Brandon, duke of Suffolk, in the early months of 1538.47 The duke, who continued to use the priory farm, did not retain the possession of the priory for very long. Only months after he received the grant he returned the site and estates, together with his other estates in Suffolk, and these were subsequently granted to the duke of Norfolk.48 The monastery was subsequently dismantled and only the gatehouse of Butley Priory remains intact today. Whilst some former monastic patrons were successful in their bid to take over the house and its lands for their own use, others, as we have seen, were less fortunate in this respect. Who managed to convince the king to grant him the estates of his former abbey or priory and who failed to do so does not seem to follow any particular pattern. Nor, indeed, did patrons always ask for their own religious houses. The location of a site, particularly where a house ‘lieth very commodiously’ for the claimant, seems to have been a deciding factor in many laymen’s pleas, monastic patrons or not.49 What happened to the monastic buildings and estates following the closure of a religious house is known in many cases.50 Information regarding the atti45 46

47 48 49

50

Hare, Dissolution of the Monasteries, pp.13–14. At other times, unfortunately, it had the opposite effect, when the monastic compound was quarried exhaustively for the building of the new dwelling, as at Strata Florida (Cardiganshire), where little of the abbey church or buildings now remains standing. On Butley’s history in the sixteenth century, note ‘The Register of the Chronicle of Butley Priory, Suffolk, 1510–1535’ in Dickens, Late Monasticism, pp.25–81. S.M. Harrison, Butley Priory (B.J. & S.M. Harrison, 2000), p.30. A certain Edward Bestney, for instance, wrote to Cromwell in November 1535, bringing to his attention the ‘naughty observance’ of the aged prior and the last remaining canon of the ‘little religious house named Bygyn in the town of Fordham’ (LP, ix. 761; see also ibid., 735). Having thus set the scene, Bestney made his point: ‘the truth is, this house and the land thereunto pertaining adjoineth to my land so commodiously and pleasantly, that if you will help me to the farm thereof I shall esteem it more than a thing more profitable’ (ibid., 761). For some recent discussion of lay reactions to the distribution of monastic property, see Shagan’s chapter on the dissolution of Hailes Abbey in Popular Politics, pp.162–96. Note

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tude of a patron to the events, or their activity as a response to them, on the other hand, is less common. The dearth of evidence regarding protective action taken by patrons at the Dissolution can be attributed to a number of factors, of which the survival rate of relevant written records is one. Lay patrons in sixteenth-century England and Wales moreover often lacked the interest and personal ties to act on behalf of the religious houses under their patronage.51 At the same time, they undoubtedly realised that any attempt to protect their houses against forces so much more powerful than themselves would inevitably prove futile, if not outright dangerous to themselves; consequently, many of them took little or no action at all on their behalf. And, importantly, the number of lay patrons who could potentially have taken action on behalf of their religious houses had dwindled considerably by 1530, due to the combined effects of monasteries passing from the laity to the crown, and the accumulation of several houses in a few lay hands. Naturally, the evidence is only partially representative of what lay patrons’ attitudes really were. The vast majority of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries still in lay hands at the Dissolution have left few or no records regarding the behaviour of their patrons in the event. This shortage of evidence is remarkable in itself, and highlights the comparative obscurity of some of the small, by this time badly documented, often impecunious priories which remained under lay patronage to the Dissolution. The apparent lethargy, if that is what it was, with which some lay patrons responded to the royal threats facing their religious houses, moreover, has to be considered in the wider social and political context of the time. A lay patron may have regarded open protection of his monastery against the king’s commissioners as a dangerous stance, since it signified opposition to the authority of the crown. Yet despite the potential risk, some lay patrons evidently felt strongly enough about the threat to their houses to decide to take action against their suppression regardless. In doing so, those patrons who did decide to raise their voice against the authorities in order to protect their houses showed extraordinary initiative. In several of the known cases of patrons trying to prevent, or delay, the dissolution of their monasteries, additional evidence survives which hints at a functioning, sometimes even amicable, relationship between the two parties during this period.52 A patron’s opposition to the suppression of his house was in this case perhaps regarded as little more than the fulfilment of patronal duty, and as such as an extension of a reciprocal relationship. In the majority of cases,

51

52

also M. Howard’s assessment of the transformation of suppressed monasteries into residences, ‘Recycling the Monastic Fabric: Beyond the Act of Dissolution’ in Gaimster and Gilchrist (eds), Archaeology of Reformation, pp.221–34, and R.K. Morris’s chapter on ‘Monastic Architecture: Destruction and Reconstruction’ in ibid., pp.235–51. On the fate of Coventry’s religious houses, see I. Soden, ‘The Conversion of Former Monastic Buildings to Secular Use: The Case of Coventry’ in ibid., pp.280–89. Whiting, addressing lay reactions (in general, not exclusively those of monastic patrons) to the Dissolution, has commented that ‘their attitudes towards the actual processes of suppression in the years 1536–9 would seem once more to have been predominantly acquiescent or even positively co-operative’ (Blind Devotion, p.125). Note the Howards and Thetford Priory, or the de Veres and Earls Colne, for instance.


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however, patrons clearly lacked the interest and personal ties, or even just the resources, to act on behalf of the religious houses under their patronage. What all this tells us about lay patrons’ attitudes to the Dissolution in general, and about lay religiosity in the sixteenth century more broadly, is undoubtedly the most complex issue to assess. We can examine, even judge, peoples’ actions, but we rarely have access to the underlying motivation. The attitudes shown by lay patrons to their religious houses in the face of the Dissolution do not necessarily imply that these people were generally less pious or less interested in expressing their devotion than their ancestors had been. It merely implies a shift in their religious focus, in line with the general trends of the time. In this light, those patrons who sought to prevent the suppression of their monasteries stood out as remarkable exceptions who thereby demonstrated very forcibly that the concept of lay patronage had not yet ceased to matter.

Conclusions

Conclusions When, in the year 1448, in his will, William de la Pole, earl of Suffolk, addressed the religious community at ‘my Charterhouse at Hulle’, he was expressing a sentiment which he shared with some of the most influential and powerful aristocrats in the country.1 With these few words, de la Pole testified to the continuation of a tradition that dated back as far as the great wave of monastic foundations by the laity in England and Wales during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Throughout those centuries, monastic patronage had become an increasingly clearly-defined concept, recognised and protected by canon law, and based on the mutual respect and dependency of both parties: the patron and his family on the one hand, and the religious community on the other. By the fourteenth century the meaning and nature of monastic patronage had in many cases changed, but while undeniably less prominent, monastic patronage did nevertheless continue to matter and was clearly still an important issue to at least some of the late medieval nobility in this country right up to the Dissolution. The significance of this should not be underrated. Considering the issues surrounding monastic patronage in the wider context of late medieval lay religiosity helps to illustrate, even emphasise, its importance. The continuity, and in some cases indeed the revival, of a tradition which was so intimately linked to issues of dynastic tradition, piety and, not least, power at a time when expressions of devotion and also the priorities of the laity were so clearly shifting is a remarkable phenomenon. It has been shown that by the year 1300 the wave of monastic foundations in England and Wales had reached its peak and had begun to grind to a halt. A considerable number of existing abbeys and priories had by this time fallen into neglect and decay. As many as seventy religious houses passed from the hands of the laity into the patronage of the king between the fourteenth century and the Dissolution, while a further fifty abbeys and priories with lay patrons had ceased to exist altogether by then. The result of this twofold decline was a marked reduction in religious houses with lay patrons between the fourteenth and the mid-sixteenth centuries. Those monasteries and nunneries which remained in the hands of the laity were moreover concentrated among fewer families. As a result of intermarriage and failure of aristocratic families, the advowsons of a plurality of religious houses came to be accumulated in a small number of families, of whom the de Clares and the Howards were perhaps the most prominent. This meant that, as patrons of two, three, or even twenty abbeys and priories, the patrons of these houses did not normally have the opportunity or the means, or indeed the intention, to provide active or adequate patronage for all their houses. Instead they had to discriminate in 1

NCW, no.29.

CONCLUSIONS

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favour of one or several of their monasteries, on which they focused their, ideally devout and beneficial, attention. Most monasteries and nunneries with lay patrons in late medieval England and Wales were no more than moderately prosperous, notable exceptions such as the wealthy houses of Lewes or Tewkesbury aside. Some houses experienced acute poverty during some or all of their existence. The majority of them have left little or no documentation regarding their later history and/or their relationships with their later patrons, and hence many remain in relative or complete obscurity as far as their patronage histories are concerned. During the later Middle Ages, the religious houses of England and Wales represented increasingly outdated expressions of piety. They had in many ways been superseded by more fashionable establishments which simultaneously provided lay patrons with more flexibility and a greater degree of personal manipulation of the liturgy. The group of laymen and laywomen who constituted the patrons of monasteries from the fourteenth century onwards included some of the wealthiest magnates in the country. If anybody, it was these people who had the financial means to invest in more modern establishments, such as chantry chapels, or even secular colleges. And indeed some of them did. Yet these expensive, fashionable and often very imposing new foundations ultimately failed to permanently replace the monasteries in the sentiment of their patrons and their successors. This is clearly significant. By continuing to patronise their monasteries and nunneries, by donating to them lands and property as well as other gifts, by maintaining contact with their religious communities, and by choosing to be buried in the church or chapter house of the monastery, the small group of active late medieval monastic lay patrons demonstrated a considerable degree of personal initiative and defiance of recent trends. Unlike their predecessors some centuries previously, the patrons of monasteries in the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries had a greater choice, and a greater outlet for their spirituality, be it in the shape of chantries and colleges, or in the various orders of friars. All these greatly appealed to the laity and attracted their generosity, as well as being favoured as burial places by large numbers of men and women. For those people the issues of fashion and convenience, as well as family tradition and, of course, prestige and status, were important, and mattered no less than spiritual efficacy when choosing their devotional focus. Late medieval monastic patrons included men and women from different levels of society. They included those who had for generations been patrons of one or more religious house(s), that is the direct heirs of the original founders in the male line, as in the case of the Berkeleys, the de Veres or the Arthingtons, as well as families who had more recently acquired the advowson of a religious house through marriage, inheritance, or by royal grant, as had the Scropes of Bolton. The motivation for these different types of monastic patrons might have varied. For the former, active patronage of the family monastery meant the continuation of a dynastic tradition which was often long-standing and in many cases involved the burial of past generations of family members in the house. For the latter, on the other hand, the motivation was of a rather

208


different nature. The deliberate acquisition of the patronage of a religious house was for them a particularly grand symbol of their newly acquired status. Although the situation changed considerably from the original foundation and the early history of the monasteries and nunneries to the later medieval period, as far as monastic patronage in general, and the attitudes of lay patrons in particular, were concerned, a significant element of active monastic patronage persisted among the laity. Those patrons who exploited their houses have to be regarded in the context of those patrons who still actively supported their monasteries and nunneries, who maintained some sort of contact with the communities, who gave their assent to elections, who protected their houses against abuse from outside, and who gave them gifts, sometimes of a very personal nature. For some patrons, their religious house clearly remained central to their piety. Reading between the lines of the evidence for active lay patronage, the indication is that in reality there was much more patronal activity than was ever recorded or is now evident. The lay patrons of the English and Welsh monasteries and nunneries during the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are significant in that they acted in many ways against the religious trends and fashions of their times, and chose instead to adhere to a much more traditional outlet for their devotion. These laymen and laywomen represent an important minority of monastic patrons who continued to participate in an active relationship with the religious communities under their patronage. During the time covered by the present study, their commitment to, and active involvement with, their monastery or nunnery required more personal initiative than it had done in previous centuries, when the practice was much more common. Religious houses in the late Middle Ages could evidently still be much more to their patrons than merely institutions dedicated to the perpetual welfare of their souls and the celebration of their lineage. It seems clear that a number of patrons were still aware of the rights and duties which their role entailed, and that they intended to continue to fulfil this role in the years and decades to come.

Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons

Appendix Late Medieval English and Welsh Monasteries and their Patrons This survey includes some seven hundred religious houses of canons and canonesses, monks and nuns of all religious orders active in England and Wales during the late medieval period. Other religious establishments, including houses of friars as well as the military orders of the Templars and the Hospitallers, together with hospitals, colleges and chantries, although largely contemporary with the focus of the present study, have been specifically excluded from the survey. Also excluded are those religious houses which failed before or very shortly after 1300. In the case of refoundations of monasteries or nunneries as houses of a different order, these are listed under the religious order to which they belonged after 1300. Where gaps remain in the survey, they normally relate to the patrons of smaller, often obscure and impoverished monasteries, and are therefore likely to represent unidentified laymen and laywomen. Royal or episcopal patrons of religious houses are much more likely to appear in the records at some point than are lay patrons. Specific dates in the survey indicate specifically dated entries in the sources, normally relating to particular events in connection with which the patron of a monastery was mentioned. Sources: Manuscript and printed sources, as indicated in the text.

County

Fd.

Diss.

Status by c.1300 Original Founder

Patron c.1300

Patron at Dissolution

royal

royal

BENEDICTINE MONKS Abbotsbury

Dorset

c.1044

1539

abbey

Orcus & Thola his wife

Abergavenny

Monmouth

1087–1100

1536

priory

Hamelinus de Barham

Hastings, ld of Abergavenny

royal

Abingdon

Berks.

c.954

1538

abbey

Edred grandson of King Alfred

royal

royal

Alcester

Warwicks.

1140

1536

abbey

Ralph Pincerna (le Boteler)

Wm le Boteler 1307

1465 > Abbot Richard & convent of Evesham

Aldeby

Norfolk

c.1100–19

1538

priory

Agnes de Beaupré

heirs of Agnes & Hubert de Rye

1467 Lady Isabel Morley

Alvecote

Warwicks.

1159

1536

priory

William Burdet

Wm Burdet

Burdet

Athelney

Somerset

888

1539

abbey

King Alfred

royal

royal

Bardney

Lincs.

1086–9

1538

abbey

Gilbert of Ghent

Lacy earl of Lincoln > Lancaster

royal

Bath

Somerset

775

1539

Cd priory royal

episcopal

episcopal

Battle

Sussex

1067

1538

abbey

William I

royal

royal

Beadlow (Beaulieu)

Beds.

1140–6

1435

priory

Robert d’Aubigny

d’Aubigny > 1434 Grey lords of Ruthin

——

Bedemans Berg

Essex

c.1155

c.1536

priory

Henry II

Belvoir

Lincs.

1076–88

1539

priory

Robert de Todeni/Tosny

Lord Ros

Thomas earl of Rutland

Binham

Norfolk

–1093

1539

priory

Peter de Valognes & wife

de Valognes > 1319 Robert Walkfare

royal / St Albans

Birkenhead

Cheshire

c.1150

1536

priory

Hamon de Masci, baron of Dunham Massey

1278 Hamon de Massey V > Massey Thomas Stanley earl till 1361 of Derby

Blyth

Notts.

1083–8

1536

priory

Roger de Builli & Muriel his wife

de Builli / Vipont till 1235

royal

Boxgrove

Sussex

1105

1536

priory

Robert de Haye

St John family > Thom. de Poyninges

Thomas West, Lord de la Warr

Bradwell

Bucks.

–1136

1524–5

priory

Meinfelin, lord of Wolverton

1320 John de Wolverton

1524 Sir John Longueville > Wolsey

Brecon

Brecknock

c.1110

1538

priory

Bernard of Newmarch (de Novo-mercato)

de Braose > Bohun > Buckingham

royal from 1521

Bristol, St James

Glos.

c.1137

1540

priory

Robert E of Gloucester

de Clare earls of Gloucester > Despenser

royal from 1487

Bromfield

Salop

–1127

1540

priory

Henry II / Gloucester Cd pr.

Burton upon Trent Staffs.

1002–4

1539

abbey

Wulfric Spott

royal

royal

Bury St Edmunds

Suffolk

1020–2

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Cambridge

Cambs.

1321

c.1540

priory

——

John de Cranden prior of Ely

bishop of Norwich > college

Canterbury Cathedral

Kent

997

1540

Cd priory ?royal / ?episcopal

?royal / ?episcopal

?royal / ?episcopal

Canterbury,St Augustines

Kent

605

1538

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Canwell

Staffs.

1131–48

1524

priory

Geva, dt of Hugh E of Chester, wd Draytons of Bassett till 1390 of Ridell

Cardiff

Glamorgan

–1106

1403

priory

Robert fitz Hamo

E of Gloucester > Despenser > royal ——

Cardigan

Cardigan

1110–5

1538

priory

Gilbert FitzRichard

unknown

cell of Chertsey

Cerne

Dorset

–987

1539

abbey

Æthelmer son of Æthelward

royal

royal

Chepstow

Monmouth

t. Stephen

1536

priory

lords of Chepstow Castle / Wm FitzOsbern

dukes of Norfolk > E of Pembroke

royal from 1460s

Chertsey

Surrey

–964

1537

abbey

St Erkenwald; royal

royal

royal

Chester, St Werburga’s

Cheshire

1092–3

1540

abbey

Hugh I earl of Chester

earls of Chester > 1237 royal

royal

Colchester

Essex

1096–7

1539

abbey

Eudo, seneschal of Wm Rufus

royal

royal

Coquet Island

Northd.

–1125

1539

priory

Tynemouth Priory

Tynemouth Priory

Tynemouth Priory

Coventry

Warwicks.

1043

1539

Cd priory Leofric E of Mercia & Godiva

bp of Coventry and Lichfield

episcopal

earls of Warwick

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300

Cowick

Devon

–1137

1538

priory

Wm FitzBaldwin

Courtenay

Cranborne

Dorset

c.980

1540

priory

Haylward Snew

de Clare earls of Gloucester

royal

Crowland

Lincs.

716

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Deeping St James

Lincs.

1139

–1539

priory

Baldwin fitz Gilbert de Wake

de Wake (1319 Thomas) E of Kent Salisbury

Deerhurst

Glos.

?960s

1540

priory

royal

Richard earl of Cornwall > royal

royal

Dover

Kent

1136

1535

priory

Henry I / Christ Church Canterbury

episcopal

episcopal

Dunster

Somerset

c.1090

1539

priory

Wm de Mohun &Adeliza

1332 John de Mohun & Ada

Luttrell

Durham

Durham

1083

1539

Cd priory Bp Wm of St Carileph

episcopal

episcopal

Earl’s Colne

Essex

–1107

1536

priory

de Vere, earls of Oxford


Ely

Cambs.

970

1539

Cd priory royal

royal

royal

Evesham

Worcs.

701

1539–40

abbey

St Egwin, bp of Worcester

royal

royal

Ewenny

Glamorgan

–1131

1540

priory

William of London lord of Ogmore Castle

Payn de Chaworth > end C13 Lancaster

royal

Ewyas Harold

Hereford

Aubrey I de Vere


post 1100

1359

priory

Harold Lord of Ewyas

Tregoz > de la Warre

——

Exeter St Nicholas Devon

1087

1536

priory

William I / Battle Abbey

royal

royal

Eye

Suffolk

1086–7

1537

priory

Robert Malet

earls of Cornwall

royal

Eynsham

Oxford

–1005

1539

abbey

Aethelmar earl of Cornwall and Devon

episcopal

episcopal

Farne Island

Northd.

c.1193

c.1538

priory

Durham Cd pr.

Durham Cd pr.

Durham Cd pr.

Faversham

Kent

1148

1538

abbey

K.Stephen & Matilda

royal

royal

Felixstowe

Suffolk

c.1105

1528

priory

Roger Bigod I

? earl of Norfolk

Finchale

Durham

1196

1538

priory

Henry, s. of Bp Pudsey (du Puiset) cell of Durham

cell of Durham

Folkestone

Kent

1095

1535

priory

Nigel de Munevilla & Emma his wife

Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk

1264 Crevequer > Arundel / Norfolk

——

Freiston

Lincs.

1141–2

1539

priory

Alan de Craon & Muriel (wife) & Pedwardyn (heirs of founder) Maurice (son)

C15 Pedwardyn

Glastonbury

Somerset

940–6

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Gloucester

Glos.

c.1022

1540

abbey

King Canute

1306 ?royal

?royal

Goldcliff

Monmouth

1113

1450

priory

Robert de Chandos

de Clare >1321 earl of Norfolk > royal

——

Great Malvern

Worcs.

1085

1539–40

priory

Bp Wulfstan / Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey

Hackness

Yorks.

c.1100

1539

priory

Wm de Percy / Whitby Abbey

Whitby Abbey

Whitby Abbey

Hatfield Broad Oak

Essex

c.1135

1536

priory

Alberic (Aubrey) de Vere II



Hatfield Peverel

Essex

c.1100

1536

priory

William Peverel

Bohun > St Albans

St Albans

Hereford St Guthlac

Hereford

1100–1

1538

priory

Hugh de Lacy

?de Lacy > royal

Hertford

Herts.

–1093

1538

priory

Ralph de Limesy

earl of Pembroke

Horsham St Faith Norfolk

c.1105

1536

priory

Robert FitzWalter & Sybil

1345 Sir John Ufford, knight

royal

Horton

Dorset

1122–39

1539

priory

Bp Roger of Salisbury / Sherborne Abbey

?Sherborne / episcopal

?Sherborne / episcopal

Hoxne

Suffolk

1130

1538

priory

Maurice of Windsor

episcopal

episcopal

Humberston

Lincs.

c.1160

1536

abbey

Wm fitz Ralph

1226 earl of Chester and Lincoln

royal

Hurley

Berks.

–1087

1536

priory

Geoffrey I de Mandeville

Mandeville > Bohun

Stafford > royal from 1521

Jarrow

Northd.

1074

1536

priory

Walcher bishop of Durham

episcopal

episcopal

Kidwelly

Northd.

1114

1539

priory

Bp Roger of Salisbury / Sherborne episcopal Abbey

episcopal

Kilpeck

Hereford

1134

1428

priory

Hugh fitz William of Kilpeck

Ormond

——

King’s Lynn

Norfolk

c.1100

1539

priory

Bp Herbert Losinga of Norwich / Norwich Cd pr.

episcopal

episcopal

Leominster

Hereford

c.1139

1539

priory

?Henry I / Reading Abbey

royal

royal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Glos.

1146

1538

priory

Roger III de Berkeley / ?Gloucester Cd pr.

Berkeley

Berkeley

Lincoln

Lincs.

c.1135?

1539

priory

York St Mary’s Abbey



Lindisfarne

Northd.

1082

1537

priory

Bp William de Carileph

episcopal

episcopal

Little Malvern

Worcs.

?–1150/1171 c.1537

priory

Bp Simon of Worcester / Worcester Cd pr.

bishops of Worcester = episcopal

episcopal

Luffield

Bucks/N’hants.

1118

1494

priory

Robert II Bossu, earl of Leicester

royal

——

Lytham

Lancs.

1191–4

1535

priory

Richard fitz Roger of Woodplumpton

Lancaster

royal

Malmesbury

Wilts.

965–74

1539

abbey

Saxon kings

royal

royal

Middlesborough

Yorks.

c.1120–30

–1537

priory

Robert I de Brus

de Brus > D’Arcy

Lord Conyers

Milton

Dorset

933

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Modney

Norfolk

–1291

?1536

priory

no record

?

?Ramsey Abbey

Monk Bretton

Yorks.

1153–5

1539

priory

Adam FitzSuain

de Montbegon

Thomas Lord Montegle

Monkwearmouth

Durham

1083

1536

priory

Durham Cd pr.

episcopal

episcopal

Monmouth

Monmouth

–1086

1540

priory

Wihenoc de Monemue (Monmouth)

royal during French wars

?royal

Morville

Salop

1138

1540

priory

Robert de Béthune bp of Hereford episcopal

episcopal

Muchelney

Somerset

939

1538

abbey

K Athelstan

royal

royal

Mullicourt

Norfolk

?–1066

c.1539

priory

unknown

de Ha(y)le > 1313 FitzGilbert

1430s FitzGilbert > 1449 Th. de Beaupré of Outwell

Norwich

Norfolk

1096–1101

1539

Cd priory Bp Herbert Losinga of Norwich

episcopal

episcopal

Norwich St Leonard’s

Norfolk

c.1095

1539

priory

Bp Herbert Losinga of Norwich / Norwich Cd pr.

episcopal

episcopal

Oxney

N’hants.

–1272

1538

priory

cell of Peterborough

Leonard Stanley

Roger Horton

Pembroke

Pembroke

c.1098

1539

priory

Arnulph de Montgomery earl of Pembroke

earls of Pembroke

royal

Penwortham

Lancs.

1104–22

1535

priory

Warin Bussel, baron of Penworth. royal

royal

Pershore

Worcs.

c.970

1539–40

abbey

Engelward duke of Dorset

?royal

?royal

Peterborough

N’hants.

c.970

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Pilton

Devon

–1187

1539

priory

?royal / Malmesbury Abbey

?royal

?royal

Ramsey

Hunts.

966

1539

abbey

Ailwine earl of the East Angles

royal

royal

Reading

Berks.

1121

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Redbourn

Herts.

post 1178

–1535

priory

St Albans Abbey

St Albans Abbey

St Albans Abbey

Richmond

Yorks.

c.1100

1539

priory

Wymar steward of Stephen earl of Brittany

earl of Richmond J. of Brittany

royal

Rochester

Kent

1080

1540

Cd priory Bp Gundulf & Lanfranc

episcopal

episcopal

Rumburgh

Suffolk

post 1136

1528

priory

Alan III, 1st earl of Brittany & Richmond

1364 John Nerford

?royal

St Albans

Herts.

c.970

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

St Bees

Cumb’d

c.1120

1538

priory

Wm le Meschin

lord FitzWalter / lords of Copland

3 co–heirs (lay)

St Benet of Hulme Norfolk

1066

(c.1539)

abbey

royal

royal

royal

St Ives

Hunts.

c.1017

1539

priory

Ramsey Abbey

Ramsey Abbey

Ramsey Abbey

St Neots

Hunts.

1078–9

1539

priory

Richard FitzGilbert de Clare

Gilbert de Clare E of Glos. & Hereford

Stafford > royal from 1521

Sandwell

Staffs.

c.1180

1524

priory

Wm son of Guy de Offney

Scilly

Cornwall

c.1114

c.1538

priory

royal

?royal

?royal

Selby

Yorks.

1069–70

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Sherborne

Dorset

c993

1539

abbey

royal

?royal / 1362 Margaret de St John > royal Poynings

Shrewsbury

Salop

1083–6

1540

abbey

Roger de Montgomery earl of Shrewsbury

from 1102 royal

royal

Snaith

Yorks.

1310

1539

priory

——

Gerard abp of York

episcopal

unknown

County

Fd.

Diss.


Snape

Suffolk

1155

1525

priory

Snelshall

Bucks.

c.1219

1535

Spalding

Lincs.

1052

Stamford St Leonard’s

Lincs.

Sudbury Tavistock

Patron c.1300


Wm Martel, wife & son

1300 earl of Cornwall > Ctss of Suffolk

1509 by Henry VIII as alien priory to Butley Priory

priory

Ralph Martel

Richard FitzJohn

?duchess of York / princess of Wales

1539

priory

Thorold of Buckenhale, br of countess Godiva

Henry de Lacy > Lancaster

royal

c.1083

1538

priory

Durham Cd pr.

Durham Cd pr.

Durham Cd pr.

Suffolk

c.1116

c.1538

priory

Wulfric the Moneyer

Devon

975–80

1539

abbey

Ordulf s. of Ealdorman Ordgar

?royal

?royal

Tewkesbury

Glos.

(980) 1102

1540

abbey

Robert Fitzhamon 1st earl of Gloucester


royal

Thorney

Cambs.

972–3

1539

abbey

Æthelwold Bishop of Winchester episcopal

episcopal

Tickford

Bucks.

c.1100

1524

priory

Fulk Paynel s? of Ralph

Gervays Paynel

?lay patrons

Totnes

Devon

c.1088

1536

priory

Juhel fitz Alured

Zouche

Sir Peter Edgcombe

Tutbury

Staffs.

c.1080

1538

priory

Henry de Ferrers

earl of Lancaster

royal

Tynemouth

Northd.

–1089

1539

priory

Robert de Mowbray E. Northd.

(royal)


Tywardreath

Cornwall

–1169

1536

priory

Richard FitzWilliam

Cardinham / 1300 E of Cornwall > Courtenay royal

Upholland

Lancs.

1319

1536

priory

———

Sir Robert Holland

Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby

Walden

Essex

1136–44

1538

abbey

Geoffrey de Mandeville E of Essex

de Bohun earls of Essex > duchy of Lancaster

royal

Wallingford

Berks.

c.1087–9

1525–8

priory

Geoffrey the Chamberlain

St Albans Abbey

St Albans Abbey

Westminster

London

c.959

1540

abbey

royal

royal

royal

Wetheral

Cumb’d

c.1106–12

1538

priory

Ranulph le Meschin earl of Cumberland

royal

royal

Whitby

Yorks.

–1087

1539

abbey

Wm de Percy

from 1299 royal

royal

Winchcombe

Glos.

969

1539

abbey

Oswald bishop of Worcester

?royal / ?episcopal

?royal / ?episcopal

Winchester, Old Minster

Hants.

964

1539

Cd priory royal

royal

royal

Winchester, Hyde Hants. Abbey

1110

1539

abbey

royal

royal

Worcester

Worcs.

c.969

1540

Cd priory Wolstan bishop of Worcester

episcopal

episcopal

Wymondham

Norfolk

1107

c.1538

abbey

Wm d’Aubigny Pincerna

Sir Robert Tateshall

?duke of Norfolk / ?Knyvet

Yarmouth

Norfolk

–1101

1539

priory

Herbert Losinga bp of Norwich / Norwich Cd pr.

episcopal

episcopal

York, St Mary’s

Yorks.

1088–9

1539

abbey

royal

royal

royal

York, Holy Trinity Yorks.

1089

1538

priory

Ralph Paynell

heirs of founder

Barbara, wf of Sir Marmaduke Constable senior

York, Fishergate

1087

–1536?

priory

royal

?royal

?royal

——

Yorks.

royal

CLUNIAC MONKS Aldermanshaw

Leics.

c.1220

–1450

priory

Bermondsey Abbey

Bermondsey Abbey

Barnstaple

Devon

1100

1536

priory

Joel de Totnes

?Wm de Braose grdson of fdr / de Tracy?

Bermondsey

Surrey

1089

1538

abbey

Alwin Child, of London

Bermondsey Abbey

1514 Thomas Wolsey then bp of Lincoln

Broomholm

Norfolk

1113

1536

priory

Wm de Glanville

Ralph & Edmund earls of Cornwall

earl of Suffolk

County

Fd.

Diss.


Norfolk

1089

1537

priory

Church Preen

Salop

1150

–1539

Clifford

Hereford

1129–30

1536

Castle Acre

Patron c.1300


earl of Warenne / William I

1306 John de Warenne earl of Surrey

Arundel

priory

Much Wenlock Priory

Much Wenlock Priory

priory

Simon fitz Richard

?ancestors of countess of Lincoln

?Lancaster > royal

Daventry

N’hants.

1090

1525

priory

Hugh de Leicester

Rbt FitzWalter of Daventry

Lancaster > royal

Derby, St James

Derby

–1140

1536

priory

Waltheof son of Sweyn

Bermondsey Abbey

royal

Dudley

Worcs.

1149–60

1539

priory

Gervase Pagnell

Roger de Somery

Sutton, barons of Dudley

Exeter St James

Devon

–1146

t.H. VI

Baldwin de Redvers

Courtenay

Courtenay > ——

Holme

Dorset

c.1107

1539

priory

Robert de Lincoln

1320s Wm Montacute earl of Salisbury

Margaret countess of Salisbury

Horkesley

Essex

–1127

1525

priory

Robert fitz Godebold & Beatrice > Ros

1374 Sir Robert de Swynbourne

Sir Roger Wentworth

Kersal

Lancs.

1145–53

1538

priory

Ranulph ‘de Gernon’ E. of Chester

1300 royal

royal

Kerswell

Devon

1119–29

1538

priory

Montacute Priory

Montacute Priory

Montacute Priory

Lenton

Notts.

1102–8

1538

priory

Wm Peverell

royal

royal

Lewes

Sussex

1077

1537

priory

Wm de Warenne & Gundreda

earls of Warenne / 1347 FitzAlan E Thomas Howard duke of of Arundel Norfolk

Malpas

Monmouth

–1122

1539

priory

Winibald of Caerleon / cell of Montacute

de Clare earls of Gloucester > ?Despenser

?royal

Mendham

Suffolk

–1155

1537

priory

Wm de Huntingfield

Huntingfield

c.1400 de la Pole/Drury/Bardwell/ Bolton

Monks Horton

Kent

c.1150

1536

priory

Robert de Vere

during French wars royal

1120–3

1536

priory

Humphrey II de Bohun

1250s Humphrey V de Bohun / C14 Bohun

Monkton Farleigh Wilts.

royal 1521

Montacute

Somerset

c.1100

1539

priory

Count of Mortain (?Wm)

from c.1339 Montacute E of Salisbury

earls of Salisbury

Much Wenlock

Salop

1080–1

1540

priory

Roger de Montgomery E of Shrewsbury

from 1102 royal

royal

Newton Longville Bucks.

–1120

1414

priory

Walter Giffard

earl of Stafford

——

Norman’s Burrow

Norfolk

c.1160

1537

priory

William de Liseurs

Northampton, St Andrew’s

N’hants.

–1084

1538

priory

Simon of St Liz E of N’hampton

Pontefract

Yorks.

c.1090–99

1539

priory

Robert de Lacy

de Lacy > Lancaster

royal

Prittlewell

Essex

–1121

1536

priory

Robert s of Sweyn

Bohun earl of Essex > royal

royal

St Carrok

Cornwall

–1189

1536

priory

(Wm Count of Mortain) / cell of Montacute

St Clears

Carmarthen

1147–8

1414

priory

St Martin–des–Champs, Paris

during French wars royal

——

St Helen’s

I of Wight

c.1155

1414

priory

Much Wenlock Priory

Much Wenlock Priory

——

Sleves Holm

Norfolk

t.Stephen

1537

priory

Wm de Warenne E of Surrey

1309 John earl of Warenne


Stansgate

Essex

1112–21

1525

priory

?Ralf s of Brien

Thetford

Norfolk

1104

1540

priory

Roger Bigod

1300 earls of Norfolk


Wangford

Suffolk

–1159

1540

priory

?’Ansered of France’/?Dondo Asini

1376 John de Hastings earl of Pembroke


Tregoz /Grandison / de la Warre>1370 lords of Ewyas Harold

——

CISTERCIAN MONKS Abbey Dore

Hereford

1147

1536

abbey

Robert de Ewyas

Basingwerk

Flint

1131–59

1535

abbey

Ralph II, E of Chester / ?Henry II

Beaulieu

Hants.

1204

1538

abbey

King John

royal

royal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300

Biddlesden

Bucks.

1147

1538

abbey

Ernald de Bosco

de Bosco > Zouche

Bindon

Dorset

1172

1539

abbey

Roger of Newburgh & wife Maud 1272 Henry de Newburgh > royal

royal

Bordesley

Worcs.

1138

1538

abbey

Waleran de Beaumont / Empress Maud

royal

royal

Boxley

Kent

1143 or 46

1538

abbey

Wm of Ypres earl of Kent

Bruern

Oxford

1147

1536

abbey

Nicholas Basset

Buckfast

Devon

1137

1535

abbey

?Ethelwerd son of Wm Pomerei

Buckland

Devon

1278

1539

abbey

Amicia countess dowager of Devon

Hugh Courtenay

Marquis of Exeter

Buildwas

Salop

1135

1535

abbey

Roger bp of Chester

episcopal

episcopal

Byland

Yorks.

1177

1539

abbey

Gundreda wd of Nigel d’Aubigny 1349 Mowbray, earl of Norfolk / her son Roger de Mowbray


Calder

Cumb’d

1142–3

1536

abbey

Ranulph Meschin

Th.de Lucy holds 1/3 / Thomas de Multon

lords of Copeland

Cleeve

Somerset

1188

1537

abbey

Wm de Romara earl of Lincoln

Coggeshall

Essex

1140

1538

abbey

K Stephen & Matilda

royal

royal

Combe

Warwicks.

1150

1539

abbey

Richard de Camvilla

royal

royal

Combermere

Cheshire

1133

1538

abbey

Hugh de Malbanc/ earls of Chester

royal

royal

Conway

Caernarf.

1185

c.1538

abbey

Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, prince of Gwynedd

re–fd Edward I

?royal

Croxden

Staffs.

1178

1538

abbey

Bertram de Verdun

Verdun / 1316 Furnivalle

?Talbot

Cwmhir

Radnor

1176

1536

abbey

Cadwallon ap Madog, prince of Ceri & Maelienydd

from C13 Mortimer

Cymmer

Merioneth

1198–9

1536

abbey

Llywelyn ab Iorwerth, prince of Gwynedd


Dieulacres

Staffs.

1214

1538

abbey

Ranulf III (de Blundervill) E of Chester

earls of Chester

early C16 royal

Dunkeswell

Devon

1201

1539

abbey

Wm de Briwere

?de Mohun

Flaxley

Glos.

1151

1536–7

abbey

Roger E of Hereford

?royal

?royal

Forde

Devon

1136

1539

abbey

Richard fitz Baldwin de Brioniis

Hugh de Courtenay

Courtenay

Fountains

Yorks.

1132

1539

abbey

Abp Thurstan

episcopal

episcopal

Furness

Lancs.

1127

1537

abbey

Stephen (later King)

royal

royal

Garendon

Leics.

1133

1536

abbey

Robert le Bossu earl of Leicester

Edmund earl of Lancaster

Elizabeth Countess of Oxford

Grace Dieu

Monmouth

1226

1536

abbey

John of Monmouth

Verdun

Hailes

Glos.

1251

1539

abbey

Richard earl of Cornwall

Edmund earl of Cornwall

Holmcultram

Cumb’d

1150

1538

abbey

Henry s of David I, K of Scotland royal

royal

Hulton

Staffs.

1219

1538

abbey

Henry de Audeley

Audeley

Audeley

Jervaulx

Yorks.

1156

1537

abbey

Hervé son of Akarias

John duke of Brittany earl of Richmond

Sir William Parr

Kingswood

Glos.

1139

1538

abbey

Roger III of Berkeley / William

Berkeley

Berkeley

Kirkstall

Yorks.

1152

1540

abbey

Henry de Lacy > Robert Lacy

de Lacy > Lancaster

royal

Kirkstead II

Lincs.

1187

1537

abbey

Hugh Brito / his son Robert

4–5 generations of Brito family

Llantarnam

Monmouth

1179

1536

abbey

Hywel ab Iorwerth, lord of Caerleon

1322 Hugh Despenser the younger

?royal

London, St Mary Graces

London

1350

1538

abbey

——

royal

royal

Louth Park

Lincs.

1139

1536

abbey

Alexander bp of Linc.

episcopal

episcopal

Margam

Glamorg.

1147

1536

abbey

Robert E of Gloucester

de Clare > Despenser > Warwick

royal from 1487

Meaux

Yorks.

1151

1539

abbey

Wm of Blois ‘le Gros’ earl of Albemarle

C13 Albemarle > 1396 duke of Gloucester

royal

Medmenham

Bucks.

1204

1536

abbey

Hugh de Bolebec / his daughter Isabel

Ctss of Oxford

royal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Merevale

Warwicks.

1148

1538

abbey

Robert de Ferrers II, E of Derby

1253 Wm Earl Ferrers

1537 Lord Ferrers

Neath

Glamorg.

1130

1539

abbey

Sir Richard de Granville & Constance


?royal

Netley

Hants.

1239

1536

abbey

Peter des Roches, bp of Winchester

episcopal

episcopal

Newenham

Devon

1247

1539

abbey

Reginald de Mohun E of Somerset dowager Marchioness of Dorset > his brother

?royal

Newminster

Northd.

1138

1537

abbey

Ranulph de Merlay

Graystoke

Lord Dacre of the North

Oxford, St Bernard’s College

Oxford

1437

c.1542

abbey

——

Abp Chichele of Canterbury

episcopal

Pipewell

N’hants.

1143

1538

abbey

Wm de Batevileyn

1314 his heir Robert >1330s royal

?royal

Quarr

I of Wight

1132

1536

abbey

Baldwin de Redvers earl of Devon royal

royal

Revesby

Lincs.

1143

c.1539

abbey

Wm de Romara E of Lincoln

1320s ?royal

royal

Rewley

Oxford

–1272

1536

abbey

Richard E of Cornwall

earl of Cornwall

royal

Rievaulx

Yorks.

1132

1538

abbey

Walter Espec

William de Ros

1533 Thomas earl of Rutland

Robertsbridge

Sussex

1176

1538

abbey

Alured de St Martin

Sir William de Etchingham

Roche

Yorks.

1147

1538

abbey

Richard de Builli & Richard fitz Turgis

John son of Wm Lyvett > Richard Barry 1377

Clifford, earl of Cumberland

Rufford

Notts.

1146

1536

abbey

Gilbert de Gant, earl of Lincoln

Lacy, earl of Lincoln

Henry Norres

Sawley

Yorks.

1148

1536

abbey

Wm de Percy

1313 Henry de Percy

earl of Northumberland

Sawtry

Hunts.

1147

1536

abbey

Simon de Senliz earl of Northampton

Sibton

Suffolk

1150

1536

abbey

Wm de Cayneto (Cheney)

1263 descendants of Robert son of Roger

Lord Dacre of the South

Stanley

Wilts.

1154

1536

abbey

Empress Maud & Drogo

royal

?royal

Stoneleigh

Warwicks.

1155

1536

abbey

Henry II

royal

royal

Strata Florida

Cardigan

1164

1539

abbey

Robert fitz Stephen

house of Dinefwr – Sir Rhys ap Thomas

royal from 1525

Strata Marcella

Montgom.

1172

1536

abbey

Owain Cyfeiliog, prince of Powys lords of Powys

Stratford

Essex

1135

1538

abbey

Wm de Mountfichet

under royal protection

?royal

Swineshead

Lincs.

1135

1536

abbey

Robert de Gresley

?Gresley

?Gresley

Thame

Oxford

1137–8

1539

abbey

Robert Gait / Alexander bp of Lincoln

episcopal

episcopal

Tilty

Essex

1153

1536

abbey

Robert de Ferrers, E of Derby & Maurice fitz Jeffery

Tintern

Monmouth

1131

1539

abbey

Walter fitz Richard (de Clare), lord of Chepstow

Roger Bigod III earl of Norfolk


Vale Royal

Cheshire

1281

1539

abbey

Edward I

royal

royal

Valle Crucis

Denbigh

1201

1538

abbey

Madog ap Gruffudd, lord of Iâl

1398 Richard earl of Arundel

Henry Fitzroy, duke of Richmond and Somerset

Vaudey

Lincs.

1149

1536

abbey

Wm earl of Albemarle

Albemarle

Albemarle

Warden

Beds.

1136

1537

abbey

Walter Espec

Wm de Ros


Waverley

Surrey

1128

1536

abbey

Wm Giffard bp of Winchester

episcopal

episcopal

Whalley

Lancs.

1296

1537

abbey

Henry de Lacy E of Lincoln

earl of Lincoln > Lancaster

royal

Whitland

Carmarth.

c.1143

1539

abbey

Bernard bp of St Davids

episcopal

episcopal

Woburn

Beds.

1145

1538

abbey

Hugh de Bolebec

?duke of Norfolk

CARTHUSIAN MONKS Axholme

Lincs.

1397–8

1538

priory

——

Thomas Mowbray

Beauvale

Notts.

1343

1539

priory

——

Nicholas de Cauntlow (Cantilupe)

Coventry

Warwicks.

1381

1539

priory

——

Wm lord Zouche of Harringworth

royal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Hinton

Somerset

1222 / 1227

1539

priory

Wm Longespée / his wife, Countess Ela

Kingston upon Hull

Yorks.

1377–8

1539

priory

——

Michael de la Pole

royal from 1506

London Charterhouse

London / Middlesex

1371

1537

priory

——

Sir Walter Manny

lay patrons (?Howard)

Mount Grace

Yorks.

1398

1539

priory

——

Thomas de Holland Dk of Surrey, E of Kent

1438 Sir Wm Ingleby > co-heirs

Sheen

Surrey

1414

1539

priory

——

royal

royal

Witham

Somerset

1178–9

1539

priory

Henry II

royal

royal

Ashridge

Bucks./Herts.

1283

1539

Edmund E of Cornwall

Edmund earl of Cornwall +1300

royal

Edington

Wilts.

1358

1539

——

Wm of Edington, bp of Winchester episcopal

Ruthin

Denbigh

1310

1535

——

John de Grey, son of Reginald

Patron c.1300

Patron at Dissolution royal

BONHOMMES

earl of Kent

GRANDMONTINES Alberbury

Salop

c.1230

c.1441

priory

Fulk fitz Warin III of Whittington Fulk FitzWarin IV

Craswell

Hereford

c.1225

1462

priory

Walter de Lacy

Grosmont

Yorks.

c.1204

1536 (1)

priory

Johanna dt of Wm Fossard

—— ——

de Maulay

co-heirs of Maulay > Bigod

ORDER OF TIRON Andwell

Hants.

t.Henry I

1391

priory

Adam de Port of Maplederwell

1385 Thomas Driffielde & Eleanor

——

Caldy

Pembr.

c.1113–5

1536

priory

Geva, mother of Robert FitzMartin

lay patrons

Hamble

Hants.

1109

1392

priory

Wm Giffard, bishop of Winchester

episcopal

Pill

Pembr.

1113–15

1536

priory

Adam de Rupe (Roche)

Thomas de Rupe (Roche)

St Cross

I of Wight

c.1132

1391

priory

Robert Colaws

St Dogmaels

Pembr.

1113–15

1536

abbey

Robert fitz Martin ld of Camain (Cemais)

Titley

Hereford

1120–1

1391

priory

?

Easton

Wilts.

1251

1536

Stephen of Tisbury

Esturmy family

Seymour > Ringeborne

Hertford

Herts.

c.1261

–1535?

royal

royal

royal

Hounslow

Middlesex

1224–52

1538

?royal

Ingham

Norfolk

1360

1536

——

Sir Miles Stapleton

Sir Francis Calthrope > Edward Calthrope

Knaresborough

Yorks.

c.1252

1538

Richard E of Cornwall

Lancaster

royal

Moatenden

Kent

c.1224

1538

?Sir Robert de Rokesley/?Sir Michael de Poninges

?de la Warre

?de la Warre

Newcastle upon Tyne

Northd.

1360

1539

——

Wm de Acton

——

—— Audeley ——

TRINITARIANS

Oxford II

Oxford

c.1313

1538

——

Thelsford

Warwick

1224–40?

1538

?William, son of Walter de Cherlecote

Totnes

Devon

1271

–1519

Sir William de Lucy ——

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


royal

AUGUSTINIAN CANONS Anglesey

Cambs.

t.Henry I

1536

priory

Henry I


Arbury

Warwicks.

1154

1536

priory

Ralph de Sudley

1303 John de Sudley

Bamburgh

Northd.

c.1221

1537

priory

Nostell Priory (?Henry Beauclerk)

Bardsey

Caernarfon

–1240

1537

abbey

unknown

Barlinch

Somerset

+1174?

1537

priory

William de Say

1296 Matthew de Besilles

early C16 Edmund Fettiplace

Barnwell

Cambs.

1112

1538

priory

Pain Peverel > Peche

from 1278 royal

royal

Baswich

Staffs.

1173–80

1538

priory

Bp Richard Peche

episcopal

episcopal

Beddgelert

Caernarfon

1200–40?

1536

priory

?Llywelyn ap Gruffudd

?1268 Llywelyn ap Gruffudd

Beeston

Norfolk

c.1216

1539

priory

Margery de Cressy / Beaufoe

de Cressy / C15 Morley

Bentley

Midd’x

1171

–1532

priory

?Ranulf de Glanville / Abp of Canterbury

Berden

Essex

c.1216

1536

priory

Rocheford? Lords of manor of Berden

1343 Wm de Bohun E of Northampton & Eliz.

abbot & convent of Walden

Bicester

Oxfords.

1182–5

1536

priory

Gilbert Basset

1268 Henry de Lacy > Lancaster

1486 Sir Roger Strange of Knockin

Bicknacre

Essex

1175

1507

priory

Maurice Fitz Geoffrey

royal

——

Bilsington

Kent

1253

1536

priory

John Maunsel

1266 royal

?royal

Bisham

Berks.

1337

1536

priory

——

William Montacute earl of Salisbury

Margaret countess of Salisbury

Blackmore

Essex

1152–62

1525

priory

Sir John de Sandford

C13 de Vere, earls of Oxford

earl of Oxford

Blythburgh

Suffolk

–1135

1537

priory

?Henry I & Claverings / St Osyth’s Priory

Audeley > Ufford

Lord Dacre

Bodmin

Cornwall

c.1124

1539

priory

Bp Warelwast & Algar (later bp of Coutances)

episcopal

episcopal

1537 Harry lord Morley ——

Bolton

Yorks.

1120

1540

priory

Wm le Meschin & Cecilia de Rumilly

Albemarle > 1310 Clifford

Clifford, earl of Cumberland

Bourne

Lincs.

1138

1536

abbey

Baldwin fitz Gilbert de Clare

lords of Liddell / de Wake

?Salisbury

Bradenstoke

Wilts.

1142

1539

priory

Walter ’le Eurus’ of Salisb.

Thomas earl of Lancaster

royal

Bradley

Leic.

–1216

1536

priory

Robert de Burnebi (patron in 1234–5) Rbt Bundy

1302 William de Kirkeby > Scrope C16th Lord Scrope of of Bolton Bolton

Breadsall

Derby

1200

1536

priory

‘one of the Curzons’

Curzon

Breamore

Hants.

1128–33

1536

priory

Baldwin de Redvers & his uncle Hugh

end C12 Manasser Bisset

Breedon

Leic.

–1122

1539

priory

Robert de Ferrers earl of Nottingham

1303 Robert de Tateshall > Lancaster

royal

Bridlington

Yorks.

–1117

1537

priory

Walter de Gant > Gilbert de Gant

1274 Gilbert de Gant

royal

Brinkburn

Northd.

t. Henry I

1536

priory

William I Bertram of Mitford

Roger III Bertram 1272

co–heirs / ?royal

Bristol, St Augustine

Glos.

1141

1540

abbey

Robert fitz Harding

Berkeley

Berkeley

Bromehill

Norfolk

1250

1528

priory

Sir Hugh de Plaiz (Plays)

de Plaiz

de Vere, earl of Oxford

Brooke

Rutland

–1153

1535–6

priory

Hugh de Ferrers

C13 Isabel de Mortimer

?royal

Bruton

Somerset

1142

1539

abbey

Wm de Mohun, (E. of Somerset 1141)

1398 John de Mohun

1532 Sir Andrew Luttrell

Buckenham

Norfolk

c.1146

1536

priory

Wm d’Aubigny earl of Arundel

Arundel

Knyvet

Burscough

Lancs.

c.1190

1536

priory

Robert fitz Henry, lord of Lathom lord of Lathom &Knowsley

Thomas Stanley, earl of Derby

Burtle

Somerset

1199

1436

priory

William son of Godfrey de Edington

——

Bushmead

Beds.

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Hugh, son of Oliver de Beauchamp

Beauchamp until C14

Braybrook

Butley

Suffolk

1171

1536

priory

Sir Ranulph de Glanvil

William de Aubervil / de Ferrers

duke of Suffolk

1456 Dethick family

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Caldwell

Beds.

?t. John

1536

priory

Simon Barescot

wife of Robert de Ufford

early C16 Latimer

Calke

Derby

1172

1538

priory

Maud widow of earl of Chester

Repton Priory

Calwich

Staffs.

1125–30

1536

priory

Nicholas de Greseley

lord of manor of Longford

Canons Ashby

N’hants.

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Stephen de Leye

(grandson of founder)

Sir Ralph Longford

Canterbury, St Gregory’s

Kent

c.1123

1536

priory

Abp Lanfranc

episcopal

episcopal

Carham

Northd.

post 1131

1539

priory

?Walter Espec / Kirkham Priory

de Ros

earl of Rutland

Carlisle

Cumb’d

c.1122

1540

Cd priory ?Walter the Chaplain? / royal

royal

royal

Carmarthen

Carmarth.

–1127

1536

priory

Bernard, bp of St Davids

royal

royal

Cartmel

Lancs.

1188

1536

priory

Wm Marshal E of Pembroke

1250 Wm de Valence & Joan

Edward Grey of Ruthin, heir of earl of Kent

Chacombe

N’hants.

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Hugh de Chacombe

de Segrave


Charley

Leics.

c.1220

1465

priory

Countess Parnel of Leicester

E of Winchester>de Ferrariis> Bourchier

——

Chetwode

Bucks.

1245

–1535

priory

Ralph de Norwich

royal

annexed to Notley, 1460

Chipley

Suffolk

–1235

1468

priory

unknown

Roger Normaund

——

Chirbury

Salop

c.1195

1536

priory

Robert de Buthlers

royal > 1354 Mortimer earls of March

royal

Christchurch

Hants.

1150

1539

priory

Richard de Redvers [> Baldwin earl of Devon]

earls of Salisbury 1286–1377

Salisbury

Church Gresley

Derby

1135?

1536

priory

Wm fitz Nigel de Gresley

1291 Geoffrey de Gresley

Sir George Grenesley (Gresley)

Cirencester

Glos.

1117–31

1539

abbey

Henry I

royal

royal

Cockerham

Lancs.

1207–8

1477

priory

Gilbert, son of Roger & Heloise

Coddenham

Suffolk

–1184

1537

?

Eustace de Merch

——

Colchester, St Botolph’s

Essex

c.1100–6

1536

priory

prior Arnulf (re–foundation of existing community)

?royal

Cold Norton

Oxford

1148–58

1507

priory

Avelina de Norton / ?Wm Fitz Alan II

C13 Fitz Alan, lords of Norton > royal

——

Combwell

Kent

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Robert de Turneham

1230s Mabel de Gatton > Say family

1432 Sir John Fenys lord Say

Conishead

Lancs.

–1181

1536

priory

Gamel (Gabriel) de Pennington

1208 Gilbert fitz Reinfeld> Th. de Thweng

William Penyngton

Coxford

Norfolk

1150

1536

priory

Wm Cheney

1293 de Say

Clinton

Creake

Norfolk

1206

1506

?

Sir Robert de Nerford

c.1231 royal

————–

Darley

Derby

c.1146

1538

abbey

Robert Ferrers, 2nd earl of Derby

?from 1214 royal

royal

Dodford

Worcs.

1184–6

1464

priory

Henry II

royal > ?Halesowen Abbey

——

Dodnash

Suffolk

c.1188

1525

priory

Wimer the chaplain

Bigod earl of Norfolk

duke of Norfolk

Dorchester

Oxford

c.1140

1536

abbey

Alexander bp of Lincoln

episcopal

episcopal

Drax

Yorks.

1130–9

1535

priory

Wm Paynell

lay patrons

Marmaduke Constable the elder

Dunstable

Beds.

–1125

1540

priory

Henry I

royal

royal

Elsham

Lincs.

TRUE

1536

priory

Beatrice de Amundeville > Goslan, grdson of fdss Sir John Chowgh

Felley

Notts.

1156

1536

priory

Ralph Britto of Annesley

1311 de Annesley family

Fineshade

N’hants.

-1208

1536

priory

Richard Engayne the elder (III)

John Engayne>1367 3 co–heirs of Th.Engaine

Flanesford

Hereford

1347

1536

priory

——

Richard Talbot lord of Goodrich Castle

Talbot earls of Shrewsbury

Flitcham

Norfolk

1216

1538

priory

Sir Robert Aguillon

lay patrons

Luttrell

Frithelstock

Devon

c.1220

1536

priory

Sir Robert Beauchamp

Beauchamp

Gloucester, St Oswald’s

Glos.

–1153

1536

priory

Henry Murdac, abp of York

episcopal

episcopal

Grafton Regis

County

Fd.

Diss.


N’hants.

Patron c.1300


?c.1205

1400

?

Wideville

Great Massingham Norfolk

–1260

1538

priory

Nicholas le Syre of Massingham

royal

royal

Guisborough

Yorks.

1129

1540

priory

Robert de Brus of Skelton

from 1273 Thweng and Fauconberg

co-heirs of D’Arcy / ?Lord Conyers

Haltemprice

Yorks.

1326

1536–7

priory

——

Thomas Wake, lord of Liddell

duke of Richmond

Hardham

Sussex

t. Henry II

1534

priory

?Sir Wm Dawtrey

1327 Wm Paynel > Goring

Sir William Goring

Hartland

Devon

1161–69

1539

abbey

Geoffrey of Dinham

Dinham family

4 co-heiresses of Sir John Dinham > 1530s Arundel

Hastings

Sussex

–1176

1413

priory

Walter de Scotney

?Neville

——

Haughmond

Salop

1110

1539

abbey

Wm fitz Alan of Clun

Fitz Alan family >C15 Thom E of Arundel

Arundel

Haverfordwest

Pembr.

–1200

1536

priory

Robert FitzRichard, grdson of Thancard de Haverford

lay patrons

Healaugh (Park)

Yorks.

1203–18

1535

priory

Bertram Haget > Gilbert > de Sta Maria family

1399 John Depeden & Elizabeth?


Hempton

Norfolk

c.1135

1536

priory

Roger de St Martin > earls of Oxford

C14 Sir John Bardolf > Oxford > Lancaster

royal

Hexham

Northd.

1113

1537

priory

Thomas 2nd archbishop of York

episcopal

episcopal

Hickling

Norfolk

1185

1536

priory

Theobald son of Robert de Valognes

1244 Rbt de Valognes>1452 Th.Lord Scales

Tyndall

Hirst

Lincs.

1121–29

1539

priory

Nigel d’Aubigny

(Roger de Mowbray) – founder’s son

Roger de Mowbray

Mowbray

Horsley

Glos.

1262

1380

priory

Hood

Yorks.

1145

1539

priory

——

—— Thomas Howard duke of Norfolk

Huntingdon

Hunts.

c.1135

1538

priory

Eustace de Luvetot

1322 Hugh d’Audele junior > Stafford

?1521 royal

Ipswich, H. Trinity Suffolk

c.1133

1537

priory

Norman Gastrode fitz Eadnoth

episcopal from 1190

episcopal

Ipswich, SS Peter&Paul

Suffolk

–1189

1528

priory

?ancestors of Th. Lacy & Alice

royal

royal

Ivychurch

Wilts.

c.1154

1536

priory

Henry II

royal

royal

Ixworth

Suffolk

1100

1537

priory

Gilbert Blunt

1357 & 64 Pakenham family > Ufford E of Suffolk

Kenilworth

Warwicks.

1122

1539

abbey

Geoffrey de Clinton

?royal

royal

Kersey

Suffolk

c.1218

1444

priory

Thomas de Burgh

1331 de Weston > 1444 de Grey ld of Powys

——

Keynsham

Somerset

1172–3

1539

abbey

Wm E of Gloucester

1291–1314 Gilbert de Clare

Clare co–heirs

Kir(k)by Bellers (-ars)

Leics.

1359

1536

priory

——

Sir Roger Beler > his heirs > bp of Lincoln

Kirkham

Yorks.

c.1121

1539

priory

Walter Espec & Adeline

William de Ros


Kyme

Lincs.

–1156

1539

priory

Philip of Kyme

1236 Philip of Kyme

1530 Gilbert Tailboys Lord Kyme

Lanercost

Cumb’d

c.1166

1537

priory

Robert de Vaux

Sir Th. de Moulton > Dacre lords of Gillesland

William Lord Dacre

Latton

Essex

c1200–7

1534

priory

?Thomas Shaa

1317 Elias de Colecestre > 1354 Augustine Waleys

?lord of manor of Mark Hall ?1534 Thomas Shaw

Launceston

Cornwall

1127

1539

priory

Wm Warelwast bp of Exeter

episcopal

episcopal

Launde

Leics.

1119–25

1539

priory

Richard Basset & Maud

Basset (1368 Ralph Basset)

Leeds

Kent

1119

c.1540

priory

Robert de Crepido Corde

de Crevequer

episcopal t. Henry VII (bishop of Norwich)

Leicester

Leics.

1138–9

1538

abbey

Robert le Bossu E of Leicester

Robert, grandson of founder > Lancaster

royal

Leighs

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Essex

–1200

1536

priory

Gernon family till 1384

t.H VIII Sir Roger Wentworth of Codham–Hall

Ralph Gernon

Lesnes

Kent

1178

1525

abbey

Richard de Luci

?

——

Letheringham

Suffolk

–1200

1537

priory

Wm de Bovile

de Bovile till 1348

Sir Anthony Wingfield

Lilleshall

Salop

c.1148

1538

abbey

Richard of Belmeis / royal

royal

royal

Little Dunmow

Essex

1106

1536

priory

Geoffrey Baynard / Lady Juga

Fitz Walter

C16 earls of Sussex (Redcliffe)

Llanthony I

Monmouth

c.1108

1539

priory

Hugh de Lacy

Verdun / Bohun family

Arundel

Llanthony II

Glos.

1136

1539

priory

Miles of Gloucester

Verdun / Bohun family > Stafford

royal

London, H. Trinity

1107–8

1532

priory

Maud Q. of K. Henry I

London, St Bartholom.

1123

1539

priory

Rahere

——

Longleat

Wilts.

–1235

1530

priory

Sir John Vernon

1324 Robert le Bor

C15 Peter Stantor > 1530 annexed to Henton

Maiden Bradley

Wilts.

–1201

1536

priory

Manasser Biset

heirs of Biset

George earl of Huntingdon

Markby

Lincs.

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Ralph fitz Gilbert

Marsh Barton

Devon

1142

1539

priory

Alice, dt of Sheriff Baldwin

Plympton Priory

Plympton Priory

Marton

Yorks.

t. Stephen

1536

priory

Bertram de Bulmer

Neville

royal from 1485

Maxstoke

Warwicks.

1337

1536

priory

——

Sir Wm de Clinton >Stafford

from 1521 royal

Merton

Surrey

c.1117

1538

priory

Gilbert sheriff of Surrey

royal

royal

Michelham

Sussex

c.1229

1536

priory

Gilbert of Laigle

Missenden

Bucks.

1133

1538

abbey

Wm de Missenden

1330s Wm de Missenden > Brudenell

Mottisfont

Hants.

1201

1536

priory

Wm Briwere

royal

royal

Mountjoy

Norfolk

1199

1529

priory

Wm de Gyney (Gisneto)

Sir Roger de Gyney

Wm Hales lord of Heveringland

Newark

Surrey

c.1189

1538

priory

Ruald de Calva & Beatrice de Sandes > Wm Malbanc

Newburgh

Yorks.

1145

1538

priory

Roger de Mowbray

John de Mowbray


Newnham

Beds.

c.1166

1540

priory

Simon de Beauchamp

Wm de Beauchamp > 1392 Mowbray

duke of Norfolk (?dowager Marchioness of Dorset?)

Newstead

Lincs.

–1247

1536

priory

Wm d’Aubigny III > IV

?Arundel

?Arundel

Newstead

Notts.

c.1170

1539

priory

Henry II

royal

royal

Nocton

Lincs.

t. Stephen

1536

priory

Robert Darcy (de Arecy)

1297 Philip Darcy > 1334 Norman Wymbish Darcy

Northampton, St James

N’hants.

c.1104–05

1538

abbey

Wm Peverel

1206 Wm de Duston

North Creake

Norfolk

1206

1506

abbey

Sir Robert de Nerford & Alice

royal

——

North Ferriby

Yorks.

1160–83

1536–7

priory

de Vescy

Clifford

earl of Cumberland

Norton

Cheshire

1134

1536

abbey

Wm fitz Nigel

1377 John of Gaunt duke of Lancaster > barons of Norton

royal

Nostell

Yorks.

–1120

1539

priory

Robert de Lacy / his father Ilbert

C13 de Lacy > Lancaster

royal

Notley

Bucks.

1162

1538

abbey

Walter Giffard 2nd E of Buckingh Stafford & Ermengard

royal from 1521

Osney

Oxford

1129

1539

abbey

Robert d’Oilly & Edith >their grandson Henry d’Oilly

?d’Oilly > Beauchamp

?royal

Ovingham

Northd.

1378

1537

priory

——

Umfraville of Prudhoe > Percy E Northd.

E of Northumberland

County

Fd.

Diss.


Owston

Leics.

–1161

1536

abbey

Robert Grimbald

Oxford, St Frideswide

Oxford

1122

1524

priory

Oxford, St Mary’s Coll.

Oxford

1435

1540

Penmon

Anglesey

1221

1536

Pentney

Norfolk

c.1130

Peterstone

Norfolk

Plympton Poughley

Patron c.1300


royal

royal

royal (Christ Church College)

——

Thomas Holden & Elizabeth

priory

Llywelyn ab Iorwerth > Dafydd

?princes of Wales

?royal

1537

priory

Robert de Vaux

de Vaux >1288 Sir William de Nerford

1441 Thomas son of Thomas de Ros > earl of Rutland

–1200

1449

priory

ancestors of Cheneys

Devon

1121

1539

priory

Bp Wm Warelwast

Berks.

1160–78

1525

priory

Ralph de Chaddleworth

Puffin Island

Anglesey

1237–1414

?1536

priory

Penmon Priory

Pynham

Sussex

–1151

1525

priory

Adela, widow of Henry I / wife of earls of Arundel Arundel

Arundel

Ranton

Staffs.

t. Henry II

c.1536

priory

Robert fitz Noel

Sir Simon Harcourt

—— episcopal

episcopal ——

Penmon Priory

Harcourt family

Ratlinghope

Salop

–1209

1538

priory

?Wigmore Abbey

Ravenstone

Bucks.

c.1255

1525

priory

Peter Chaceporc (–t?) / Henry III royal

royal

Reigate

Surrey

1217

1536

priory

Wm de Warenne earl of Surrey & Isabel

earl of Surrey >1347 earls of Arundel


Repton

Derby

1150s

1538

priory

Maud, countess of Chester

1336 royal

royal

Rocester

Staffs.

c.1146

1538

abbey

Richard Bacon

E of Chester 1246 > royal

royal

Royston

Herts.

1173–9

1537

priory

Eustace de Merk & de Rochester

Scalar family > 1314 E. Gilbert de Clare

Mortimer / Stafford

St Anthony in Roseland

Cornwall

–1288

1538

priory

?Plympton Priory

St Denys

Hants.

1127

1536

priory

Henry I

royal

royal

St Germans

Cornwall

–1184

1539

priory

Leofric bishop of Exeter

episcopal

episcopal

St Olave’s

Suffolk

c.1216

1537

priory

Roger fitz Osbert

John son of Sir Ralph Nunoion>1314 Gernegan

Henry Gernegan

St Osyth

Essex

–1118

1539

abbey

Richard de Belmeis I, bp of London

episcopal

episcopal

St Tudwal’s Island Caernarfon

–1417

?–1535

priory

——

Sandleford

Berks.

1193–1202

1478

priory

Geoffrey Count of Perch & Matilda

Walter de Wyntreshull

——

Selborne

Hants.

1233–4

1484

priory

Peter de Roches, bishop of Winchester

episcopal

——

Shelford

Notts.

t. Henry II

1536

priory

Ralph Haunselyn

1258 Wm Bardolf > 1328 Thomas Bardolf

Henry Norres

Sheringham

Norfolk

–1164

?–1345

priory

Walter Giffard earl of Buckingham

Shulbred

Sussex

c.1200

1536

priory

Robert (Ralph?) Arden (de Ardern?)

from 1239 Percy family

Skewkirk

Yorks.

–1121

1539

priory

Geoffrey fitz Pain

cell of Chirbury

Southwark

Surrey

1106

1539

priory

Wm Pont d’Arch & Wm Dauncey

Southwick

Hants.

1145–53

1538

priory

(Wm Pont d’Arch) / Henry I

royal

royal

Spinney

Cambs.

–1235

1460

priory

Hugh Malebiche & Beatrice

Mary de Bassingbourn > 1476 Th. Peyton

——

Stavordale

Somerset

–1243

1539

priory

Lovel (?Roger Tyrel / ?Sir Wm Zouche)

1309–33 Sir Richard Lovel

Richard Zouche

Stone

Staffs.

1138–47

1536

priory

Robert II Stafford

1242 Stafford (prior & canons of Kenilworth)

Kenilworth

Stonely

Hunts.

c.1180

1536

priory

Wm de Mandeville, E of Essex

Bohun > ?Stafford

royal 1521

—— from 1459 Bp Waynflete ?E of Northd.

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300

Studley

Warwicks.

c.1151

1536

priory

Peter Corbezun (de Studley)

Cantilupe > 1347 Wm la Zouche

Tandridge

Surrey

–1199

1538

priory

Odo, s. of Wm de Dammartin

1322 Johannis de Warblintone

Taunton

Somerset

c.1120

1539

priory

Wm Griffard bp of Winchester

episcopal (?1317 Sir Rbt FitzPain?) episcopal

Thetford

Norfolk

c.1260

1536

priory

Wm de Warenne, E of Surrey

1281 John Earl Warenne > Arundel


Thoby

Essex

1141–50

1525

priory

Michael de Capra, Roise (wf) & William (son)

Mounteney family

Mounteney family

Thornholme

Lincs.

t. Stephen

1536

priory

King Stephen

1271 John Malherbe > Neville

?royal

Thornton

Lincs.

1139

1539

abbey

Wm le Gros count of Albemarle

from 1284 royal

royal

Thremhall

Essex

c.1150

1536

priory

Gilbert de Mountfitchet (or son)

de Vere earls of Oxford


Thurgarton

Notts.

1119–39

1538

priory

Ralph Deincourt

1300 Sir Edmund Deincourt > 1431 Deincourt

royal /?Henry Norres

Tiptree

Essex

–1200

1525

priory

Tregoz fam.

1389 John de Boys

Anthony Darcy

Tonbridge

Kent

–1192

1525

priory

Richard de Clare, E of Hertford

1315 de Clare > Hugh de Audelay > Stafford

royal

Torksey

Lincs.

–1186

1536

priory

King John

C13 John de Balliol / 1344 John Darcy

Tortington

Sussex

c.1180

1536

priory

?Hadwissa Corbet

1337 earl of Arundel

Arundel

Trentham

Staffs.

1130s

1537

priory

Ranulph II de Gernon, earl of Chester

earl of Lancaster

royal

Ulverscroft

Leics.

c.1174?

1539

priory

Robert E of Leicester / his father Robert le Bossu

earl of Winchester / Wm de Ferrers

Gray, Marquis of Dorset

Walsingham

Norfolk

c.1153

1538

priory

Geoffrey de Favarches

de Clare > York

royal

Waltham

Essex

1177

1540

abbey

Henry II

royal

royal

Warbleton

Sussex

1413

1536

priory

——

Sir John Pelham

Pelham

Warter

Yorks.

1132

1536

priory

Geoffrey Trusbut

John de Ros > Wm de Ros (1300)



1403 Warbylton

Warwick, St Sepulchre

Warwicks.

1109

1536

priory

Henry de Newburgh (Beaumont) / 1290 earl of Warwick his son E Roger

royal

Wellow

Lincs.

?1132

1536

abbey

Henry I

royal

royal

West Acre

Norfolk

1102–26

1538

priory

Ralph de Toni, his wife and sons

earl of Warwick

royal

Weybourne

Norfolk

post 1199

1536

priory

Sir Ralph Mainwaring

1228 Wm Mainwaring > Trussell


Weybridge

Norfolk

–1225

1536

priory

Hugh Bigod earl of Norfolk

Roger Bigod son of Hugh


Wigmore

Hereford

1172–9

1538

abbey

Hugh Mortimer, baron of Wigmore

Mortimer of Wigmore

royal 1461

Wombridge

Salop

1130–5

1536

priory

Wm fitz Alan de Hadley

Hadley > Corbet

Woodbridge

Suffolk

c.1193

1537

priory

Ernald Rufus

Sir Giles de Brewose > Hansard family

Woodkirk

Yorks.

–1135

1539

priory

Ralph de Lisle

Arundel

?dukes of Norfolk /? Berkeley

Woodspring

Somerset

1210

1536

priory

Wm de Courtenay

Henry Engayne > Wm de Courtenay I

Courtenay

Worksop

Notts.

1103

1538

priory

Wm de Lovetot

1270s Thomas de Furnival

George earl of Shrewsbury Lord Talbot

Wormegay

Norfolk

1175

1537

priory

William de Warenne

Bardolf

1468 earl of Northumberland

Wormley

Herts.

c.1260

c.1510

priory

?Holy Sepulchre Thetford

?Holy Sepulchre Thetford

——

Wormsley

Hereford

c.1200

1539

priory

Gilbert Talbot

Talbot

George earl of Shrewsbury Lord Talbot

Wroxton

Oxford

c.1217

1536

priory

Michael Belet

Wymondley

Herts.

–1218

1537

priory

Richard de Argentein

de Argentein

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONS Alnwick

Northd.

1147–8

1539

abbey

Eustace fitz John

de Vescy 1290s > Henry Percy C14 earl of Northumberland

Barlings

Lincs.

1154–5

1537

abbey

Ralph de Haya

Lacy, earl of Lincoln > Lancaster

royal

Bayham

Sussex

1199–1208

1525

abbey

Robert of Thornham

1208 Ela de Sackville

1478 Humphrey Sackville

Beauchief

Yorks.

1173–6

1537

abbey

Robert fitz Ranulph

1301 Sir Thomas de Chaworth > 1478 Th.Chaworth

Sir Thomas Babington, Anne Meering, John FitzWilliam

Beeleigh

Essex

1180

1536

abbey

Robert Mantell

1483 Henry Bourchier earl of Essex Henry earl of Essex

Blanchland

Northd.

1165

1539

abbey

Walter de Bolbec II > Hugh de Bolbec

earl of Westmoreland

Cammeringham

Lincs.

c.1192

1396

priory

Charlton

Wilts.

c.1187

1380

priory

Reginald de Pavilly & Gilbert de Vascoeuil

——

Cockersand

Lancs.

–1190

1539

abbey

Theobald FitzWalter

Thomas de Thweng

unknown

Coverham

Yorks.

–1190

1536

abbey

Helewisia, dt of Ranulf de Glanville

1331 Neville > 1406 Scrope of Masham

royal

Croxton

Leics.

1162

1538

abbey

Wm Count of Boulogne and Mortain

1478 earl of Norfolk

1534 Lord Berkeley

Dale / Stanley Park

Derby

c1200

1538

abbey

Wm fitz Ralph

Segrave > 1478 Richard Kurston

Gervays Kyngeston

Dodford

Worcs.

1464

1538

priory

——

royal

royal

Durford

Sussex

–1161

1536

abbey

Henry Hussey II

1327 Walter Hussey

1465, 1478 Hussey

Easby

Yorks.

1151

1536–7

abbey

Roald, constable of Richmond Castle

de Burton > Lord Scrope (from +1327)

Lord Scrope of Bolton

Egglestone

Yorks.

c.1190

1540

abbey

? Ralph de Moulton / ?Gilbert de Lay

Multon

Lord Dacre of the North

——

Guyzance

Northd.

1350

1539

priory

——

cell of Alnwick

cell of Alnwick

Hagnaby

Lincs.

1175–6

1536

abbey

Agnes & Herbert of Orby (de Orreby)

Robert de Willoughby

1478 Lord Wallys

Halesowen

Worcs.

–1216

1538

abbey

Peter des Roches bp of Winchester

episcopal

episcopal

Hornby

Lancs.

c.1172?

1538

priory

ancestors of Thomas Stanley

ancestors of Thomas Stanley

Thomas Stanley, Lord Montegle

Kirkby Malham

Yorks.

–1189

1539

priory

Adam fitz Adæ

Langdon

Kent

1189

1535

abbey

Wm de Auberville

Nicholas de Cryoll (grt–grdson of founder)

1478 Sir Thomas Keryell

Langley

Norfolk

1198

1536

abbey

Robert fitz Roger

de Clavering / 1307 Tateshall

1486 Richard Fynes > lord Dacre of the South

Lavendon

Bucks.

1155–8

1536

abbey

John de Bidun

1316 John Peyvre

1478 Lord le Zouche

Leiston I

Suffolk

1183

1537

abbey

Sir Ranulph de Glanvil

Guy de Ferre > royal > 1350 Ufford Charles Brandon duke of earl of Suffolk Suffolk

Leiston II

Suffolk

1365

1537

priory

——

Robert earl of Suffolk > Ufford >de Charles Brandon duke of la Pole Suffolk

Newbo

Lincs.

1198

1536

abbey

Richard de Malebisse

1382 appertains to Honour & Castle of Eye

Newsham / Newhouse

Lincs.

1143

1536

abbey

Peter of Goxhill

1478 Lord Henry Wentworth

St Radegund’s

Kent

1193

1536

abbey

Hugh ab of Prémontré

Thomas Lord Poynings (1375)

Shap

Westm’d

–1201

1540

abbey

Th. son of Gospatrick

Sulby

N’hants.

1155

1538

abbey

Wm de Wideville (Withville)

1478 Lord Hastings

Talley

Carmarth.

1184–9

?1536

abbey

Rhys ap Gruffudd – the Lord Rhys

1291 Rhys ap Maredudd

Titchfield

Hants.

1232–3

1537

abbey

Peter des Roches bp of Winchester

episcopal

1478 Sir Thomas Fairfax

1514 Edward Poynyng earl of Cumberland 1506 William Saunders

episcopal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Torre

Devon

1196

1539

abbey

Wm Briwere (Brewer)

de Mohun, 1478 earl of Devon

Luttrell

Tupholme

Lincs.

1155–66

1536

abbey

Alan & Gilbert de Neville

1342 Ralf de Neville

earl of Westmoreland

Welbeck

Notts.

1153–4

1538

abbey

Thomas of Cuckney

Th. of Cuckney’s heirs > 1329 Bp of Ely

episcopal

Wendling

Norfolk

c.1267

1536–7

abbey

Wm of Wendling

1330 Lady Margaret Foliot

Hastings

West Dereham

Norfolk

1188

1539

abbey

Hubert Walter later abp of Canterbury

1478 episcopal

episcopal

West Ravendale

Lincs.

c.1202

–1413

priory

Alan fitz Henry, Count of Brittany

——

GILBERTINE CANONS Bridge End

Lincs.

–1200

1538

priory

Godwin the Rich

Cambridge, St Edmund’s

Cambs.

1291

1539

priory

?B son of Walter / St Edmund family

Clattercote

Oxford

1180s

1538?

priory

Robert de Chesney bp of Lincoln episcopal

episcopal

Ellerton

Yorks.

–1207

1538

priory

Wm fitz Peter of Goodmanham

C15 Aske

Fordham

Cambs.

–1227

1538

priory

Hugh Malebisse / Henry the dean (Mary) de Bassingbourn

Hitchin

Herts.

1361–2

1538

priory

——

Lincoln, St Catherine’s

Lincs.

c.1148–66

1538

priory

Robert de Chesney bp of Lincoln episcopal

episcopal

(Old) Malton

Yorks.

1150–3

1539

priory

Eustace fitz John

de Vescy > Gilbert de Aton (–1307)

(John de Lacy const. of Chester)

Marlborough

Wilts.

–1199

1539

priory

royal

royal

royal

Marmont

Cambs.

c.1204

1538

priory

Ralph de Hauvill

St Edmund family

Hay of Aghton

?earl of Northumberland

Sir Edward Kendale

Mattersey

Notts.

c.1185–90

1538

priory

Roger son of Ranulf de Mattersey Isabel de Chauncy (wd of Sir Ph. de Edward Thirland Matersey)

Newstead

Lincs.

1171?

1538

priory

Henry II

royal

Poulton

Wilts.

1350

1539

priory

——

Sir Thomas Seymour > 1389 Alice ?manor of Poulton Seymour

c.1200

1538

priory

Hugh Murdac abp of York

episcopal

episcopal

de Kyme

?Kyme

York, St Andrew’s Yorks.

royal

DOUBLE HOUSES GILBERTINE DOUBLE HOUSES Alvingham

Lincs.

1148–54

1538

priory

?Wm de Friston/ Hugh de Scotene / Hamelin the Dean?

Bullington

Lincs.

1148–54

1538

priory

Simon de Kyme

Catley

Lincs.

1148–54

1538

priory

Peter de Belingey (Billinghay)>his son Peter

Chicksands

Beds.

1147–53

1538

priory

Roese & Payn de Beauchamp

Beauchamp

Haverholme

Lincs.

1139

1538

priory

Alexander bp of Lincoln

episcopal

North Ormsby

Lincs.

1148–54

1538

priory

Gilbert fitz Robert of Ormsby & Wm earl of Albemarle

Sempringham, St Mary

Lincs.

1131–48

1538

priory

Gilbert of Sempringham/ Gilbert 1307 Henry Beaumont of Ghent

Shouldham

Norfolk

1193–1200

1538

priory

Geoffrey fitz Peters (Piers)

1300 Rich.FitzJohn >Beauchamp E of W’wick

royal

Sixhills

Lincs.

1148–54

1538

priory

Robert (?) de Gresley

lay patrons (?Thomas de la Warre C14)

de la Warre

Watton

Yorks.

1151–3

1539

priory

Eustace fitz John

de Vescy


episcopal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300


Amesbury

Wilts.

1177

1539

priory

royal

royal

Nuneaton

Warwicks.

c.1155

1539

priory

Robert Bossu E of Leicester


royal

Westwood

Worcs.

1154

1536

priory

Osbert Fitz-Hugh & mother Eustacia de Say

Talbot family

lay patrons

Middlesex

1431

1539

abbey

——

royal

royal

FONTEVRAULT Henry II

BRIDGETTINES Syon

HOUSES OF NUNS BENEDICTINE NUNS Ankerwyke

Bucks.

–1163

1536

priory

Gilbert de Muntfichet & Richard 1212 Richard de Muntfichet his son

Arden

Yorks.

1147–69

1536

priory

Peter de Hoton (Hutton)

1405 Geoffrey Bigod


Armathwaite

Cumb’d

c.–1201

1537

priory

William II

royal

royal

Barking

Essex

c.965–75

1539

abbey

K Edgar

de Vere

?royal

Barrow Gurney

Somerset

?–1200

1536

priory

member of Gurney fam

1283 Berkeley > 1316 Thomas Berkeley

Berkeley

Blackborough

Norfolk

?–1200

1537

priory

Roger de Scales & Muriel his wife

de Scales (1329 Isabella; 1350 Robert)

Woodville > Oxford

Brewood Black Ladies

Staffs.

–1150

1538

priory

?Roger de Clinton bp of Coventry & Lichfield

Broomhall

Berks.

–1158

1521

priory

unknown

?royal

royal

Bungay

Suffolk

1175–6

1536

priory

Roger de Glanvill & Gundreda

Roger Bigod earl of Norfolk


Cambridge

Cambs.

c.1147–54

1496

priory

unknown (?Bp of Ely?)

episcopal

——

Cannington

Somerset

c.1138

1536

priory

Robert de Courci

lords of Stoke

?lords of Stoke

Canterbury

Kent

?–1087

1536

priory

Abp Anselm

episcopal

episcopal

Castle Hedingham Essex

–1191

1536

priory

Aubrey de Vere earl of Oxford & Lucy

1229 Robert de Vere earl of Oxford

John de Vere earl of Oxford

Chatteris

Cambs.

c.980

1538

abbey

Ælfwen & her brother Ednoth

episcopal

episcopal

Cheshunt

Herts.

–1166

1536

priory

unknown

Chester

Cheshire

c.1141–53

?1540

priory

Ranulph de Gernon E of Chester from 1237 royal

royal

Davington

Kent

1153

1535

priory

Fulk de Newenham

royal

Derby, King’s Mead

Derby

c.1154–9

1536

priory

Walter bp of Chester (?Abbot Albinus “builder” of the priory)

Easebourne

Sussex

–1248

1536

priory

Elstow

Beds.

c.1178

1539

abbey

Judith, niece of William I

from C13 royal

royal

Farewell

Staffs.

c.1140

1527

priory

Bp Roger de Clinton

episcopal

episcopal

Flamstead

Herts.

c.1157–62

1537

priory

Roger de Tony

Beauchamp –1487

royal

Foukeholme

Yorks.

?c.1200

c.1349

priory

?member of de Colville family

1240 William de Colville

——

Godstow

Oxford

c.1133

1539

abbey

Edith, wd of Wm Lancelene / John de St John

from 1171 royal

royal

Henwood

Warwicks.

1149–57

1536

priory

Ketelberne de Langdon & Walter 1310 abbot of Westminster Durdent bp of Chester

Higham

Kent

1150–2

1521–2

priory

King Stephen

royal

Hinchingbrooke

Hunts.

?–1087

1536

priory

William I

c.1275 lady Devorguilla de Galewidia

Ickleton

Cambs.

–1158

1536

priory

?member of Valoignes fam. / ?de Vere

c.1284 episcopal

episcopal

Kilburn

Middlesex

1128–34

1536

priory

Herbert abbot of Westminster

abbot of Westminster

abbot of Westminster

royal

?Bohun

royal

County

Fd.

Diss.


Kington St Michael

Wilts.

1142–56

1536

priory

?fam of Robert Wayfer de Brinton ?bp of Salisbury

Lambley

Northd.

1187–8

1537

priory

?Adam de Tindale & Helwise

Langley

Leics.

1148–66

1536

priory

Wm Pantulf & Burgia

Robert de Tateshall

Little Marlow

Bucks.

1194–5

1537

priory

?Geoffrey Lord Spencer

C13 d’Auvers family

Littlemore

Oxford

–1156

1525

priory

Robert?Roger de Sandford

?

——

London, St Helen’s

London

c.1212

1538

priory

Wm son of Wm the goldsmith

Wm de Basing

dean and chapter of St Paul’s

Lyminster

Sussex

c.1201

c.1414

priory

Roger de Montgomery

Malling

Kent

c.1095

1538

abbey

Gundulf bp of Rochester

episcopal

episcopal

Markyate

Herts.

1145

1537

priory

Geoffrey of St Albans

Dean & Chapter of St Paul’s

Dean & Chapter of St Paul’s

Marrick

Yorks.

1154–8

1539–40

priory

Roger de Aske

Roger de Aske

Aske

Minster / St Sexburga

Kent

675

1536

priory

Sexburga wd of Ercombert K of Kent

royal

royal

Neasham

Durham

?1203

1539–40

priory

?early baron of Greystoke

1437 Sir John Graystock

Lord Dacre

Newcastle upon Tyne

Northd.

c.1144

1540

priory

?Henry I / ?David I of Scotland

royal

royal

Norwich II / Carrow

Norfolk

c.1146

1536

priory

King Stephen

royal

royal

Nunburnholme

Yorks.

–1188

1536

priory

?ancestors of Roger de Merlay/ ?Rich. King of the Romans

Nuneaton

Warwicks.

1412

1539

——

Bossu > earl of Lancaster

royal

Nunkeeling

Yorks.

1143–54

1539

priory

Agnes de Arches, wd of Herbert St Quintin

?Fauconberge?

royal

Patron c.1300


royal wife of Sir Francis Bigot and her sisters

——

Lord Dacre

Nun Monkton

Yorks.

1151–3

1536

priory

Wm de Arches & Ivetta

1307 Nicholas de Stapleton

Polesworth

Warwicks.

c.1138–44

1539

abbey

Robert Marmion II & Milicent

?FitzHugh

Sir Wm Gascoigne

Polsloe

Devon

–1160

1538

priory

Wm lord Brewer

bps of Exeter = episcopal

episcopal

Redlingfield

Suffolk

1120

1537

priory

Emma of Redlinfeld

1300 E of Cornwall > 1383 Queen Anne

?royal

Romsey

Hants.

967

1539

abbey

King Edgar

royal

royal

Rowney

Herts.

c.1146–60

1457

priory

Conan duke of Brittany & E of Richmond

1302 John de Kirkeby>1447 Fray>Markham

——

Rusper

Sussex

?–1174

1537

priory

?member of de Braose fam.

1231 John de Braose > Mowbray

St Margaret’s Ivinghoe

Herts.

–1129

1536

priory

Wm Giffard bp of Winchester

episcopal

St Mary de Pre

Herts.

1194

1528

priory

Warin, ab. of St Albans

Seton

Cumb’d

–1210

1540

priory

Gunild dt of Henry Boyvill

Shaftesbury

Dorset

c.888

1539

abbey

King Alfred

royal

royal

Sopwell

Herts.

1140

1537

priory

Abbot Geoffrey of St Albans

St Albans

St Albans

Stainfield

Lincs.

–1168

1536

priory

?Wm or ? Henry de Percy

Percy

?Percy

Stamford

N’hants.

1135–54

1536

priory

Wm of Waterville ab. of Peterborough

?abbot of Peterborough / ?Waterville

Stixwould

Lincs.

1536

1537

priory

——

Stratford-at-Bow

Middlesex

–1122

1536

priory

Bp William of London

episcopal

episcopal

Studley

Oxford

c.1176

1539

priory

Bernard of St Walery

1300 royal

royal

Swaffham Bulbeck Cambs.

–1199

1536

priory

?member of de Bolebec fam., poss. Isabel

Bolebec > de Vere

?de Vere

Thetford

Norfolk

c.1163–80

1537

priory

Abbot Hugh & convent of Bury St Edmunds

abbot & convent of Bury St Edmunds

abbot & convent of Bury St Edmunds

Thicket(t)

Yorks.

–1180

1539

priory

Roger fitz Roger

1264 German de Hay

1522 Robert de Aske & Elizabeth

episcopal —— Henry Kirkeby

County

Fd.

Diss.


Usk

Monmouth

–1236

1536

priory

Richard de Clare & son Gilbert

Wallingwells

Notts.

c.1140–4

1539

priory

Ralph de Chevrolcourt

Wherwell

Hants.

c.986

1539

abbey

Elfrida wd of K Edgar

royal

royal

Wilberfoss

Yorks.

1147–53

1539

priory

Alan de Catton / Jordan fitz Gilbert

earl of Richmond > duke of Clarence

royal

Wilton

Wilts.

c.800

1539

abbey

Alburga wd of Weohstan

royal

royal

Winchester St Mary’s

Hants.

c.900

1539

abbey

K Alfred & Eahlswith

royal

royal

Wix / Sopwick

Essex

1123–33

1525

priory

Walter Mascherell & br Alexander & s Edith

Bohun > 1403 Joan dt of Dk of Glos.

royal

Wothorpe

N’hants.

t.Henry I

1354

priory

earls of Kent

——

Wroxall

Warwicks.

c.1135?

1536

priory

Hugh, lord of Hatton & Wroxall

de Clinton of Maxstoke

?Clinton/?Buckingham

Yedingham

Yorks.

–1158

1539

priory

Helewise de Clere

1314 Richard de Breuse

Lord Latimer

York, Clementhorpe

Yorks.

c.1130

1536

priory

Abp Thurstan

episcopal

episcopal

Arthington

Yorks.

c.1150–8

1539

priory

Peter de Arthington

Arthington

Henry Arthington

N’hampton, Delapré

N’hants.

c.1145

1538

abbey

Simon de St Liz (Senlis) II, E of N’hampton

St Liz (Senlis)

Patron c.1300


de Clare > 1323 Hugh Despenser the younger

royal 1487 Lord Dacre of the South

CLUNIAC NUNS

CISTERCIAN NUNS Baysdale

Yorks.

1197–1210

1539

priory

Ralph de Nevill

Catesby

N’hants.

c.1150–76

1536

priory

Robert de Esseby (Ashby)

1279 Queen Eleanor

Sir Ralph Evers royal

Cook Hill

Worcs.

c.1180

1538–9

priory

Isabel countess of Warwick

after 1260 Wm earl of Warwick

royal

Ellerton

Yorks.

–1227

1537

priory

Steward of earl of Richmond (?Warner / ?Wymar)

Wm Aselby, Wm Thuresby, Ralph Spence

Esholt

Yorks.

–1184

1539

priory

Simon Warde

Fosse

Lincs.

c.1184

1539

priory

Inhabitants of Torksey / Henry III ?royal

Gokewell

Lincs.

1147–75

1536

priory

Wm de Alta Ripa (Dawtrey)

Greenfield

Lincs.

1148–66

1536

priory

Eudo de Greinesby & his son Ralph de Aby

Hampole

Yorks.

c.1170

1539

priory

Wm de Clarefai & wf Avicia de Tany

Handale

Yorks.

1133

1539

priory

Wm III (fitz Richard) de Percy of C13 Richard Malebisse Dunsley


Heynings / Knaith Lincs.

c.1147–52

1539

priory

Rayner de Evermue

lords of Knaith > 1349 Sir John Darcy

3 co-heiresses

Keldholme

Yorks.

1154–66

1535

priory

Robert de Stuteville

Wake family, lords of Lyddel

Ralph earl of Westmoreland

Kirklees

Yorks.

c.1145

1539

priory

Reyner Flandrensis

Legbourne

Lincs.

c.1150

1536

priory

Robert fitz Gilbert of Tathwell

Llanllugan

Montgom.

–1236

1536

priory

Maredudd ap Rhotpert, ld of Cydewain

Llanllyr

Cardigan

c.1180

1536

priory

Rhys ap Gruffudd

Marham

Norfolk

c.1249

1536

abbey

Isabel wd of Hugh de Aubigny E of Arundel / Warenne

1302 John de Warenne earl of Surrey

Arundel

Nun Appleton

Yorks.

c.1148–54

1539

priory

Alice de St Quintin (& Eustace de Merch)

> her son Robert


Nun Cotham

Lincs.

1148–53

1539

priory

Alan de Muncells (Moncels)

Simon Warde > Roger Warde

uncertain (patron Chr. Warde had many heirs) ?royal

Roger son of Ralph de Tilli > 1331 Gervays Cliffton junior Wm son of Wm lord of Sprotbrough

unknown 1204 Alice Constable dt of founder lay patrons

County

Fd.

Diss.


Patron c.1300

Pinley

Warwicks.

1125–50

1536

priory

Robert de Pillarton 1st earl of Leicester

1270 Peter de Montfort

Rosedale

Yorks.

–1160

1535

priory

Robert son of Nicholas de Stuteville

Wake family / 1311 royal

royal

Sewardsley

N’hants.

1148–66

1536

priory

Richard de Lestre

1260–1 Sir Robert Paveley

1459–60 Sir Thomas Greene

Sinningthwaite

Yorks.

–1155

1535

priory

Bertram Haget > his son

Stixwould

Lincs.

1139–42

1536

priory

Lucy, dowager countess of Chester



Swine

Yorks.

1143–53

1539

priory

Robert de Verli

Tarrant (Kaines)

Dorset

1169–76

1539

abbey

Ralph de Kahaynes

Sir John Melton

Whistones

Worcs.

–1241

1536

priory

Walter de Cantilupe bp of Worc. episcopal

episcopal

Wintney

Hants.

–1159

1536

priory

Geoffrey FitzPeter

Sifrewast family > Colrith family

Henry Courtenay & Gertrude

Wykeham

Yorks.

c.1153

1539

priory

Pain fitz Osbert

royal

royal

Queen Eleanor

royal

AUGUSTINIAN CANONESSES Aconbury

Hereford

1216

?1539

priory

Margaret (Margery) wife of Walter de Lacy

Brewood White Ladies

Salop

–1186

?1538

priory

?episcopal

Bristol

Glos.

–1173

1536

priory

Eva wd of Robert Fitzhardinge

Berkeley

Berkeley

Buckland

Somerset

c.1180

1539

priory

?Amice widow of Baldwin de Reviers

Redvers

?Courtenay

Burnham

Bucks.

1266

1539

abbey

Richard K of the Romans

founder’s son, earl of Cornwall

royal

Campsey Ash

Suffolk

c.1195

1536

priory

Theobald de Valognes

1244 Robert de Valognes > Ufford? Ufford

Canonsleigh

Devon

1284

1539

abbey

Matilda de Clare ctss of Hereford ?Burgh etc. > 1470 earl of & Gloucester Warwick

from 1487 royal

Cornworthy

Devon

1205–38

1539

priory

ancestors of the Edgcombes

Sir Peter Edgcombe

Crabhouse

Norfolk

c.1181

1536

priory

Wm de Lesewis

Easebourne

Sussex

t.Henry III

1536

priory

Sir John de Bohun of Midhurst

Bohun

Flixton

Suffolk

1258

1537

priory

Margery wd of Bartholomew de Crek

fdss son Robert / 1350 Bp Bateman

Goring

Oxford

t.Henry II

?1539

priory

Thomas de Druval

from 1300 royal

royal

Grace Dieu

Leics.

1236–42

1538

priory

Rose de Verdon

?Verdun – Furnival

Lord Ferrers

Grimsby

Lincs.

1171–80

1539

priory

royal

royal

royal

Harrold

Beds.

?1136–8

1539

priory

Sampson le Fort

1279 Sir John de Grey

Lord Mordaunt of Turvey

Holystone

Northd.

–1124

1539

priory

Robert de Umfraville I

Kilburn

Middlesex

c.1130

1536

?

Gilbert Crispin, abbot of Westminster

?Westminster Abbey

Lacock

Wilts.

1230–2

1539

abbey

Ela countess of Salisbury

Margaret de Lacy > Lancaster

royal

Limebrook

Hereford

–1221

1539

priory

?Robert de Lingen / ?memb. of Mortimer fam.

London, Clerkenwell

London / Middlesex

c.1144

c.1539

priory

Jordan Fitzralph Briset > Henry Foliot & Lecia

London, Haliwell

London / Middlesex

–1127

c.1539

priory

Robert fitz Gelran canon of St Paul’s

Minster in Sheppey

Kent

1396

1536

priory

——

Moxby

Yorks.

–1167

1536

priory

Bertram de Bulmer

> Neville

royal

Rothwell

N’hants.

–1249

1537–8

priory

member of Clare family, possibly Richard


?royal

Edgcombe

1420 Sir John Inglethorpe > FitzWilliam 1529 Sir David Owen


County

Fd.

Diss.


priory

Patron c.1300


PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONESSES Broadholme

Notts.

–1154

1536

Peter of Goxhill & his wife Agnes

lords of the manor of Saxilby > changes freq.

Guyzance

Northd.

c.1147–52

c.1349–50 priory

Orford

Lincs.

c.–1156

1539

priory

?Ralph d’Aubigny

?lay patrons

Stixwould

Lincs.

1537

1539

priory

——

Henry VIII

royal

1293–4

1539

abbey


Lancaster

royal royal

——

FRANCISCAN NUNS Aldgate / the Minories

London

Bruisyard

Suffolk

1364–7

1539

abbey

——

Lionel duke of Clarence

Denney

Cambs.

1342

1539

abbey

——

Mary de St.Pol, countess of Pembroke

1356

1539

priory

——

Edward III

DOMINICAN NUNS Dartford

Kent

royal

Select Bibliography Manuscript Sources Bodleian Library, Oxford MS Bodley 242 MS Dodsworth viii MS Dodsworth clix MSS Dugdale MS Fairfax 7 MS Fairfax 9 MS Laud. Misc. 642 MS Rawl.B.421 MS Top. Glouc. d.2 MS Top. Lincs.d.1 MS Top. Yorks.c.72 British Library, London MS Add. 36985 MS Add. 37068 MS Cotton Claudius A.vi MS Cotton Cleopatra D.ii MS Faustina B. vi MS Harley 3656 MS Harley 3660 MS Harley 3688 MS Harley 3759 MS Lansdowne 207 A MS Lansdowne 325 College of Arms, London Monastic Charters, Warwick 20/12/15 MS 14 MS B19 MS E4 MS Vincent 4 MS Vincent 9 Wriothesley Pedigrees, 52 National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth NLW Penrice and Margam Collection Public Record Office, London C1 Chancery, Early Chancery Proceedings C54 Chancery and Supreme Court of Judicature: Close Rolls C66 Chancery and Supreme Court of Judicature: Patent Rolls

252

BIBLIOGRAPHY: PRINTED PRIMARY SOURCES

C143 C146–8 E36 E40–1 E135 E315 E326–8 SC1 SC7 SC8

Chancery, Inquisitions Ad Quod Dampnum Chancery, Ancient Deeds Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt, Miscellaneous Books Exchequer, Treasury of Receipt, Ancient Deeds Exchequer, Ecclesiastical Documents Exchequer, Augmentations, Miscellaneous Books Exchequer, Augmentations, Ancient Deeds Special Collections, Ancient Correspondence Special Collections, Papal Bulls Special Collections, Petitions to the King

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Index NB. Religious houses which only appear in the appendix (pp.210–50) have not been listed in the index. Abbotsbury Abbey 26 Abergavenny, lords of 14 Abergavenny Priory 14 bequest to 114 burials in 113 foundation of 14, 23 n.60 Alburga, widow of Weohstan 106 Alcester Priory 31 Aldeby Priory 106 Aldermanshaw Priory 38 n.142 Aldgate Abbey see Minories Aled, Tudur, poet 41 Alexander, bishop of Lincoln 48 Alnwick Abbey 58 hospitality at 75 Amesbury Priory 49 Andwell Priory 13 n.14, 51 Anglesey Priory 86, 164 bequest to 86 Anjou, Henry of see Henry II Anjou, Margaret of 26 n.72 Arbrissel, Robert of 49 Arches, Agnes de 106 Arden Priory 34, 107, 175 Arthington, family of 56, 147, 193, 207 Arthington, Henry de 56, 110 Arthington, Peter de 110 Arthington Priory 30, 56, 110, 193 Arundel College 118, 126 Arundel, earls of 59, 118, 126, 145, 173 see also FitzAlan Ashridge, house of Bonhommes at 28, 50, 88, 141 Aske, family of 147 Aske, John 84 Aske, Margaret 84 Aske, Robert 107 Aske, Roger 110 Aubigny, Ralph 58 and n.277 Audley, family of 51 Audley, Henry 32 Audley, Hugh (d.1347) 165 Axholme Priory 34, 42 n.163, 136, 172, 174, 182 bequest to 81 burials in 136, 140, 172 monks of 136

Babington, Anthony 131, 197 Badlesmere, Bartholomew de 31 Bannockburn, battle of 169 Bardney Abbey 38 n.141 Bardolf, Thomas 30, 94, 104 Bardolf, William 192 heirs of 104 Bardsey Abbey 15 Barescote, Simon de 104 Barham, Hamelinus de 14 Barking Abbey 62, 145 Barlings Abbey 46, 62, 77 Barnwell Priory 31 Barrow Gurney Priory 70, 158, 159 prioress of 157 Basset, Ralph 71 Basset, Richard 29 Battle Abbey 14 Bayham Abbey 46 Baynard, Juga, lady of Little Dunmow 31 Baynard, Geoffrey, son and heir of Juga 31 Baynard, William 31 Beauchamp, family of 170 Beauchamp, Richard (d.1439) 160 Beauchamp, Thomas, earl of Warwick 98 granddaughter of 70 and n.24 Beauchamp, William, daughters of 70 Beauchief Abbey 83, 131, 197 bequest to 83 burials in 83, 131, 197 dissolution of 197 foundation of 131 Beaulieu Abbey 40 n.150, 203 burials in 168 Beaumont, family of 134 burials of 134 Beaumont, Henry (d.1339) 134 Beaumont, Henry (d.1369) 134 Beaumont, John (d.1413) 134 Beaupré, Agnes de 106 Beauvale Priory 42 n.163 Beddgelert Priory 15 Beeleigh Abbey 99 burials in 141 Beeston Priory 197 Bellême, Robert de 37

272

INDEX

Belvoir Priory 34, 120 bequest to 88 Benedict XII, pope 25 n.70, 95 Berden Priory 124, 125 Berkeley Castle 156, 160 Berkeley Chapel 159 Berkeley Church 159–60 Berkeley, Elizabeth, countess of Warwick (d.1422) 160 Berkeley, family of 34, 35, 68, 113, 137, 145, 147, 156–62, 188–9, 207 family mausoleum of 113 Berkeley, honour of 156 Berkeley, James (d.1405) 160 will of 160 Berkeley, James (d.1463) 160 burial of 160 Berkeley Manuscripts 156 Berkeley, Maurice (d.1190) 156 Alice, wife of 156 Berkeley, Maurice (d.1326) 159 reburial of 159 wives of 159 Berkeley, Maurice (d.1368) 159,160 Berkeley, Maurice (d.1506) 161 Berkeley, Maurice (d.1523) 161 Berkeley, Robert (d.1220) 156–7 burial of 157 wives of 157 Berkeley, Roger ‘junior’ 156 Berkeley, Roger ‘senior’ 156 Berkeley, Roger (d.1170) 156 Berkeley, Thomas (d.1321) 159 Joan, wife of (d.1309) 159 tomb of 159 Berkeley, Thomas (d.1361) 80, 159 chantry of 80, 159 n.60 Katherine, wife of (d.1385) 159 Margaret, wife of (d.1337) 159 Berkeley, Thomas (d.1417) 81, 114, 160 Margaret, wife of (d.1392) 160 Berkeley, Thomas (d.1533) 161 burial of 161 Cicely, wife of (d.1558) 161 Eleanor, wife of (d.1525) 161 Berkeley, Thomas (d.1534) 96 Berkeley, William (d.1492) 160 Joan, wife of 161 Bicester Priory 38 n.141 Bicknacre Priory 27 Bigod, family of, earls of Norfolk 39, 98, 171–3 Bigod, John of Stettington and his wife Constance 50 Bigod, Roger, earl of Norfolk (d.1107) 171 Bigod, Roger, earl of Norfolk (d.1270) 89

Bigod, Roger, earl of Norfolk (d.1306) 172 Binham Priory 78 bequests to 152, 154–5 burials in 152–4 prior of 78 Birkenhead Priory 32, 119 Bisham Priory 67 n.7, 134, 149–50, 152–5 bequests to 155 burials in 144 endowment of 154 foundation of 154 Black Death 13, 17 and n.34, 35, 58, 71 Blackmore Priory 35 Blythborough Priory 130 Bohun, family of 30, 124–5, 125 n.74 burials of 117, 123–4 Bohun, Elizabeth (d.1316), wife of Humphrey (d.1322) 124 Bohun, Humphrey de (d.1275) 142 burial of 142 Maud, first wife of (d.1241) 142 Maud, second wife of (d.1273) 142 Bohun, Humphrey de (d.1298) 124 Maud, wife of 124 Bohun, Humphrey de (d.1373) 124 Joan, wife of (d.1419) 124 Bohun, William de (d.1360) 124 Bolebec, Isabel de 106 Bolton Priory 76 Boniface VIII, pope 97 Bordesley Abbey 98 Bossu, Robert le, earl of Leicester 28, 49 Bosworth, battle of 178 Bourchier, John (d.1495) 141 Elizabeth, wife of 141 and n.191 Bourn, barony of 31 Bourne Priory 95, 104, 149 prior elect of 25 n.70 Boxgrove Priory 36 n.128, 196 chantry chapel in 80, 117 dissolution of 196 Boyvill, Gunild, daughter of Henry 106 Brabazon, Roger le 78 Bradenstoke Priory 38 n.141 Bradley Priory 183, 184 income of 183 Brandon, Charles, duke of Suffolk 177, 202, 203 Bransford, Wolstan, de, bishop of Worcester 65 n.3, 77, 94 Braybrook, Gerard 73 Brecon Priory 14, 124, 137 foundation of 23 n.60 Breedon Priory 38 n.141 Brewer, family of 92

INDEX

Bridlington Priory 10 n.2, 182 bequest to 182 Briene, Guy de 143 Bristol, Augustinian nunnery at 156, 158, 159 Bristol, St Augustine’s Priory 30 and n.91, 35, 68, 113, 156–62 burials in 68, 157, 159–62 chantry chapel in 80 endowment of 68 foundation of 156 Bristol, St James’s Priory 164 Broadholme Priory 58 Bromehill Priory 35 Brotherton, Thomas, earl of Norfolk 172 Alice, daughter of 172 Margaret, daughter of, duchess of Norfolk (d.1399) 172 Bruisyard Abbey 59 Brus, family of 128 burials of 128 Brus, Peter IV de 128 Agnes, sister of 128 Lucia, sister of 128 Brus, Robert de 128 Brut y Tywysogion 40 Bruton Priory / Abbey 119, 148, 154 burials in 144, 149 cartulary of 148 Buckingham, duchy of 28 Buckland Abbey 97 abbot of 97 Building work 32, 88–91, 155, 169–70 Buildwas Abbey 40 n.151, 79 n.69 Bullington Priory 48, 132 Bungay Priory 34, 107, 172, 175, 181 Burgh, Elizabeth, lady de Clare 86 Burgh, Maud see Clare, Gilbert (d.1314) Burghersh, Bartholomew 75 Burghersh, family of 170 burials of 170 and n.122 Burnham Abbey 28 Burscough Priory 83–4, 133–4, 199 burials in 83, 119, 133–4, 199 dissolution of 199 income of 133 Burton, Thomas 183 Bushmead Priory 73, 91 Butley Priory 203 gatehouse of 203 Byland Abbey 34, 77 n.55, 172, 174 monks of 86 Caldwell Priory 91, 104 Caldy Priory 51 Calthrope, Edward 52, 202

273

Calwich Priory 201, 202 dissolution of 201, 202 Cambridge, Matilda, countess of 83–4 Cammeringham Priory 46 Campsey Ash Priory 114 burials in 115 Cannington Priory 96 Canon law 21 and n.52 Canonsleigh Abbey 57 Canterbury Cathedral Priory 20 Cantilupe, Walter de, bishop of Worcester 56 Canwell Priory 106 Cardiff Priory 14, 164, 165 failure of 27 foundation of 23 n.60 Cardigan Priory 36 Carham Priory 34, 120 Castle Acre Priory 34, 103, 180 dissolution of 180 prior of 103 Castle Hedingham 119 Castle Hedingham Priory 35, 68, 107, 119, 193, 201 dissolution of 201 Catesby Priory 57 and n.266 Cemain, lord of see FitzMartin, Robert Chacombe Priory 34, 85, 173, 175 bequest to 85 burials in 86 Chandos, Robert de 14 Charley Priory 46 n.183 Charlton, John de, lord of Powys 42 Charlton Priory 46 Chatteris Abbey 55 n.254 Chaumbre, Cecilia de la 87 Chaworth, family of 90, 131 Chaworth, Thomas de (will 1347) 131, 197 Chaworth, William de (will 1398) 83, 197 Chepstow, castle at 14 lords of 14 Chepstow Priory 14, 36 n.128 foundation of 23 n.60 Cherlecote, William son of Walter de 52 Chester, earldom of 28, 37 Chester, earls of 28, 29 Hugh I 37 Geva, daughter of 106 Chester, St Werburga’s Abbey 37 Chetwode Priory 27 Chichester, bishop of 198 Chipley Priory 46 n.183 Christchurch Priory 115, 117, 148, 150, 151–2, 154 Church Gresley Priory 32 and n.111 bequest to 89

274

INDEX

Church Preen Priory 38 n.142 Cirencester Abbey, annual income of 62 Clare, de, family of 35, 41, 147, 162–71, 188–9, 206 burials of 167 effigies of 113 estates of 165 Clare, Eleanor de (d.1337) 92, 169 Clare, Gilbert de, earl of Gloucester and Hereford (d.1230) 167–8 burial of 167–8 Clare, Gilbert de (d.1295) 168–9 Isabel (Isabella) de, daughter of 86, 169 Clare, Gilbert de (d.1314) 169 John, infant son of 169 Maud, wife of 169 Clare, lordship of 162 Clare, Margaret de (d.1342) 91, 163 burial of 165 Clare, Maud de, lady Clifford 76 Clare Richard de (d.1217) 167 Amice, wife of 167 Clare, Richard de (d.1262) 168 tomb of 168 Clarence, George, duke of 170 burial of 170 Clarence, Isabel, duchess of 170 Clarence, Lionel, duke of 59 Clattercote Priory 49 Clement V, pope 77 n.55, 88, 101 Clement VI, pope 47, 77, 101 Clere, Helewise de 106 Clifford, family of 83 Clifford, Thomas 143 Maud, daughter of 143 Clifton, John 143 Clinton, family of 87 Clinton, John, son of John de 87 Clinton, William de, earl of Huntingdon 65 n.3, 77, 87 Cluny Abbey 97 abbot and convent of 98 Cobham College 118 Cobham, John 118 Cockersand Abbey 192 Colrith, Dame Diana 108 heart burial of 108 Colrith, family of 108 Coggeshall Abbey 40 n.150 Colchester Abbey 104 abbot and convent of 105 Conway Abbey 15, 40, 41 Cook Hill Priory 57 Cornwall, earldom, later duchy of 28 earls and dukes of 28, 37

Cornwall, Edmund, earl of 50, 81, 88, 141 Cornwall, Richard earl of 53, 93 Cornworthy Priory 34, 198 Corrodians 88, 98, 99 and n.180 Countlow, Nicholas de 42 n.163 Courtenay, family of 33, 73, 136, 137, 201 Courtenay, Henry de, marquess of Exeter 94, 97 Gertrude, wife of 108 Courtenay, Hugh, earl of Devon (d.1335) 152 Courtenay, William de 33 Coventry, Charterhouse of St Anne 13, 42 n.163, 43 founders of cells at 13 and n.16 Coverham Abbey 46, 75 bequest to 86 burials in 86 Cranborne Priory 164, 166 Crepido Corde, Robert de 31 Crevequer, family of 31 Cromwell, Thomas 33, 94, 96, 99, 196, 198, 199, 200–1, 202 letters to 179–80, 196, 198, 199, 200–1, 202 Croxden Abbey 18, 68–9, 75 burials in 75, 138 chronicle of 18, 68–9, 101–2 monks of 102–3 Croxton Abbey 96, 157, 158 Cuckney, Thomas of 32 granddaughters of 32 Cuckney, manor of 32 Custody during vacancies 22, 23, 24 n.63 Cwmhir Abbey 15 abbot of 42 trouble at 42 Cymmer Abbey 15 Dacre, family of 129, 144 burials of at Lanercost 129 Dacre, Hugh (d.1383) 129 Dacre, Humphrey, lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1485) 129 Mabel, wife of (d.1508) 129 Dacre, Randolf, lord Dacre (d.1339) 129 Dacre, Thomas, lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1458) 129 Dacre, Thomas, lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1525) 129 Elizabeth, wife of (d.1516) 129 Dacre, William, lord Dacre (d.1361) 129 Dacre, William, lord Dacre of Gilsland (d.1563) 67, 94 Darcy, family of 128–30 burials of 128

INDEX

Darcy, John 31 D’Arcy, Philip 115 Dartford Priory 59 Daventry Priory 38 n.141, 62 Deeping St James Priory 150 Deerhurst Priory 28, 36 n.128 Delapré Abbey 56 Denbigh, castle and lordship of 149 Denney Priory 55, 59 and n.280, 101 Depeden, John 65 n.3, 74 Elizabeth, wife of 74 Derby, earl of 47, 193 see also Stanley, Edward; Stanley, Thomas Despenser, Edward 92 Despenser, family of 41, 93, 170 burials of 170 Despenser, Hugh (d.1326) 92, 140, 169 Despenser, Hugh (d.1349) 47, 94, 142, 169 burial of 142 Elizabeth, wife of 142–3 Despenser, Thomas (d.1400) 141 Dinham, John 140 Dodford Priory 46 Dodnash Priory 34, 172, 175 Dudley Priory 143 burials in 143 Dunster Castle 119 Dunster Priory 119 Durford Abbey 47, 95, 103 Durham Cathedral Priory 20, 26 Earls Colne Priory 35, 68, 84, 96, 107, 114, 115, 132, 193, 201 bequest to 82, 113 burials in 68, 82, 115, 122–23, 125, 140 dissolution of 201 Easby Abbey (St Agatha’s) 79, 82, 147, 183–9 abbot of 79–80, 186, 187 charter of 187 and n.223 bequests to 185 burials in 82, 119, 185–8 canons at 185, 188 dissolution of 187 sale of advowson of 183 Scrope heraldry in 80, 93 Easebourne Priory 201 Easton, house of Trinitarians at 52, 202 Edgar, king of England 62 Edgcombe, Peter 34, 193, 198–9, 200 letter of, to Cromwell 198 Edington, house of Bonhommes at 50 Edington, William of, bishop of Winchester 50

275

Edward I, king of England 31, 40 n.150, 41, 100, 151, 171 Edward II, king of England 30 n.86, 78, 79, 86, 134, 172 Edward III, king of England 39 n.148, 59, 149, 151–2 charter of 151 and n.16 Edward IV, king of England 32 Edward VI, king of England 161 Egglestone Abbey 130 Eleanor of Castile, wife of Edward I 31 Elections 21, 24, 25 n.70, 93–99 Elfrida, widow of king Edgar 106 Ellerton Priory 84, 107 bequest to 84 burials in 84, 143 and n.204 Elstow Abbey 106 Ely, bishops of 32, 55 n.254 Ely Cathedral Priory, prior of 105 Espec, Walter 92 Essex, earl of 99 see also Mandeville, Geoffrey de; FitzPeter, Geoffrey Essex, earldom of 30 Esturmy, family of 52 Etchingham, Eve, wife of William de 85 Etchingham, Joan, daughter of William de 85 Etchingham, William de 85 Everingham, Adam de 192 heirs of 104 Evesham Abbey, abbot and monks of 32 Ewelme, God’s House 118, 139 burial in 153 Ewenny Priory 37 building work at 90 foundation of 23 n.60, 38 n.139 Exeter, marquess of see Courtenay, Henry Eye Priory 28, 30, 37 Falkirk, battle of 182 Farne Island Priory 36 Fauconberg, Isabel 114 burial of 128 Fauconberg, Roger 128 Ferre, Guy de 31 Ferrers, Alianore, wife of Robert de 124 Ferrers, family of 78 Ferrers, Robert de, foundation charter of 23 n.59 Financial services 76, 168 Fineshade Priory 201 Fishponds 87 FitzAlan, Edmund, earl of Arundel 87–8, 114

276

INDEX

FitzAlan, John, earl of Arundel (d.1379) 125 Eleanor, wife of (d.1404) 125 FitzAlan, Richard, earl of Arundel (d.1302) 88 FitzAlan, Richard, earl of Arundel (d.1375) 88 FitzAlan, Richard, earl of Arundel and Surrey (d.1397) 41 and n.157, 125, 140, 142 Eleanor, wife of 125 FitzAlan, Thomas, earl of Arundel (d.1415) 70, 88, 99, 126 FitzAlan, William, earl of Arundel (d.1487) 88, 95 Fitzcount, William, earl of Gloucester 166 FitzGilbert, Richard ‘de Clare’ (d.c.1090) 162–3 sons of 162 FitzHamon, Robert, earl of Gloucester 14, 167 Sybil, wife of 167 FitzHarding, Maurice (d.1190) 156 see also Berkeley, Maurice FitzHarding, Robert 156 Eve, wife of 156 FitzHenry, Robert, lord of Lathom and Knowsley 133 FitzHugh, Osbert 49 FitzMartin, Robert, lord of Cemain 51 FitzNoel, Robert 33 FitzOsbern, William 14 FitzPeter, Geoffrey, earl of Essex 30, 31, 108 FitzRanulph, Robert 131 FitzRichard, Robert 31 FitzStephen, Robert 15 FitzWalter, family of 31 burials of at Little Dunmow 130–31 FitzWalter, John (d.1361) 130 Alianore, wife of 130 FitzWalter, Robert (d.1326) 130 Alianore, wife of 130 FitzWalter, Robert (d.1328) 130 Joan, wife of 130 FitzWalter, Walter (d.1386) 130 Alianore, wife of 130 FitzWalter, Walter (d.1406) 130 Joan, wife of 130 FitzWalter, Walter (will 1431) 73, 130 Elizabeth, wife of 131 will of 130 Flamstead Priory 55 Flanesford Priory 33 bequest to 87 foundation of 33

prior and convent of 87 Flitcham Priory 119 Folkestone Priory 174 Forde Abbey 73, 136 burials in 136 Fosse Priory 56 Foulkeholme Priory 17 n.35 Fountains Abbey 40 n.151 abbot of 96 Fragmentation of body 140 Framlingham church 172, 179 Fray, John, baron 109 Furness Abbey 40 n.150 Furnival ,family of 69, 138 burials of 138–9 Furnival, Margaret, daughter of Thomas lord Furnival, baptism of 18 Furnival, Maud 139 Furnival, Thomas (d.1332) 18, 69, 102, 138 Joan, wife of 138 Furnival, Thomas (d.1365) 139 Furnival, William (d.1383) 139 Gant, Walter de 10 n.2 Garendon Abbey 28, 38 n.141 Gaunt, John of, duke of Lancaster 67, 80 Gernon, Ranulph de 39 n.144 Geva, mother of Robert FitzMartin 51 Glanville, Ranulph de 31 Glastonbury Abbey 36 n.129 income of 64 Gloucester, duke of 77, 78, 96, 123 Glyn, Guto’r, poet 41, 42 Glyn Dwr, Owain 27 revolt of 79 Goldcliff Priory 14 and n.27, 164, 165 trouble at 14 n.27 Gough, Richard 143 Grace Dieu Abbey 16 Granville, Richard 165 Gresley, family of 32 family caput 32 Gresley Priory see Church Gresley Gresley, Robert de 48 Gresley, Thomas 89 Grey, family of, earls of Kent 59 Grey, Edmund, earl of Ruthin 51 Grey, John son of Reginald, of Ruthin 51 Greystoke, Ralph, baron of 143 Grimsby Priory 57 Grosmont Priory 50 Grosvenor, Robert 79–80, 185 Gruffudd, Madog ap 41 Gruffudd, Rhys ap, the Lord Rhys 16 and n.30

INDEX

Guisborough Priory 90–1, 100 bequest to 91 building work at 90 burials in 91, 114, 115, 128–9 Gurney, Joan de 70 Guyzance Priory 58 Black Death at 58 Hailes Abbey 28, 50, 81, 93 bequest to 81 burials in 141 heraldic tiles at 93 Halesowen Abbey 62 Haltemprice Priory 135 Hamble Priory 13 and n.14, 51 Handale Priory 107 Harcourt, family of 33 and n.117, 94 Harcourt, Simon 33, 193, 199–200 Hartland Abbey 140 burials in 140 Hastings, lords of, 113 tombs of 113 Hastings Priory 11 n.4 Hatfield Broad Oak Priory 35, 193 burials in 123 Haughmond Abbey 41 n.157, 70, 87–8, 95, 99 burials in 126 canons of 114 election at 95 grants to 87 and n.114 patrons of 87 Haverholme Priory 48 Healaugh Park Priory 65 n.3, 74, 78 Hempton Priory 35, 38 n.141 Henry I, king of England 11, 31, 55 n.254 Henry II, king of England 40 n.150, 43, 49, 156 Henry III, king of England 63 n.293, 167 Henry IV, king of England 38, 79, 124 Henry V, king of England 38–39 n.143, 124 Henry VI, king of England 26 n.72, 38–39 n.143 Henry VII, king of England 31, 179 Henry VIII 154, 165, 179, 181, 190–2, 194, 196–7 Act for the suppression of lesser monasteries 194–5 commissioners of 165 letters to 179–80, 196 Herriard, family of 108 Hertford, house of Trinitarians at 52 Hinton Priory 42 n.163, 43 Hitchin Priory 49

277

Holland, Thomas, duke of Surrey, earl of Kent (d.1400) 43, 100, 135–6 burial of 135–6 Holme Priory 39, 150, 151 Holt, Richard 108 Holystone Priory 107 Horksley Priory 143 burials in 143 Hornby Priory 119 burials in 142 Hospitality 22, 23, 25, 74–6, 86, 87, 100 Hotham, John, bishop of Ely 32 Hounslow, house of Trinitarians at 52 Howard, Elizabeth, duchess of Norfolk (d.1558) 177 Howard, family of, dukes of Norfolk 19, 39, 76, 126, 147, 171–82, 188–9, 206 Howard, Henry 177 Howard, John, duke of Norfolk (d.1485) 173 reburial of 178–9 Howard, Thomas, seventh duke of Norfolk (d.1524) 179–81 Agnes, wife of (d.1545) 179 Anne, wife of (d.1511) 179 grave of 179 burial of 179 Howard, Thomas, eighth duke of Norfolk (d.1554) 18, 62, 75, 176–82, 191, 192–3, 197–8, 203 letters of, to Cromwell 181 n.186, 197 letters of, to Henry VIII 179–80, 197 religious houses of 34 Hulton Abbey 32 Hurley Priory 124, 137 Hussey, family of 47 relationship with Durford Priory 47 n.193, 103 Hussey, Henry 47 n.193, 103 Hussey, Nicholas 47 n.193, 95, 103 Hussey, Walter 47 n.193 Ingham, Trinitarian house at 13 n.18, 52, 126, 132, 134, 202 burials in 126–7 dissolution of 202 founder of 52 Ingham, Joan de 126 Ingleby, John de 100 Ingleby, William de 43, 100 Innocent VII, pope 103 Insula, Thomas, son of Warin de 30 Iorwerth, Llywelyn ab, prince of Gwynedd 41 Ireland 162 Ivychurch Priory 17 n.35

278

INDEX

Ixworth, William, prior of Thetford 176–8, 180 letters of 180 John, king of England 30, 40 n.150, 79, 168 Jugglers 176 Kenilworth Priory / Abbey 86 bequest to 86 prior and convent of 86 Kent, Lucy, countess of 43 Kent, Edmund, earl of 43 see also Grey, family of; Holland, Thomas Kersal Priory 39 and n.144 Kerswell Priory 38 n.142 Keynsham Abbey 164, 166 foundation of 166 income of 166 Kingston upon Hull, Charterhouse at 43, 84, 135, 139, 206 burials in 135 Kingswood Abbey 68, 157, 158 burials in 68, 160 Kirkham Priory 34, 89, 120 bequest to 88 burial in 120, 121 gatehouse of 92 Kirklees Priory 192 Kirkstall Abbey 38 n.141 bequest to 86 Knaresborough, Trinitarian house at 38 n.141, 52–53 Knowles, Dom David 6 Knyvet, Edward 143 will of 90 Knyvet, family of 59 Kyme, lords of 132 Kyme Priory 115, 132 burials in 132 Kyme, Philip de 132 Kyme, Simon de 48 Lacock Abbey 38 n.141, 57, 203 Lacy, Henry de, earl of Lincoln 101 Lacy, Hugh de 15 Lacy, John de 86 Lacy, Walter de 29 Lancaster, duchy of 28, 30, 49, 123 Lancaster, earls and dukes of 37, 47, 53, 78, 79, 90 see also Gaunt, John of Lancaster, Edmund, earl of 49 Lancaster, Henry, duke of 86, 123 see also Henry IV, king of England

Lancaster, Thomas, earl of 86, 100 Lanercost Priory 67, 93, 94, 129–30 burials in 129 Langdon, Stephen, prior / abbot of Wymondham 78 Langley Abbey 130 burials in 137 Lathom, lords of 84 Latimer, William 90–1 burial place of 114 Launde Priory 29, 71 Leeds Priory 31 Leicester, earl of see Bossu, Robert le* Leicester, earldom of 49 Leicester Abbey 38 n.141, 86 annual income of 62 Leiston Abbey 25 n.71, 31, 94, 202 elections at 94 Leland, John 165, 183 Lenthale, Edmund 126 Lenton Priory 39 and n. 145, 62 Leonard Stanley Priory 157, 158 Lestrange, Roger 32 Letheringham Priory 113, 127–9 burials in 127 income of 128 number of canons at 128 Lewes Priory 34, 61–2, 118, 126, 171–3, 174, 207 burials in 125, 126, 140, 142 Liddell see Wake, Thomas Lincoln, Robert 39 n.148, 151 Lincoln, St Catherine’s Priory 49 Little Dunmow Priory 31, 73, 130–31, 132, 201 burials in 73, 130–31 dissolution of 201 Llandudoch see St Dogmael’s Abbey Llanddewi Nanthodnu see Llanthony Prima Priory Llantarnam Abbey 15 Llanthony Prima Priory 15 Llanthony Secunda Priory 124, 137 burials in 142 London, Austin Friars 160–1 London Charterhouse 42 n.163, 135, 174 burials in 135 London, Grey Friars / Friars Minor 160, 172, 173 Londres, William de, lord of Ogmore Castle 38 Longespée, William, earl of Salisbury 42 n.163, 43 Longford, Ralph 201 Lord Rhys see Gruffudd, Rhys ap Lucy, Fouk de 52

INDEX

Luttrell, family of 119, 148 burial place of 119 Lytham Priory 38 n.141 Maenan 41 n.158 see also Conway Abbey Magna Carta 3, 3 n.11 Malet, Robert 37 Malpas Priory 38 n.142, 164, 165 Mandeville, family of 30 n.94 burials of 124 Mandeville, Geoffrey de, earl of Essex 30, 123 Manners, George, lord Ros (d.1513) 88 Manners, Thomas, earl of Rutland 34, 193, 200, 202 March, earls of see Mortimer, Roger Margam Abbey 16, 41, 164, 165 heraldic tiles at 93 n.148 income of 165 Markham, John, justice of the king’s bench 109 Marlborough Priory 49 Marrick Priory 107, 110, 183 Marshal, Isabel 168 burial of 168 Marshal, Walter, earl of Pembroke 14 confirms grants at Pembroke Priory 14 Marshal, William, earl of Pembroke 14 confirms grants at Pembroke Priory 14 Marton Priory 75 Martyn, Elizabeth, prioress of Wintney 108 Massey of Dunham, family of 32 Hamon de 32 Maulay, Peter III de 50 Maulay, Piers de 50 Mauny, Walter 135 burial of 135 Margaret, wife of 135 Maxstoke Priory 62, 65 n.3, 77 annual income of 62 bequest to 87 Meaux Abbey 11 n.7, 96, 137 abbot of 77, 96 monks of 97 Melton, William, archbishop of York 94 Merchant, Livingston 103 Merevale Abbey 23 n.59, 78 Merton, Walter de, bishop of Rochester 17 n.33 Minories / Aldgate, London 38 n.141, 59, 75, 114 burials in 139 Minstrels 176 Moatenden, Trinitarian house at 13, 52

279

Modney Priory 36 Mohun, family of 119, 148 Monk Bretton Priory 61 Monks Horton Priory 35 Monkton Farleigh Priory 124 Monmouth, Wihenoc of 13 foundation charter of 14 n.19 Monmouth Priory 15 foundation of 23 n.60, 149 Montacute Castle 149 Montacute Priory 39 and n.148, 148–51 Montague, Drogo 148 Montague, Elizabeth 155 Montague, family of, earls of Salisbury 35, 39, 134, 137, 144, 147, 148–56, 189 family mausoleum of 152–4 heraldry of 152 Montague, John (d.1399) 153 reburial of 153 Montague, Richard (d.c.1161) 148 Montague, Simon (d.1316) 149 Montague, Thomas (d.1428) 153 Alice, daughter of, wife of Richard Neville 153 Alice, wife of 153 burial of 153 will of 155 Montague, William (d.c.1217) 148 Montague, William (d.1270) 148 Montague, William (d.1319) 149 Montague, William, earl of Salisbury (d.1344) 134, 149, 151–5 burial of 152 Katharine, wife of 153 Philippa, daughter of 153 Montague, William, earl of Salisbury (d.1397) 153 burial of 153 will of 155 Montgomery, Arnulf de, earl of Pembroke 14 Montgomery, Roger de, earl of Shrewsbury 37, 39 n.146 Morley, Henry 197 Mortain, William, count of 149 Mortimer, family of 147 Mortimer, Philippa, countess of March 155 and n.39 Mortimer, Roger, earl of March 42, 59 Mortmain, Statute of 16, 80 Mottisfont Priory 203 Mount Grace Priory 43, 100, 135–6 burials in 135–6 monks of 100 patronage of 43 Mountfichet, William de 40

280

INDEX

Mowbray, family of, earls of Norfolk 39, 59, 81, 126, 136, 172 Mowbray, John de (d.1361) 86 Mowbray, John, duke of Norfolk (d.1432) 136, 172 burial of 172 Mowbray, John, duke of Norfolk (d.1461) 172 burial of 172 Mowbray, John (d.1476) 173 Anne, daughter of 173 Mowbray, Thomas, earl of Norfolk (d.1399) 42 n.163, 136, 140, 172 reburial of 136 Mowbray, Thomas, earl of Norfolk (d.1405) 136, 172 burial of 172 Moxby Priory 57 Much Wenlock Priory 39, 62 Multiple patronage 33–35, 88, 106, 110, 118–19, 121, 137, 182, 188, 193 Myton, Alesia, daughter of John Aske 84 Neasham Priory 145 Neath Abbey 16, 41, 93, 164, 165–6, 203 heraldic tiles at 166 and n.93 income of 165–6 Nerford, Alice de 63 n.293 Nerford, Petronilla, wife of Sir William 121 Netley Abbey 40 n.151, 202 Neville, Alan 47 Neville, family of 152–5 Neville, Gilbert 47 Neville, John, marquess Montague 154 Isabel, wife of 154 Neville, Marie de 86 Neville, Ralph 47 Neville, Ranulph, lord of Middleham 75 Neville, Richard, earl of Salisbury (d.1460) 67 n.7, 153 Alice, wife of (d.1463) 153 burials of 153–4 Neville, Richard, earl of Warwick 154 Neville, Thomas, lord Furnival (d.1365) 73, 139 will of 89 Neville, Thomas (d.1460) 153–4 burials of 154 Newburgh Priory 34, 175, 181 election at 181 Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Trinitarian house at 13 n.18, 52 Newenham Abbey 34, 175 Black Death at 17 n.35 Newhouse Abbey 89

Newmarch, Bernard de 14 Newminster Abbey 130 burials in 143 Newstead Priory 49 Norfolk, earldom / dukedom of 171–2 Norfolk, earls and dukes of 18, 67, 94, 107, 145, 191 see also Bigod, Howard, Mowbray Norman Conquest 9–10, 26, 36, 55, 162, 171 Norres, Henry 34 North Creake Priory / Abbey 63 n.293 Northumberland, earls of 35, 48, 78, 79, 107, 145, 198 see also Percy, Henry Norton Abbey 38 n.141 Norwich, bishops of 31 Nostell Priory 38 n.141 Notley Abbey 27, 137 Novo Mercato see Newmarch Nun Appleton Priory 107 Nunburnholme Priory 145 Nuneaton Priory 38 n.141, 49, 55, 67 Nunkeeling Priory 106 Ogard, Sir Andrew 78 and n.64 Oldham, Hugh, bishop of Exeter 45 Orcus, founder of Abbotsbury Abbey 26 Orford Priory 58 Owain, Gutun, poet 41 Oxford, earls of 145, 193 see also Vere, de Oxford, Elizabeth, countess of 29 Oxford, Maud, countess of 96 Oxford, Trinitarian house at 13 n.18, 52 Oxney Priory 36 Paulet, William, marquis of Winchester 203 Peche, Eve widow of Hamo 31 Gilbert, son of Eve 31 Pelham, Sir John 11 n.4 Pembroke, castle at 14 Pembroke, Agnes, countess of 114 see also St Pol, Mary de Pembroke, earl of 59 see also Marshal, Montgomery* Penmon Priory 15 Pentney Priory 30, 34, 76, 120, 121 burials in 121 Percy, Henry, earl of Northumberland 75, 193 Peterborough Abbey 36 n.129 Peverel, Pain 31 Peverel, William 39 n.145 Philippa, queen of England 47

INDEX

Picot, lord of Bourn and Madingley 31 Pilgrims 81, 166 Pill Priory 51 Pincerna, Ralph (le Boteler) of Oversley 31 Plantagenet, Edward, earl of Warwick, lord Montague 154 Pleshey College 117 Plympton Priory 62 annual income of 62 Pole, de la, family of 43 Pole, Edmund de la, earl of Suffolk (d.1513) 139 Margaret, wife of 139 Pole, John de la 84 Pole, Michael de la, earl of Suffolk (d.1415) 94, 135 Pole, Reginald, cardinal 154 Pole, William de la (d.1415) 135 Pole, William de la, earl of Suffolk (d.1450) 118, 134, 139–40, 206 Alice, wife of (d.1475) 118, 140, 153 burial of 153 Ponin, Michael de 13 n.17 Pontefract Priory 38 n.141, 62 burials in 154 Poulton Priory 49 burials in 142 Poynings, Thomas 83, 84 Prittlewell Priory 39, 124, 125 Puffin Island Priory 15 Ranton Priory 33, 95, 199–200 dissolution of 199–200 Recycling of monastic property 17 and n.33, 203 Redcliffe, Robert 201 Redlingfield, Emma 106 Redlingfield Priory 28, 55, 106 Redvers, family of 149 Redvers, Richard de 151 Reigate Priory 34, 175 Revesby Abbey 11 n.7 Rewley Abbey 28 Richard II, king of England 30, 40, 43, 79 Richmond Casle 183 Roald, constable of 183 Rievaulx Abbey 34, 89, 120, 121, 200, 202 bequests to 88 burials in 120 dissolution of 200, 202 Robertsbridge Abbey 85 bequest to 85 burials in 85 Rocester Abbey, abbot of 68 Roche, family of see Rupe

281

Roche Abbey 83 bequest to 83 burials in 83, 143 Roches, Peter des, bishop of Winchester 40 n.151 Roger, bishop of Chester 40 n.151 Roger, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield 77 Rokesley, Robert de 13 n.17 Ros, Beatrice lady 82–4, 83 n.84, 120 Ros, de, family of 76, 92, 120 burials of 120–21 heraldry of at Kirkham Priory 92 Ros, George, lord see Manners, George, lord Ros Ros, John de (d.1393) 120 Mary, wife of 120 Ros, John de (d.1421) 120 Margaret / Margery, wife of (d.1478) 89 Ros, Thomas de (d.1384) 120 Ros, William de (d.1316) 120 Maud, wife of 121 Ros, William de (d.1414) 88, 89, 120 Rosedale Priory 57 Rothwell Priory 57, 163 and n.81, 164, 171 Rowney Priory 109 Royston Priory 137, 164 Rufford Abbey 34 Rupe, Adam de 51 Rupe, Thomas de 51 Ruthin, house of Bonhommes at 50, 51 Ruthin, earl of see Grey, Edmund Rutland, earls of 193 see also Manners, Thomas St Albans Abbey 26, 78 abbot of 78 burials in 118 St Augustine’s Priory, Bristol see Bristol, St Augustine’s Priory St Carrock Priory 38 n.142 St Cross Priory 13 n.14, 51 St Dogmael’s Abbey 51 St Guthlac’s Priory 29 and n.86 St Helen’s Priory 38 n.142 St Martin Séez Abbey (France) 14 St Mary’s Hospital (London) 27 St Neots Priory 137, 163, 164 St Peter’s-ad-Vincula 154 St Pol, Mary of, countess of Pembroke 55, 59, 72, 101 St Radegund’s Abbey 83 bequest to 83 burials in 83

282

INDEX

St Sexburga Priory 106 St Tudwal’s Island, priory of 11 n.4 St Werburga’s Abbey see Chester, St Werburga’s Abbey Salisbury, earls of 34, 39 and n.148 see also Longespée, William; Montague Salisbury, Margaret, countess of 115, 154 burial of 154 chantry of 115, 154 Salisbury Rolls 155 Sandwell Priory 192 Saumur (France), Benedictine monks of 13 Saxilby, lords of the manor of 58 Say, Eustacia de 49 Scarborough, William of, abbot of Meaux 77 Scrope, of Bolton, family of 147, 182–9, 207 heraldry of 80, 93, 185 Scrope, Henry (d.1336) 182, 183 burial of 185 Scrope, John (d.1498) 84, 186, 188 will of 186–7 Scrope, John (d.1549) 187–8 Scrope, Richard (d.1403) 79–80, 183, 185, 188 burial of 185 will of 186 Scrope, Richard (d.1420) 186 will of 186 Scrope, Roger (d.1403) 185 will of 186 Scrope, Stephen (1405) 186 Scrope, William (d.c.1312) 182 Constance, wife of 182 Scrope, William (d.1344) 183 burial of 185 Scudamore, John 196 Segrave, family of 85, 176 Segrave, John 85 Segrave, Nicholas de 85 Segrave, Stephen de 85 Selborne Priory closure of 17 n.33 Selby Abbey 36 n.127 Sempringham, Gilbert of 12, 13 Sempringham, St Mary’s Priory 12, 134 Seton Priory 106 Sexburga, widow of Ercombert, king of Kent 106 Seymour, Alice 142 Seymour, Edward, viscount Beauchamp 202 Anne, wife of 202 Sheen Priory 43

Shaftesbury Abbey 62, 145 Shelford Priory 34, 94, 104, 192 Shouldham Priory 48 n.200 Shrewsbury, earls of see Talbot Shrewsbury Abbey 14, 37 Shulbred Priory 198 Sibton Abbey 130 Sixhills Priory 48 Skelton, Constance de 129 Sleves Holm Priory 34, 174 Snaith Priory 36 n.127 Snape Priory 28 patroness of 78, 104 status of 78 Snelshall Priory 36 Sopwick Priory see Wix Priory Spalding Priory 38 n.141 Stafford, family of 124, 137, 165 burials of 137–8 Stafford, Henry 200 and n.32 Stafford, Hugh 137 Philippa, wife of 137 Stafford, Humphrey 201 Stafford, Ralph (d.1372) 137 Stafford, Ralph (d.1385) 137 Stafford, Robert II 104 Stafford, Thomas (d.1392) 137 Stafford, William (d.1395) 137 Staindrop College 117 Stanley, Edward, earl of Derby (d.1572) 199 Stanley, family of, 119, 133, 193 Stanley, Thomas, earl of Derby (d.1504) 32, 133–4 burial of 133 will of 83, 133 Stanley, Thomas, earl of Derby (d.1521) 133 Stanley, Thomas, lord Montegle 142 Stanley of Lathom, John 32 Stapleton, Bryan de (d.1422) 127 Stapleton, Bryan de (d.1438) 127 Cecily, wife of 127 Stapleton, family of 134 Stapleton, Miles de (d.1364) 52, 126 Stapleton, Miles de (d.1419) 127 Ela, wife of 127 Stapleton, Miles de (d.1466) 127 Stavordale Priory 200 Stephen, king of England 40 n.150 Stixwould Priory 58 Stone Priory 104, 137–8 burials in 137 and n.162 income of 138 Stoneleigh Abbey 40 n.150

INDEX

Strata Florida Abbey 15, 40–41, 42, 79 and n.72 burials in 40, 41 n.156 dissolution of 198 Strata Marcella Abbey 15 Stratford Abbey 40 abbot and convent of 40 Strigoil see Chepstow Priory Studley Priory 55 Suffolk, Isabel, countess of 104 Suffolk, earl of see Pole, Michael de la; Pole William de la; Ufford, Robert de Surrey, duke of see Holland, Thomas Surrey, earl of see FitzAlan, Richard; Warenne, John de Sussex, earls of 131 see also Radcliffe Sutton, John 143 Swaffham Bulbeck Priory 106 Swinburn, Andrew 143 Swinburn, John 143 Swinburn, Robert 143 Swinburn, Thomas 143 Syon Abbey 50 Tailboys, Gilbert (d.1530) 132 Tailboys, Robert (d.1494) 115, 132 Talbot, family of, earls of Shrewsbury 33, 49, 139 Talbot, George, earl of Shrewsbury 139, 196 letter of 196 Talbot, John, earl of Shrewsbury (d.1460) 139 Talbot, John, earl of Shrewsbury (d.1473) 139 Talbot, Richard, of Goodrich Castle 33 and n.115, 87 Tarrant Keynes Abbey 57 and n.265 Tateshall, Robert 29 Taunton Priory 149 Tewkesbury Abbey 14, 30 and n.91, 41, 92, 93, 94, 147, 163, 164, 166–71, 207 abbot of 169 Annals of 168 bequests to 86, 169–70 building programmes at 169 burials in 140–3, 167–70 effigies of patrons in 113 elections at 170 Founders’ Book of 23 n.62, 76, 167, 170 heraldic tiles at 170 heraldry of patrons at 92 mausoleum of de Clares at 35 monuments of de Clares at 92 Thelsford, house of Trinitarians at 52

283

Thetford Priory (Cluniac monks) 18, 23 n.62, 34, 67, 75, 97, 147, 172–3, 174, 176–82 building work at 180 burials in 172–3, 178–9, 182 dissolution of 179–81, 197–8 food served at 176–8 heraldry of patrons at 178 hospitality at 75, 176–8 monks of 98 personal meetings at 177 priors of 75, 176–80 see also Ixworth, William Register of 18, 24 n.62, 67, 176–81, 197 servants of 178 storage of valuables at 76, 180 Thetford Priory (Augustinian canons) 34 Thicket Priory 107 Thola, wife of Orcus, founder of Abbotsbury Abbey 26 Thremhall Priory 35 Thurstan, archbishop 40 n.151 Tintern Abbey 14 n.27, 16, 34, 172, 173, 174 bequest to 89 Tisbury, Stephen of 52 Titchfield Abbey 25 n.72, 62, 203 abbot of 95 Titley Priory 13 n.14, 51 Tonbridge, manor and castle of 162 Tonbridge Priory 91, 137, 163, 164 bequest to 91, 163 burials in 137 foundation of 163 income of 138 Tony, Roger de 55 Torksey, villagers of 56 Torksey Priory 31 Torneham, Robert de and his wife Joan 50 Torre Abbey 92, 119 Totnes, house of Trinitarians at 52 Totnes Priory (Benedictine monks) 34, 198 prior of 198 Trentham Priory 38 n.141 Tupholme Abbey 46 Tutbury Priory 38 n.141 prior and convent of 100 Tynemouth Priory 34, 61, 173 fire at 79 Tywardreath Priory 28, 97 prior of 97 Ufford, Isabel, countess of Suffolk 78 n.65 Ufford, Robert de, earl of Suffolk 31, 114 will of 115

284

INDEX

Ulverscroft Priory 46 n.183 Umfraville, Gilbert (d.1421) 132 and n.133 Upholland Priory 36 Usk Priory 55, 164, 165, 171 Vale Royal Abbey 40 n.150 Valle Crucis Abbey 11 n.7, 15, 40, 41, 42, 203 Valor Ecclesiasticus 61 Vaux, family of 76 Vaux, John de (d.1288) 121 Vaux, Robert de 121 Rowland, nephew of 129 Verdun, family of 69, 138 burials of 138 Verdun, Theobald de (d.1309) 69, 138 Verdun, Theobald de (d.1316) 138 Elizabeth, wife of 75 Maud, wife of (d.1312) 138 Vere, Aubrey de (d.c.1112) 122 Vere, Aubrey de (d.1400) 123 Vere, de, earls of Oxford 35, 68, 84, 107, 119, 147, 193, 201, 207 family mausoleum of 119 Vere, George de (d.1503) 123 Vere, John de (d.1350) 122 Vere, John de (d.1360) 107, 122 burial of 115 Maud, wife of 122 John and Robert, sons of 115, 122 will of 115 Vere, John de (d.1513) 68, 84, 113, 123 Margaret, wife of 114 will of 68, 73–4, 82 and n.82, 91, 114, 115, 123 Vere, John de (d.1526) 123 Vere, Richard de (d.1417) 123 Alice, wife of (d.1452) 123 Vere, Robert de (d.1221) 123 Vere, Robert de (d.1296) 122 n.52 Alice, wife of (d.1312) 122 Vere, Robert de (d.1331) 122 Vere, Robert de (d.1392) 123 reburial of 140 Vere, Thomas de (d.1371) 122 Vescy, family of 48 Wake, Thomas, lord Liddell (d.1349) 25 n.70, 95, 134–5 burial of 134–5 Wakefield, battle of 154 Walden Abbey 25 n.71, 30, 38 n.141, 117, 125 burials in 30 n.94, 123–4 Walkfare, Robert 78

Wallingford Priory 159 burial in 159 Wallingwells Priory 145 Walsingham, Our Lady of 166 Walsingham Priory 164, 166 income of 166 Waltham, John, bishop of Salisbury 71, 142 Waltham Abbey 62 annual income of 62 Walton, Enisan de 104 Wangford Priory 34, 172, 174, 181 Warbleton Priory 11 n.4 Warden Abbey 34, 120 Warenne, John de, earl of Surrey 125 Warenne, William de 126, 171, 173 Gundreda, wife of 126, 173 Warre, de la, family of 13 n.17, 48 Warter Priory 34, 120, 202 bequest to 82–3, 83 n.84, 88 burials in 83, 120 dissolution of 202 inventory of 91 Warwick, earls of 47, 55 see also Beauchamp, Thomas Warwick, earldom of 28 Waterbeach see Denney Priory Watton Priory 48 Waverley Abbey 11 Waynflete, William, bishop of Winchester 17 n.33, 45 Welbeck Abbey 32, 62 abbot of 95, 96 advowson of 32 Wentworth, Philip 89 West, Thomas, lord de la Warr 80, 193, 196 chantry of 80 plea to Cromwell by 196 and n.14 West Dereham Abbey 62 West Ravendale Priory 46 Westminster Abbey, income of 64 Westmoreland, earls of 46, 117 Westwood Priory 49 Weybourne Priory 35 Weybridge Priory 34, 94, 172, 175 Whalley Abbey 38 n.141, 101 monks of 101 Wherwell Abbey 106, 196 Whistones Priory 56 Whitham Priory 42 Whitland Abbey 79 Wilberfoss Priory 55 William I, king of England 10, 13, 162, 171 Judith, niece of 106

285

INDEX

Wills 20 and n.48, 23, 81–5, 109, 185–6 Wilton Abbey 106 Winchester, bishops of 202 see also Edington, William; Roches, Peter des; Waynflete, William; Wykeham, William Winchester, Hyde Abbey 36 n.129 Winchester College 13 Wingfield, Anthony (d.1540) 127 Wingfield, family of 127–9 burials of 127 Wingfield, John (d.1389), brass of 113, 128 Wingfield, Robert (d.1409) 127 Wingfield, Thomas 127 Wingfield, William (d.1398) 127 Wingfield, William (d.1408) 127 Wingfield, William, brass of 128 Wingfield College 135 Wintney Priory 94, 108 burials in 108 cartulary of 108 elections at 108 Wix Priory 41 n.157, 55 Wolsey, Thomas, Cardinal 17 n.33, 43, 46 and n.187 Wood, Susan 1–5, 21 n.51, 22 n.54, n.56, 23 n.58, 24 Woodhowse, William 202 Woodkirk Priory 34, 175 Woodspring Priory 33, 201 Woodstock, Edmund 172 Worcester, bishops of 56, 77 see also Bransford, Wolstan de; Cantilupe, Walter de

Worcestre, William 89 Worksop Priory 73, 89, 138–9 building work at 89 burials in 138–9 canons of 73 Wormegay Priory 30 Wormsley Priory 196 Wotton-under-Edge, church of 160 Wykeham, William, bishop of Winchester 51 new college of, in Winchester 51 Wykeham Priory 57 Wymondham Priory / Abbey 29, 61, 78, 172, 174 building work at 90 burials in 143 monks and prior of 78 Yedingham Priory 106 York, Cecily, duchess of 72 York, duchy of 28 York, Grey Friars 172 York, Holy Trinity Priory 97 York, Richard, duke of 59 York, St Andrew’s Priory 49 York, St Mary’s Abbey 118 Zouche, Richard 200 Zouche, William, of Harringworth n.163, 43

42

Other Volumes in Studies in the History of Medieval Religion

I: Dedications of Monastic Houses in England and Wales 1066–1216 Alison Binns II: The Early Charters of the Augustinian Canons of Waltham Abbey, Essex, 1062–1230 Edited by Rosalind Ransford III: Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England Edited by Christopher Harper-Bill IV: The Rule of the Templars: the French text of the Rule of the Order of the Knights Templar Translated and introduced by J. M. Upton-Ward V: The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster Patricia H. Coulstock VI: William Waynflete: Bishop and Educationalist Virginia Davis VII: Medieval Ecclesiastical Studies in honour of Dorothy M. Owen Edited by M. J. Franklin and Christopher Harper-Bill VIII: A Brotherhood of Canons Serving God: English Secular Cathedrals in the Later Middle Ages David Lepine IX: Westminster Abbey and its People c.1050–c.1216 Emma Mason X: Gilds in the Medieval Countryside: Social and Religious Change in Cambridgeshire c.1350–1558 Virginia R. Bainbridge XI: Monastic Revival and Regional Identity in Early Normandy Cassandra Potts XII: The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich 1350–1540 Marilyn Oliva XIII: Pilgrimage to Rome in the Middle Ages: Continuity and Change Debra J. Birch XIV: St Cuthbert and the Normans: the Church of Durham 1071–1153 William M. Aird

XV: The Last Generation of English Catholic Clergy: Parish Priests in the Diocese of Coventry and Lichfield in the Early Sixteenth Century Tim Cooper XVI: The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England Joseph A. Gribbin XVII: Inward Purity and Outward Splendour: Death and Remembrance in the Deanery of Dunwich, Suffolk, 1370–1547 Judith Middleton-Stewart XVIII: The Religious Orders in Pre-Reformation England Edited by James G. Clark XIX: The Catalan Rule of the Templars: A Critical Edition and English Translation from Barcelona, Archito de la Corona de Aragón, ‘Cartes Reales’, MS 3344 Edited and translated by Judi Upton-Ward XX: Leper Knights: The Order of St Lazarus of Jerusalem in England, c.1150–1544 David Marcombe XXI: The Secular Jurisdiction of Monasteries in Anglo-Norman and Angevin England Kevin L. Shirley XXII: The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries Martin Heale XXIII: The Cartulary of St Mary’s Collegiate Church, Warwick Edited by Charles Fonge XXIV: Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries Valerie G. Spear XXV: The Art and Architecture of English Benedictine Monasteries, 1300–1540: A Patronage History Julian M. Luxford XXVI: Norwich Cathedral Close: The Evolution of the English Cathedral Landscape Roberta Gilchrist XXVII: The Foundations of Medieval English Ecclesiastical History Edited by Philippa Hoskin, Christopher Brooks and Barrie Dobson XXVIII: Thomas Becket and his Biographers Michael Staunton

Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c.1300-1540 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

History and supernatural medieval england

The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England

Parks in Medieval England (Medieval History and Archaeology)

Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

The Medieval Castles of Wales

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

Chivalry in Medieval England

The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England

The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England

Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England

Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England

Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

Studies in the History of Medieval Science

The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England

Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England (Routledge Research in Medieval Studies)

The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Ages of Faith: Popular Religion in Late Medieval England and Western Europe

Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship: Literature, Language and Politics in Late Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)

Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 20)

Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany

Late Medieval Monasteries and their Patrons: England and Wales, c.1300-1540 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Convent and the Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, 1350-1540 (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

History and supernatural medieval england

The Masculine Self in Late Medieval England

Parks in Medieval England (Medieval History and Archaeology)

Legends, Tradition and History in Medieval England

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

History and the Supernatural in Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series)

The Medieval Castles of Wales

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

Chivalry in Medieval England

The Dependent Priories of Medieval English Monasteries

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

The Liturgy in Medieval England: A History

The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England

The Kings and Their Hawks: Falconry in Medieval England

Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England

Telling Tales: Sources and Narration in Late Medieval England

Clerical Discourse and Lay Audience in Late Medieval England

Studies in the History of Medieval Science

The Detection of Heresy in Late Medieval England

Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England (Routledge Research in Medieval Studies)

The Culture of Medieval English Monasticism (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Ages of Faith: Popular Religion in Late Medieval England and Western Europe

Leadership in Medieval English Nunneries (Studies in the History of Medieval Religion)

The Creation of Lancastrian Kingship: Literature, Language and Politics in Late Medieval England (Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature)

Consuming Passions: The Uses of Cannibalism in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe (Studies in Medieval History and Culture, 20)

Humanism and Scholasticism in Late Medieval Germany

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