The Monasteries of Leicestershire in the Fifteenth Century

MONASTERIES OP LEICESTERSHIRE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 89 THE MONASTERIES OF LEICESTERSHIRE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. BY A. HAMILTON THOMPSON, M.A., F.S.A. Among the detached reports of visitations of religious houses made by William Alnwick, bishop of Lincoln from 1436 to 1449, and now preserved in the diocesan registry at Lincoln, are several documents relating to Leicestershire monasteries. An edition of the original MS. of Alnwiek's visitations with a translation is now in the press, and before long it is hoped that students will thus have an opportunity of studying a work which, in spite of its almost unparalleled interest to the historian and sociologist, has hitherto been much neglected.* At the same time, a brief sum mary of the information given in these official reports with regard to the state of the Leicestershire religious houses may be of special interest to members of this Society. There was no monastery of Benedictine monks in Leicestershire, for the small priory of Belvoir, a cell dependent upon St. Alban's abbey, was just over the border of Lincoln. The Cistercian monks of Garendon and the Premonstratensian canons of Croxton* were, like all houses of their orders and like all houses of friars, exempt from episcopal visitation. The bishop had the right of demanding procurations in food and lodging from them during his primary visitation of his diocese, but no power of judicial examination or correction of offences as ordinary. The houses visited, in addition to the secular college in the Newarke at Leicestershire, wtre thus convents of Austin canons and nunneries. Of the two abbeys and six priories of Austin canons which the county contained, all were visited with the insignificant exceptions of Bradley priory, near Medbourne, and Charley priory, in the heart of Charnwood forest. The nunneries were two in number, the Benedictine priory of Langley and the priory of Austin nuns at Gracedieu. William Alnwick was translated from the see of Norwich to that • A general account of these visitations, with special reference to the injunctions which followed them, is given by the present writer in Proceedings Soc. Antiq. 2d. ser. XXVI., 180203. Some of them have been partially summarised in the Victoria County Histories of Bucks., Lincolnshire, and Oxon. b Often confused with the Cistercian abbey of Croxden in Staffordshire. 90 LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHITECTURAL SOCIETY. of Lincoln in 1436.* His new diocese embraced eight counties and part of a ninth, and there is no doubt that, like other bishops of Lincoln, he found his primary visitation of this new area in person a matter of some time and difficulty, which must have been interrupted by his business at the court of his friend and patron, King Henry VI. He does not seem to have visited Leicestershire officially until the summer of 1438. He was at Liddington until 10 July at any rate, and was back there by 2 August. The sole record of this visitation relates to Ulverscroft priory, where he arrived on 29 July. We may picture to ourselves once and for all the manner of his reception, which on these occasions was uniform. 11 Travelling with his household clerks and bodyservants, he was met at the west or the principal outer doorway of the conventual church by the members of the convent with the processional cross, tapers, and incense. Kneeling at a faldstool set before the door, he was censed and sprinkled with holy water by the abbot or prior, as the case might be. Then rising, he took his place in the procession. The precentor of the convent began the anthem. " With the standard of the holy Cross borne aloft before them, while the bells rang and the organs made music," ° the bishop came to the high altar, from which he gave his blessing to the assembled people, if, as sometimes happened, local layfolk joined the convent in welcoming his arrival. If he came in the afternoon, he was probably entertained for the night in the abbot's or prior's lodging, and held his visitation at the usual hour for chapter next morning. If he came earlier, he probably proceeded straight from the altar to the chapterhouse; but not unfrequently high mass was celebrated upon his arrival, and, after he had changed his ridinghabit for his cassock and gown—bishops did not live in their copes and mitres—he proceeded to the business of the visitation with his assessors and clerks. On 29 July, 1438, then, after some such preliminaries, the bishop tt>ok his seat, 'judicially as a tribunal'"1 in the chapterhouse at Ulverscroft. He was attended by two assessors, Dr. Thomas "For some account of his previous history, see Visitations of Religious Houses (Lincoln Record Soc.), I., xviii., xix. Most writers give a very inaccurate account of it, e.g., the writer in Diet. Nat. Biog., who confuses him with a Benedictine monk of the same name, and J. H. Wylie, Hist. England under Henry IV., III., 149, who blends into one the careers of three totally distinct persons, the bishop, the Benedictine, and a Premonstratensian canon. b A detailed account of bishop Gray's reception at Lincoln minster in 1432 is printed in Visitations of Rtliyious Houses, ut sup. I., 128, sqq. The proceedings at the visitation of a monastery were identical, mutatis mutandis. c This is the procedure as formally described in various passages of Visitations of the Dioceie of Norwich, ed. Jessopp (Camden Soc.) In Alnwick's visitations, the procedure before the bishop's arrival in the chapterhouse is omitted. 11 Sedens ju.dicia.Hter pro tribmiali—ihe stereotyped phrase. MONASTERIES OF LEICESTERSHIRE IN THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY. 91 Duffeld, and John "Depyng, probably the most capable lawyer among the canons of Lincoln—and to be the most capable lawyer in a mediaeval chapter was to be one of the foremost lawyers in the realm." His two notaries were Thomas Thorpe and the aged Thomas Colstone, the servant of the bishops of Lincoln for halfa century, in whose minute and tireless handwriting the records of these proceedings are written. When all had taken their seats, the visitation sermon was preached by Duffeld from the text " Let all things among you be done in order "b a free version of 1 Cor. xiv., 40. The bishop then asked for various documents from the prior—the certificate of the writ of visitation, shewing that its requirements had been complied with, the foundation charter of the house, the prior's certificate of the confirmation of his election. The prior in this case had only imperfect evidence of the founda tion to shew, and, as we shall see, he came badly out of the whole affair; but the bishop seems to have passed what evidence he had, took his oath of obedience, and proceeded to examine him and his brethren, one by one. This examination, of course, was conducted privately. In small convents, the brethren were called into the chapterhouse separately : but in large houses, the bishop generally got through the business more quickly by deputing one of his assessors to help him, so that two brethren could be examined simultaneously. At Ulverscroft there were only seven canons and a novice. John Annesley was prior, Thomas Flory subprior, John Whitewyke precentor, Eobert Eodyngton sacrist, John Zouche chamberlain, John Broghton fraterer. John Tamworth was the only canon without an office: the novice's name was Thomas Kynde. 0 It is clear that the discipline of the house was extremely lax. The prior admitted that it was £5 in debt, and confessed that he had not rendered an account of his administration to the convent for three years past, adding that he was prepared to do so at Michaelmas. The canons were insubordinate : they wandered about the neigh bourhood without leave and sometimes left him alone in the priory. a This is true, at any rate, of the later thirteenth and earlier fourteenth centuries. Archdeacons and canons of a later period were not so prominent in public affairs, though they often occupied useful positions in the exchequer and other offices of central government. For an account of John Depyng see Visitations of Religious Houses, ut sup., I., 190. * Omnia secundum ordinem fiant in vobis. • 0 The surnames of religious in these visitations are interesting as showing the relative area of the districts from which members of convents were drawn. Of the five placenames which occur in the Ulverscroft list, Broghton is too general to be identified. Whitewyke (Whitwick) is the only one from the immediate neighbourhood. Rodyngton (Ruddington) is in Nottinghamshire between Loughborough and Nottingham, but within easy distance of Ulverscroft. Annes ley is north of Nottingham, and Tamworth is on the borders of Staffordshire and Warwickshire. 92 LEICESTERSHIRE ARCHITECTURAL SOCIETY. Rodyngtou was in the habit of roaming in the woods, birdsnesting ' and catching other woodland beasts ' : a moreover, when he was at home, he chattered about convent business to the lay servants, and the servants told tales abroad. Tamworth had kept a cuirass* in the priory—a double offence, as not only was the article unsuit able to the religious life, but its possession by a single member of the house was against the rule of community of property. Further, he had sold it without leave to a carpenter at Bardon Hill" and kept the money. Broghton got cash from outside—from his mother and sister, he said,—and lent it to others. When guests came, the whole convent joined in entertaining them, and sat up eating and drinking and making a noise after compline, wasting the goods of the house.

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