Historical Memorials of Beauchief Abbey
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Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from University of Toronto http://www.archive.org/details/historicalmemoriOObeau ^i^ III jli ^^^ X 3 2 re ^d^-l = ^ ffiilfUiitllr "trl: /•/5 ^ '^ — ©rDmis IJrfmongtratcnsts. HISTORICAL MEMORIALS BEAUCHIEF ABBEY. SIDNEY OLDALL ADDY, M.A., Oxon. 'We beheld the satd monastery adorned with such fair decorations, buildings, and repairs, that well may it be said with the prophet, 'o lord, i hate loved the beauty of THINE HOUSE.'" Visitation of Beav.ch.ief, in 1491. Oxford and London: JAMES PARKER and CO. Sheffield: LEADER and SONS. OS Sheffield : Pbinted by Leader and Sons, Bane Stkeet. ; PREFACE. HAVING spent the greater part of my life in the immediate neighbourhood of the monastery which forms the subject of the following pages, I was induced, some three years ago, I scarce know how, partly perhaps by a natural inclination towards the study of antiquities, partly by the genius of the place, to set on foot some enquiries concerning it. The judicious and learned Dr. Samuel Pegge had already published, in 1801, a laborious work on the same subject, so that my antiquarian ambition appeared to have been, to some extent, forestalled in limine, and accordingly my first intention was to edit, with some additions, the work of my predecessor, more especially as it had become rare and very costly. But I soon abandoned my original scheme. It is almost a hundred years since Dr. Pegge began his Historical Account of Beauchief Abbey ; and I need scarcely say that, since his day, the accumulation of historical material now arranged and made accessible to the public has been immense. The discovery of a ms. in the Cottonian Library (a translation of which forms chapter iii. of this work) alone determined me to compile an entirely new book. It would have been impossible to incorporate that ms. in the work of my predecessor, without rendering many of his conclusions nugatory. In short, the new wine would not have agreed with the old bottle, and I could not throw such heterogeneous matter into anything like a readable shape. Moreover, Dr. Pegge's work consists of little more than an abstract of the chartulary of the Abbey—a vellum ms. containing 113 quarto leaves, which is now amongst the collections of Philip Bryan Davies-Cooke, Esq., of Owston, near Doncaster. Mr. Davies-Cooke was so obliging as to offer me every facility for making use of the chartulary ; but I found I could add little or nothing to the complete abstract of its contents which Dr. Pegge's work contains. All I could have done would have been to transcribe the whole volume, and publish it with an analysis and index and that, considering what has been already done, would have been almost a work of supererogation. But I have, nevertheless, made use of mss. which afiford information of more general interest, as I venture to think, than mere details of the conventual estates iv. Preface. and the pedigrees of the various donors. The first of these is a long Obituary, forming part of Cotton ms., CaHgula e. viii. (Brit. Mus.) Of this Obituary I pro- cured a transcript, which was collated by the able hands of W. H. Hart, Esq., F.S.A., the well-known editor of the Historia et Cartularium Monasterii S. Petri Gloitces- tria, (Record Pubhcations,) &c.,&c. I must here express my obligations to Mr. Hart for the great services he has rendered me. Peck's ms. collections for a supplement to the Momsticon AngUcanum (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 4934) have supplied me with matter of the greatest interest, particularly the letters and proceedings respecting Abbot Downham's misrule and deposition. Peck copied largely from a ms. which he cites as " Reg. Prem.;" but, except Ash- mole's MS., referred to below, I have not succeeded in discovering any Register of the order. Peck, unfortunately, gives no reference ; neither does Mr. Kirke, who in a paper in the Reliquary (Ap. 1867,) on Beauchief, quotes either directly or indi- rectly from two Premonstratensian Registers or Visitation Books, and I have much regretted my inability to discover their whereabouts. Dr. Pegge has made some use of Peck's mss., but he has contented himself with making imperfect copies of the two English letters, given at pp. 74 and 77 of this work. He has omitted Abbot Green's letter (p. 80) altogether, and given a scanty summary of the most interesting part of the abbey's history in an appendix. Ashmole's MS., 1519 (Bodleian), is a Visitation Book of the order in England, between the years 1475— 1501. From this volume and Peck's mss. all the visita- tions (except the first, which is taken from Mr. Kirke's paper,) contained in this history have been taken. I am indebted to the Rev. H. O. CoxE, Bodley's Libra- rian, for drawing my attention to the Ashmolean ms. ; and to W. H. Turner, Esq., of the Bodleian, for his well-executed transcripts of such portions of it as relate to Beauchief. The volume itself is of great historical value. Fosbrooke used it largely in the compilation of his British Monachism, and it is noticed, passim, in the account of Premonstratensian abbeys in the Monasticon. I wonder that a volume of such extraordinary interest has not long ago been published ; for it gives a better account of monastic life in England during the years which it covers, than, perhaps, any other record; and that, too, at a period when English history requires much elucidation. The owner of Beauchief Abbey, Edward Valentine Pegge-Burnell, Esq., now gone to his rest, generously placed at my disposal all the ancient records of his Preface. v. family. With the kind assistance of Mr. Sampson, I was enabled to search the muniment room at Beauchief Hall; but Dr. Pegge had left few of the deeds and papers there unnoticed. A very remarkable charter, however, a facsimile of which forms the frontispiece of this volume, was found there. I have copied it in Appen- dix A, and its contents are noticed at page 64. The Rev. H. H. Pearson, Vicar of Norton, was kind enough to entrust to me a box of old charters in his possession. Three or four of them are grants and quit- claims to the abbey; but they are all in the chartulary, and are abstracted by Pegge. The seals appended to these charters have been drawn by my sister, Miss S. E. Addy, and will be found at page 150. I must thank my sister, too, for the drawing of the abbey, at page 150. It is taken from an engraving, done in the last century, with the addition of the belfry shown in Buck's view (1727). I must also express my obligations to J. D. Leader, Esq., F.S.A., whose ex- tensive knowledge of the antiquities of Sheffield and its neighbourhood, always at my disposal, has been of great service to me. I am indebted to him for acquainting me with the curious " Survey" (page 123) of Dronfield church; and more so for the care with which he has read the sheets of this work when it was passing through the press, and for the suggestions by which many of its imperfections have been removed. To Benjamin Bagshawe, Esq., Jun., of Sheffield ; Dr. Sykes and Dr. Fairbank, of Doncaster; to Henry Bradley, Esq., of Sheffield; Miss Toulmin Smith, of of Highbury; J. H. Flather, Esq., B.A., of Cambridge; Thomas Jones, Esq., Jun., Sheffield, I for valuable Povey ; and the Rev. J. Stacye, of am indebted many pieces of information. My friend Mr. Bagshawe, in particular, by his large acquaintance with the antiquities of North Derbyshire, and the various sources of its historical material, has often pointed out books and mss. I might otherwise have discovered with difficulty or sought for in vain. My obligations to Miss Toulmin Smith are acknowledged in another place, (pp. 119, 123.) But my chief thanks are due to the Rev. F. M. Geudens, of Crowle, near Doncaster, himself a Canon Regular of the Premonstratensian order. Canon Geudens has revised the whole of the Obituary, and some of the Visitations contained in chapters v. and vi. To his learning, especially in matters pertaining to his order, I am indebted for many valuable notes, particularly on the numerous monasteries mentioned and the abbots and other celebrated persons commemorated in the Obituarj'. "; vi. Preface. To some extent, I feel that I must reproach myself for not having printed the unpublished records contained in this volume in their original language. But I was supposed to be writing a book which, in a great measure, was topographical and I was therefore induced to translate for the benefit of the general reader records which, in their original Latin, would have been more valuable to the exact student of history. The translations, however, have been done with all the care I could bestow upon them, and where there was any ambiguity or doubt, I have, in all cases, given the original in the notes. I suppose I need not make any apology for having spelt the name " Beauchief with one/. The modern Beauchief/ is an innovation some ten or twentj' years old. In all the printed books I have seen—and they are not a few—which mention this place, one / only is used. As the suffix is the French chef, it would be quite as erroneous to write "chieff" or "chiefftain" as " Beauchief/'." I have scrupulously avoided all questions of controversial theology : indeed, it was scarcely possible that, in such a work as this, theology could creep in at all.