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The alien priories and the expulsion of aliens from England in 1378

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

A. K. McHardy
A. K. McHardy*
Affiliation:
University of London, Royal Holloway College
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Extract

The expulsion of aliens from England in 1378 forms one episode in the history of the alien priories, a story which began with the norman conquest and continued into the fifteenth century. The alien priories—they may be defined as the english dependencies of foreign religious houses—had been subjected to interference from the english crown since 1295, when Edward I’s seizure of them on the outbreak of the anglo-french war became the precedent, both of occasion and method, for the future. By 1378 the priories had been in crown hands during four periods of hostilities: 1295 to 1303, 1324 to 1327, 1337 to 1360, and again from 1369.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 12: Church Society and Politics , 1975 , pp. 133 - 141
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1975

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References

1 See New, C.W., History of the Alien Priories in England to the Confiscation of Henry V (Menash, Wisconsin 1916 privately printed)Google Scholar; Morgan, [Marjorie], [The English Lands of the Abbey of] Bee (Oxford 1946)Google Scholar; Matthew, [Donald], [The] Norman Monasteries [and their English Possessions] (Oxford 1962)Google Scholar; for the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, Morgan, [Marjorie], [‘The Suppression of the] Alien Priories’, History 26 (1941) pp 204-12CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The term ‘alien priories’ was not ecclesiastical but political and became current in 1295. It included both priories with full conventual life and cells which were not strictly priories since they housed only one or two monks. The situation was further complicated when alien monks left the country and the status of small cells became doubtful. Cammeringham, Lines, for example, was by 1395 described as ‘the manor otherwise called the priory’, CPR, 1391-6, p 579. The following discussion is not concerned with the manors and other pieces of property which had never had conventual status and which merely swelled the resources of a french house or cathedral.

3 Morgan, ‘Alien Priories’, p 205.

4 After 1369 they remained in crown hands until restored, under conditions, by Henry IV, 1399, ibid p 208, CPR, 1399-1401, pp 70-2.

5 Morgan, Bee p 121.

6 The commissions for keeping of alien priories were always careful to state that the king reserved to himself the advowsons which the priories possessed, and thus the amount of patronage at the crown’s disposal was vastly increased. From 1369 to 1398, for example, the patent rolls record 223 presentations to benefices formerly in the patronage either of alien priories of Lincoln diocese or to benefices within that diocese in the direct patronage of foreign religious houses. The total amount brought to the exchequer at any one time by the farming of the priories cannot be calculated because some farms are not known and because rates fluctuated, see Morgan, Bec p 121, Matthew, Norman Monasteries p 151.

7 Morgan, Bec p 2.

8 Though the cluniac nunnery of Delapré, Northants, was left undisturbed.

9 Commissions to farm the alien priories are to be found in the C[alendars of] F[ine] R[olls], passim.

10 Graham, Rose, English Ecclesiastical Studies (London 1929) p 49 Google Scholar.

11 PRO, Issue Roll, MS E403/392 m 28.

12 The prior of Tickford, when sued by the dean and chapter of Lichfield for a debt of 100 marks, replied that he could take no action without informing the king; the royal response was to issue two mandates to the justices of the common bench ordering judgement to be made, despite the prior’s objection, CCR, 1381-5 pp 29-30, 377-8. The same excuse was made by the prior of St Andrew’s, Northampton, in a lawsuit concerning property, and it met with the same result, CCR, 1385-9 p 74.

13 A series of eight writs concerning debts to Willoughton, Lincs, name the king as sole creditor, L[incolnshire] A[rchives] O[ffice] Lincoln Register 12B (Buckingham, Royal Writs) fols 19, 19v, 20, 21, 21v (2), 23 (2). Writs about debts to Lenton, Notts, and Eye, Suffolk, make the king joint creditor with the prior, ibid fols 24v, 27r/v.

14 Quoted by Morgan, ‘Alien Priories’, p 205.

15 By the canons of Rouen in 1334, and 1335, and by the canons of Coutances in 1336, Matthew, Norman Monasteries p 104.

16 Weedon Bec, Northants, was leased out to a layman in 1353, Morgan, Bec p 114.

17 The first was the cluniac priory of Lewes in 1351, Knowles, D., The Religious Orders in England 2 (Cambridge 1955) p 159 Google Scholar.

18 1346, Rot[uli] Parl[iamentorum,] ed J. Strachey (London 1767-77) 3 p 22.

19 The first commissions to laymen were made in 1371 but these were only temporary: Panfield, Essex, sede vacante, and Burwell, Lincs, ‘until the prior shall return from abroad’, CFR, 1369-77 pp 135, 136. In 1373 seven houses were farmed to laymen ‘for as long as the war with France shall endure’, this being the usual form. These were Takeley, Essex, 3 June; Stratfield Saye, Berks, 20 June; Monks Toft, Norfolk, 6 October; West Mersea, Essex, 19 November; Sporle, Norfolk, 3 December; Minster Lovel, Oxon, 7 December; Panfield, 14 December; ibid pp 214, 213, 220, 222-5, 232.

20 Rot Parl 3 p 22.

21 The numbers of commissions are: 1370: 33; 1371: 21; 1372: 12; 1373: 10; 1374: 15; 1375: 15; 1376: 21; January-September 1377: 21.

22 Frampton, Dorset, 6 April 1370, CFR, 1369-77 p 72.

23 Burwell, 24 October 1371, ibid p 136.

24 Monks Toft, prior, £20 plus £30 arrears, 1370; George Felbrugge king’s esquire, £33-6-8d plus £30 arrears, 1373; prior, £60, 1376; prior, 100 marks, and tenths with the clergy, May 1377, ibid pp 81, 220, 358-9, 403.

25 The numbers of commissions to priors compared with totals are 1370: 26/33; 1371: 16/21; 1372 9/12; 1373: 1/10; 1374: 5/15; 1375: 2/15; 1376: 17/21 January-September 1377: 19/21.

26 Including two each for Brimpsfield, Gloucs; Minster Lovel, Oxon; and Takeley, Essex.

27 Hugh earl of Stafford, brother Michael Cheyne and the prior farmed Wootton Wawen, Warwicks, CFR, 1377-81 p 29.

28 Hayling, Hants, and St Neots, Hunts, ibid pp 16, 19; the abbot of Barlings farmed Cammeringham, both Lines, ibid p 30.

29 Ellingham, Hants, Frampton, Dorset (Henry Wakefield, bishop of Worcester), Minster Lovel, Oxon (two commissions), Takeley (vacated, the keeping returned to the prior), Titley, Herefs, ibid pp 23, 48, 29, 19, 18-9, 30.

30 Brimpsfield (two), Panfield, Throwley, Kent, Monks Kirby, Warwicks, ibid pp 22, 36-7, 22, 20-1, 27.

31 Four of the priories, Bermondsey, Surrey, Brimpsfield, Kerswell, Devon, and St Neots appear in commissions for the first time since the resumption of war.

32 As happened at Edith Weston, Rutland, and Hinckley, Leics, CFR, 1369-77 p 311, CFR, 1377-83 p 19; CFR, 1369-77 p 286, CFR, 1377-83 p 17.

33 At Beckford, Gloucs, and Coggs the priors supplanted laymen, CFR, 1369-77 p 255, CFR, 1377-83 p 14; CFR, 1369-77 p 302, CFR, 1377-83 p 41. The prior of Loders, Dorset, displaced a king’s clerk, CFR, 1369-77 p 217, CFR 1377-83 p 15.

34 CFR, 1369-77 p 383, CFR, 1377-83 PP 20-1.

35 Ibid pp 75-6, 79-82.

36 The figures are, 1378: 17+6/39; 1379: 11/23; 1380: 5/9; 1381: 9+2/22.

37 1382: 2+1/12.

38 CPR, 1399-1401 pp 70-2.

39 At St Neots this was due primarily to the longevity of William of Saint-Vaast, appointed prior of Ogbourne, Wilts, and proctor-general of the abbot of Bee in March 1364, who was still alive on 28 October 1404, Morgan, Bec p 126.

40 7 December, CFR, 1391-9 p 171.

41 CFR, 1383-91 p 255.

42 CPR, 1385-9 p 527.

43 23 October 1377, CFR, 1377-83 p 27.

44 Commissions to outsiders were issued on 16 April 1386, CFR, 1383-91, p 137, and 7 November 1393, CFR, 1391-9 p 94. Beaugrant was appointed 26 January 1394, ibid p 109.

45 See, for example, royal presentations to Stogursey, Somerset, 1374, Modbury, Devon, 1375, Barnstaple, Devon, 1376, CPR, 1374-7 pp 9, 93, 393.

46 LAO, Lincoln Register 10 (Buckingham, Institutions I) fol 370.

47 LAO, Lincoln Register 11 (Buckingham, Institutions II) fol 24.

48 The usual sum set aside for maintaining a monk was £10 p.a., CFR 1369-77 pp 220, 223-4, 232, 292.

49 See, for example, the commission to farm Hayling, Hants, 1382, CFR, 1377-83 p 284.

50 Rot Part 2 p 342.

51 Eighteen priors also obtained permission to stay in 1378, Matthew, Norman Monasteries appendix III.

52 Wykeham’s Register, ed T. F. Kirby, Hampshire Record Society (1896-9) 1 p 207, 2, p 354.

53 Registrum Simonis de Sudbiria, ed R. C. Fowler, CYS 38, 2 (1938) pp 1-4, 23, 25, 34, 38, 58.

54 Registrum Simonis Langham, ed A. C. Wood, CYS, 53 (1956) p 375.

55 Registrum Johannis Gilbert, ed J. H. Parry, CYS, 18 (1915) pp 130, 166, 170.

56 The Register of Thomas de Brantyngham, ed F. C. Hingeston-Randolph, 2 (London and Exeter 1906) pp 753, 756, 773, 776.

57 This happened, for example, at Newton Longville, Bucks, when, on the death of the alien John Boys, a monk of St Andrew’s, Northampton, William de Buckby by name, was given permission to replace him, CPR, 1381-5 p 329.

58 Matthew, Norman Monasteries p 157; PRO, Clerical Subsidies, MS E179/35/16, m 3.

59 John Rogger, monk of St Pierre-sur-Dives was admitted, at Richard II’s nomination, as prior of Modbury in March 1399, on taking an oath of allegiance, Eton College Records, 1 (Modbury)/44.

60 Ibid 1/130 (1432), 131 (1438), 132 (1442), 135 (1456), 79 (1470).

61 Rot Parl 3 pp 64, 96.