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Changes in the Grange Economy of English and Welsh Cistercian Abbeys, 1300-1540

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

James S. Donnelly
James S. Donnelly*
Affiliation:
Fordham University
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Extract

In that flowering of new monasticism which began in the eleventh century and continued into the twelfth, along with so many other rich and complex developments, to make the twelfth century a great one, the new Order of Citeaux was the most influential and significant. This was no less true in England than on the continent; in fact, the Cistercian Order very probably enjoyed even greater advantage and renown in England than those other orders founded contemporaneously. Its ‘great and powerful influence over the religious and social life of the country,’ even until the dissolution, is beyond doubting. Starting with Waverley (1128) in Surrey, Rievaulx (1132) and Fountains (1132) in Yorkshire, and, for Wales, Tintern (1131) and Whitland (1140) in Monmouthshire and Carmarthenshire respectively, the Order spread with such astonishing rapidity that it numbered 40 in England and Wales by the end of 1153, not counting the abbeys of the Order of Savigny, which became part of the Cistercian Order in 1147 and numbered 12 in England and Wales, with Furness (1123) in Lancashire greatest among them. Beyond this era of settlement, between 1164 and the end of 1198, 11 were established (if we include the short-lived Wyresdale), and between 1201 and 1281 an additional 12 abbeys. But the expansion was then at dead end, and the two remaining abbeys were founded much later in an environment sharply contrasting with that sought by early Cistercians: St. Mary Graces (1350), near the tower of London, so strange a location for a Cistercian abbey, and St. Bernard's College, Oxford (1437), for Cistercian scholars who formerly used Rewley (1281) while studying at the University. In all, including the two latecomers, the abbeys numbered 77 in England and Wales.

Type
Articles
Information
Traditio , Volume 10 , 1954 , pp. 399 - 458
Copyright
Copyright © Fordham University Press 

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165 On the English Cistercians at this time, see Graham, Rose, ‘The Great Schism and the English Monasteries of the Cistercian Order, * EHR 44 (1929) 373–87. The question of tithes is not treated.Google Scholar

166 Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland: Papal Letters, ed. Bliss, W. H. et al. (5 vols. London 1893-1904) V (1396-1404) 161.Google Scholar

167 Burton, John, Monasticon Eboracense: and the Ecclesiastical History of Yorkshire (York 1758) 147.Google Scholar

168 Beck, (Annales Furnes. 92) says in regard to the privilege, ‘… finding however that this privilege was strongly opposed, the Cistertians [sic] petitioned against it in Parliament in the year 1400…’ It is incredible that they would initiate such action.Google Scholar

169 Ibid. 92; Rotuli Parliamentorum III 464-65.Google Scholar

170 Beck, Annales Furnes. 93.Google Scholar

171 Calendar of Entries, Papal Letters V 516. But the translation of one very important phrase (italics mine) in Boniface IX's paraphrasing of the exemption by Boniface VIII is unusual: ‘… Boniface VIII… granted the order that from their lands, cultivated and uncultivated, granted by them to be cultivated, provided that from the cultivators they did not take tithes or first-fruits, no one should exact the same from them or from such cultivators.’ See above, p. 421 f.Google Scholar

172 Calendar of Entries, Papal Letters V 516: ‘At the recent petition of the Cistercian abbot and convent of St. Mary's Kyngiswode — containing that because such letters have been granted to the order in general, they are in many ways molested in the matter of the above privileges…’Google Scholar

173 Canivez, Statuta 4.76 (1405) no. 19.Google Scholar

174 Ibid. 4.314 (1427) no. 26, 618 (1449) no. 22.Google Scholar

175 Canivez, Statuta 3.3 (1262) no. 10: ‘Item, statuit et ordinat Capitulum generale quod cum aliquis abbas alicui monacho vel converso suo aliquam grangiam suam ad firmam concedit, soluto censu in quo tenetur monachus vel conversus abbatiae, residuum bonorum sibi commissae grangiae non appropriet, nec praeter ordinationem abbatis aliquid inde facere audeat vel praesumat.’Google Scholar

176 EHR 51.197-98.Google Scholar

177 Canivez, Statuta 2.477 (1261) no. 10: ‘Cum per diversis casibus seu necessitatibus frequenter contingere soleat quod abbates grangias in manibus saecularium sub annuo censu sine aliis modis committant… ‘Google Scholar

178 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 310-11 no. 76: ‘Et grangias suas de Sutton, Sleningford, Galghagh, Aldeburgh cum Nuttewith, Flattewith et Tanfeldridding, Bramlay, Kilnesay, Cayton, cum le Gollescroft et stagno vivarii sui ibidem Thorpunderwodde, Marton, cum Caldewell, Balderbi, Buskeby, Arneford, Nethirbordelay, Overbordelay, Couton, Grenebergh, Merston, Kirkebywist, Bradelay, Malghom, Brenbem…’Google Scholar

179 Chart. of Fountains 213.Google Scholar

180 Chart. of Fountains 111; Walbran (Memorials of Fountains I 203 n. 2) mentioned this license given by Brother Bernard and intended to print it.Google Scholar

181 Chart. of Fountains 111-12.Google Scholar

182 Ibid. 112.Google Scholar

183 EHR 51.197.Google Scholar

184 Chart. of Fountains 781.Google Scholar

185 Ibid. 314-15: ‘… whereas the said tenants of Winkeslay [a vill] have demanded from the said tenants of the Abbot a part of the tax on wool granted to the King in the 15th year of his reign for the ninth of sheaves, fleeces and lambs granted in the same year, it has been agreed that the tenants of Galghagh, having this time paid a sum of money … for the sheaves growing the same year, in full for that portion of the land of the said manor which is in Winkeslay, this is not to prejudice them in the future…; but if the said manor of Galghagh shall be in the hands of the Abbot or his successors, not leased to lay tenants, they shall not be liable for such payment,’Google Scholar

186 Memorials of Fountains I 203-5 no. 42.Google Scholar

187 Ibid.: ‘Petitionem … continentem quod cum haberent multas grangias, ante guerras Scottorum et Anglorum, nunc perditas, combustas, et quasi ad nichilum redactas, quas non possunt reedificare … habuerunt et habent [granges previously named] ad eorum monasterium pertinentes, quae per hostiles incursus Scottorum, guerrarum incommoda, pestilencias mortalitatum et tempestatum in illis partibus pridem contingencium, et alios casus fortuitos adeo fuerunt et sunt in suis edificiis collapsae; ipsarumque terrae dudum fertiles et comodiferae, quasi penitus ad sterilitatem sunt redactae…’Google Scholar

188 Purvis, J. S. (ed.), Monastic Chancery Proceedings (Yorkshire) (Yorkshire Archaeological Society, Record Series 88 [1934]) 40 no. 36.Google Scholar

189 Memorials of Fountains I 242-50 no. 65.Google Scholar

190 Ibid. I 219-20 no. 52.Google Scholar

191 Ibid. III 7-8 (1456-57), 42 (1457-58), 82-83 (1458-59).Google Scholar

192 Ibid. III 7-8, 42, 86-87.Google Scholar

193 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII 14, pt. 2.208-9 no. 589.Google Scholar

194 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 311-12 no. 77; Memorials of Fountains I 254-55.Google Scholar

195 See Dugdale, , Mon. Ang. V 291.Google Scholar

196 The Atkinson family was long connected with the abbey in such capacities. One Thomas Atkinson, perhaps father of the above-mentioned Thomas, was made keeper of Haddockstones in 1491; William Atkinson was keeper of Lofthouse, Edward IV 21; and Atkinson, Richard, keeper of the dairy at Newhouse, 2 Richard III to 3 Henry VII. See Memorials of Fountains 1 232 n. 1.Google Scholar

197 Ibid. Google Scholar

198 Ibid. 233.Google Scholar

199 Ibid. 233-35.Google Scholar

200 Purvis, Select Causes (n. 9 supra) 1-2 no. 1.Google Scholar

201 Ibid. 6.Google Scholar

202 Ibid. 7.Google Scholar

203 Ibid. 3.Google Scholar

204 Chron. de Melsa II xxii, 175Google Scholar

205 Ibid. III lxi.Google Scholar

206 Ibid. III lx-lxi. The receipts for 1399 (ibid. III 275) vary little from those of 1396, being £626 15s.Google Scholar

207 According to the Ministers’ Accounts, 31 Henry VIII, Saltaghe grange was valued at £10; More grange, 10s.; Okton, £5 6s. 8d.: and Blaunchemarle, £3. Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 397-98.Google Scholar

208 EHR 51.197-98.Google Scholar

209 Coucher Book of Kirkstall 330; referred to in the record of an inquisition, March 23, 1329.Google Scholar

210 Stansfeld, ‘Rent-Roll of Kirkstall,’ loc. cit. 10-13.Google Scholar

211 Ibid. 17. Stansfeld estimated that the demesne ‘must have been very considerable.’Google Scholar

212 Baildon, Notes, n. 113 supra) 191-92 no. 8.Google Scholar

213 Ibid. 192 no. 13.Google Scholar

214 Chart. of Sallay I 154-55, dated Jan. 16, 1323-24; Coucher Book of Whalley 99-101 no. 33, dated 1333.Google Scholar

215 Chart. of Sallay I 118-19 no. 191, dated Aug. 13, 1371.Google Scholar

216 Ibid. I 136-37 no. 221, dated Aug. 5, 1392.Google Scholar

217 Ibid. II 51 no. 476, the indenture being dated Christmas Eve, 1362.Google Scholar

218 Cart. de Rievalle 423, App. no. 102.Google Scholar

219 Ragg, ‘Charters to Byland,’ loc. cit. 256-57.Google Scholar

220 Purvis, Select Causes 119 no. 34.Google Scholar

221 Coucher Book of Furness I 661-62, 604, 316-17, 633-37; II 178-79, 593-94, 629.Google Scholar

222 Ibid. I 661-62 no. 428.Google Scholar

223 Ibid. I 604 no. 394.Google Scholar

224 Ibid. I 633-37; Beck, Annales Furnes. 231.Google Scholar

225 Coucher Book of Furness II 178-79 no. 12.Google Scholar

226 Ibid. II 261 no. 51, dated 1300-30; a grant of common of pasture in Hackinsall and Preesall for the monks’ cattle of Stalmine grange.Google Scholar

227 Ibid. II 427 no. 104.Google Scholar

228 Ibid. II 86 no. 6, dated May 28, 1349.Google Scholar

229 Ibid. II 357-60.Google Scholar

230 Ibid. II 652. In the rental of 1537, after the suppression, account is rendered for ‘£40 from the above-named Henry, earl of Cumberland, for the farm of the manor or grange of Wynterburn in Yorkshire with all the lands and tenements, rents, reversions, and services, meadows, feeding-grounds, and pastures …, with all and singular their appurtenances lying and being in Wynterburn, Asshton, Flaxbye and Heton, thus demised to him at farm…’Google Scholar

231 Ibid. I 636.Google Scholar

232 Ibid. II 578-79.Google Scholar

233 Ibid. II 643-44.Google Scholar

234 Ibid. II 180-84 no. 14.Google Scholar

235 Ibid. II 187 no. 6.Google Scholar

236 Ibid. II 629.Google Scholar

237 Ibid. II 588, 593 94, 597-98.Google Scholar

238 Ibid. II 642-43.Google Scholar

239 Coucher Book of Whalley 382 no. 8. One may at least speculate on whether the monks intended to rent in view of the legislation of the general chapter permitting renting in 1208.Google Scholar

240 Ibid. 475-76 no. 9.Google Scholar

241 Ibid. 478 no. 11.Google Scholar

242 Ibid. 547-48 no. 11.Google Scholar

243 Ibid. 1222.Google Scholar

244 Ibid. 1158-61.Google Scholar

245 Whitaker, History of Whalley 56-57 (statement of 1320 on occasion of visitation by abbot of Cumbermere); 61-62 (statement of 1366 on occasion of visitation by abbot of Rievaulx).Google Scholar

246 Ibid. 62.Google Scholar

247 Ibid. 80, 85.Google Scholar

248 Ibid. 1248-50, 1250-51, 1242-43, 1252.Google Scholar

249 Chron. de Parco Lude 72-74.Google Scholar

250 Ibid. 68-69, 51.Google Scholar

251 Ibid. 67-68.Google Scholar

252 Ibid. 70; Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 415.Google Scholar

253 Ledger-Book of Vale Royal 162-63.Google Scholar

254 Ibid. 163.Google Scholar

255 Dugdale, , Mon. Ang. V 701, dated March 21, 30 Henry VIII.Google Scholar

256 Waller, , ‘Records of Tiltey,’ loc. cit. 119. Unfortunately, the editor gives an abstract that is neither complete nor clear, rather than the full text of this lease.Google Scholar

257 Ibid. 121.Google Scholar

258 See above, p. 419.Google Scholar

259 Calendar of Entries, Papal Letters V (1396-1404) 514.Google Scholar

260 Graham, Rose, V.C.H., Gloucestershire II 101, citing Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 428.Google Scholar

261 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 431.Google Scholar

262 Clark, Cartae IV 153.Google Scholar

263 Gray, ‘Notes on the Granges of Margam,’ loc.cit.: Melis, Penhydd Waeelod, Hafod, Hafodheulog, Llanmihangel (St. Michael's), Eglwysnunyd, Le Newe Grange, Groes-wen, Grugwallt, Theodoric's Hermitage, Llanbugeilydd.Google Scholar

264 Ibid. 103-8.Google Scholar

265 Ibid. 166; Clark, Cartae I 309-10 no. 277 (cited in error as no. 327 by Gray).Google Scholar

266 Clark, Cartae IV no. 1239.Google Scholar

267 Birch, History of Margam 348; Clark, Cartae II 210-13 no. 386; Clark, ‘Contrib. towards a Cart. of Margam,’ loc. cit. 377-80. This lease of 1470 was regarded by Birch, somewhat without justification it seems to me (in view of the accidental nature of the evidence), as the beginning of wide-scale leasing of granges at Margam: ‘The year 1470 introduces to our observation a new phase of the management of the Conventual revenues. The Abbey seems to have determined to abandon the farming of its granges, preferring to lease them at a fixed rental to responsible persons’ (History of Margam 348). Gray seems to have adopted this view (op. cit. 93).Google Scholar

268 Gray, , op. cit. 16; Clark, Cartae IV 398-99 no. 1287.Google Scholar

269 Clark, , Cartae IV 429-30.Google Scholar

270 Gray, , op. cit. 90.Google Scholar

271 Clark, , Cartae IV 436-37 no. 1317.Google Scholar

272 Ibid. IV 443-44 no. 1322. The grange of Grugwallt, near the abbey, may also have been rented at this time, since there was a chapel at Cryke, Grugwallt, in the woods some two hundred yards directly from the abbey and overlooking the abbey church and building. Gray surmised that the chapel, which could have been served by a priest from the abbey, was built for the tenants toward the end of the fifteenth century (Gray, op. cit. 93).Google Scholar

273 Francis, Original Charters of Neath (no pagination); see also Birch, , History of Neath Abbey 143-44: ‘Leases of this nature were not unusual at the last throes of the monastic life of England. The convents felt the imminent storm of ruin hanging over their heads, and were only too glad to convert their lands into substantial rent, which gave them less trouble to collect than the land took the reduced number of monks to cultivate’ (p. 144).Google Scholar

274 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 272.Google Scholar

275 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 577 no. 23; Purvis, ‘Selection of Monastic Rentals,’ loc. cit. (n. 9 supra) 39-40. The granges listed in the Ministers’ Accounts, 30 Henry VIII, numbered ten.Google Scholar

276 Caldon and Oncott were listed as granges in the Ministers’ Accounts (Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 663 no. 5) even though they appear from the Valor listing to have been broken up. Caldon grange was acquired by Croxden in the late thirteenth century from Buildwas abbey in Shropshire in an exchange whereby Croxden gave Buildwas the whole vill of Edeweney in Shropshire (ibid. V 357 no. 4, 360 no. 23).Google Scholar

277 Savine, A., English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution (Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History 1 no. 1, Oxford 1909) 140, 147. Thus the general ratio of demesne income to gross temporal income was about 1: 12.Google Scholar

278 Dugdale, Mon. Ang. V 459 no. 4. In 26 Henry VIII there were only three monks and the gross revenue was £28 17s. 4d. (ibid. V 457).Google Scholar

279 Ibid. V 405-6. There is similar information concerning Tetisworthe and Sydenham (ibid. V 406).Google Scholar

280 Salter, H. E., V.C.H., Oxford II (1907) 85 n. 13.Google Scholar

281 Savine, op. cit. 153.Google Scholar

282 EHR 51.198.Google Scholar

283 Gasquet, F. A., Henry VIII and the English Monasteries (2 vols. London 1888-89) II 498: ‘In course of time this system [of Cistercian fratres conversi] was abandoned in England; for instance, at Meaux Abbey the conversi died out towards the end of the fourteenth century.’ One might infer that there were none at all after this time, as some have; but Gasquet meant only that there were no longer large numbers of conversi after the fourteenth century, for he well knew that there were a few lay brothers and even lay sisters here and there at the suppression.Google Scholar

284 John Hope, W. H. St., ‘Fountains Abbey,’ Yorkshire Archaeological Journal 15 (1900) 373: ‘After the middle of the fourteenth century the conversi in this country seem as a class to have died out and to have been replaced by hired servants and labourers; probably because the gradual spread of education and other causes had extinguished the class from which they had been formerly drawn.’Google Scholar

285 ‘Notes on the Granges of Margam,’ loc. cit. 164, 173, citing Gasquet.Google Scholar

286 Essays upon the History of Meaux 59: ‘Indeed after the plague (1348) when all the lay-brothers perished, the order [of conversi] was not again revived…’Google Scholar

287 Memorials of Fountains III xiii: ‘For some time before the middle of the fifteenth century, the Cistercians had done away with their original institution of conversi or lay brethren, who were occupied in servile labours, and the monks employed, instead of them, a large staff of paid servants.’Google Scholar

288 Coucher Book of Furness II pt. 3.xii: ‘…they [conversi] ceased in Cistercian houses after the Black Death of 1348.’Google Scholar

289 Hamilton Thompson, A., The English Clergy and Their Organization in the Later Middle Ages: The Ford Lectures for 1933 (Oxford 1947) 163, expressing his agreement with Hope's view.Google Scholar

290 Chron. de Melsa III 229: ‘… conversi omnes de monasterio defecuerunt; pro quorum numero monachos supplevit…’ The rental of the abbey for 1396, under the head of the tannery, refers to boots and shoes supplied to conversi claustrales and the grangiarii (possibly meaning conversi of the granges); ibid. III xliii. See also ibid. III 190-91 n. 7, for reference to a lay brother who accompanied a monk to Rome and had to return to England for the original deeds of appropriation in connection with suits involving the churches of Easington and Kayingham during the same abbacy.Google Scholar

291 Even though data are also available in many instances concerning the number of monks in certain abbeys in various years, such information is not listed below unless the number of conversi at the same dates is also known. When the number of monks is listed for a given year and no number of conversi is given, it is to be assumed that there were none at that time. I am especially indebted to the Rev. Joseph McNulty, F.R. Hist. S., of St. Peter's, Woolston, Warrington, Lancs., for providing me with statistics on the number of monks and lay brothers in the religious houses of the province of York (especially the Cistercian abbeys of Sallay, Rievaulx, Meaux, Jervaulx, Furness, Calder, Kirkstall, Byland, Roche, and Fountains), taken from the poll tax returns for 4 Rich. II, 1380-81 (Public Record Office, E 179, 63/12). Some of these figures he has also stated in several articles: Trans. of the Lancs. and Cheshire Antiquarian Society 54 (1939) 205–6, 207-8; 57 (1943-44) 165 n. 1. I am indebted as we 1 to Professor Josiah Cox Russell for his data on the same Cistercian abbeys (except Calder) and also his data from the returns for 1377 and 1381 on the following abbeys: Revesby, Louth Park, Swineshead, Vaudey, Garendon, St. Mary Graces, and Bordesley (the P.R.O. document being cited in the list). I am also thankful to Mr. Neville, R. Hadcock and Dom David Knowles for their having made available to me before publication various Cistercian statistics, intended for their Medieval Religious Houses, England and Wales (London 1953); in turn, they were able to make use of some of the data in my tabulation.Google Scholar

292 See Cranage, D. H. S., The Home of the Monk, An Account of English Monastic Life and Buildings in the Middle Ages (3rd ed. Cambridge 1934) 33, 74, 110; Coulton, G. G., Five Centuries of Religion I (Cambridge 1929) 558 (app. 30). Stephan, Buckfast Abbey 34: ‘The abbey [founded in 1136] does not seem ever to have been destined to accomodate more than fifty choir-monks, but to these must be added numerous lay-brothers, twice or three times as many as the choir monks.’ Fowler, Hayles and Beaulieu 17: ‘There is no record of their number [of conversi] at either Hayles or Beaulieu, but the extent of the buildings at Beaulieu which they occupied suggests that there it was considerable.’ At Meaux the refectory of the lay brothers was commenced in 1182-97 and finished in 1197-1210; the dormitory was completed under the fifth abbot (1210-20); and the stall of the conversi was put up at the west end of the church and their infirmary completed under the ninth abbot (1249-69) (Chron. de Melsa I 217, 326, 380; II 119).Google Scholar

293 Russell, J. C. estimates that there were about 1475 monks in 1250-1300, 1656 in 1300-46, 824 in 1377-81, 865 in 1530-36, and 1005 in 1537-40; ‘The Clerical Population of Medieval England,’ Traditio 2 (1944) 194–96. Moorman, J. R. H. estimates that there were 3256 monks in 1300, which is twice that given by Russell; Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge 1946, reprint of 1945 ed.) 411, 405-6. Hadcock gives 1746 to 2112 monks in the years 1154-1216, 2104 to 1954 in the years 1216-1350, 893 to 1078 in the years 1350-1422, 1279 to 1311 in the years 1422-1500, 1314 to 1230 in the years 1500-34, and 1219 to 978 in the years 1534-40 (Knowles and Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses 360). Hadcock also estimates that there were some 3200 Cistercian lay brothers in the twelfth to thirteenth centuries (ibid. 360 n. 1). The statistical basis for the latter estimate is not explained.Google Scholar

294 See above, p. 417.Google Scholar

295 Addy, , ‘Roche Abbey Charters,’ loc. cit. 244-45 no. 13. Francis, cardinal-priest of St. Mark, wrote that he had heard complaints about various irregularities committed by the monks and conversi of Roche, such as laying violent hands on their own brethren and others, carrying arms, playing dice, frequenting taverns, gardens and other forbidden and improper places, and leaving off their habit, for which they had incurred excommunication.Google Scholar

296 On plague mortality, see Russell, J. C., British Medieval Population (Albuquerque 1948) 214–34, 260-70.Google Scholar

297 It is interesting to note that in the poll tax returns for the 42 religious houses in the province of York, 1380-81 (P.R.O., E 179, 63/12), the ten Cistercian houses excepted, only seven others had conversi and none of these were Benedictine. The seven were Richmond (1 conversus), Coverham (1 conversus), Cockersand (2 conversi), Premonstratensian houses; Bridlingham (1 conversus) and Newburgh (3 conversi), houses of Black Canons; and Bolton (5 conversi) and Guisborough (2 conversi), Augustinian houses. In all, the monks and canons numbered 555 and the conversi 59.Google Scholar

298 Clarke, Cartae IV 277-78 no. 1214; Birch, History of Margam 323.Google Scholar

299 Annales Furnes. 95; also, Coucher Book of Furness II 700.Google Scholar

300 Whitaker, History and Ant. of the Deanery of Craven (n. 16 supra) 67.Google Scholar

301 Gasquet, Dublin Review 114.258, 275-76.Google Scholar

302 Letters and Papers of Henry VIII 13, pt. 1.68 no. 199.Google Scholar

303 Ibid. 160 no. 433.Google Scholar

304 Eighth Report, App. II, no 1.42; Letters and Papers 13, pt. 1.201 no. 542. It may be observed that record of a number of lay brothers and lay sisters of other orders has been noted in the materials relating to the dissolution. At the Carthusian priory of Kingston Upon Hull (at the time of the suppression) there was one conversus, age 34, referred to at the end of a list of 13; at the Benedictine abbey of nuns, St Mary's, Winchester (1536), there were 13 lay sisters (in addition to 26 nuns, 5 priests, 9 women servants, 20 household officers and servants, 3 ‘Corodiers,’ and 26 children) (Gasquet, Dublin Review 114.255, 269; Letters and Papers 15.47 no. 139 gives 23 nuns and 12 lay sisters in 1539); at the Gilbertine Walton priory (1539), the prior, subprior, 7 priests, the prioress, subprioress, 11 nuns, and 8 lay sisters (Letters and Papers 14, pt. 2.242 no. 663); at the Carthusian Mount Grace priory (1539), the prior, 16 priests, 3 novices, 6 lay brothers (‘converses’) and one donatus (Letters and Papers 14, pt. 2.258-59 no. 700); at the Gilbertine priory at Chicksands, Bedfordshire, 7 canons, 17 nuns, and one lay sister (Eighth Report, App. II, no. 1.16); at the convent of Benedictine nuns, Stixwould, Lincolnshire (Jan. 1537), 18 nuns and one lay sister (Gasquet, Henry VIII II 22). See also Gasquet's reference (ibid. II 486 n.) to another lay brother, presumably Carthusian.Google Scholar

305 MGH, Scriptores 16.954: see Donnelly, , op. cit. 59.Google Scholar

306 The comment of Bond, E. A., written in 1868, concerning the gradual disappearance of conversi at Meaux during the late fourteenth century is pertinent: ‘The explanation of this great reduction and apparent suppression of the class [of conversi] I presume to be, that the lands of the monastery had become very much to be let out to farm, and the services of conversi were not called for in that direction; and that, for the offices of the house itself, it was found more convenient to employ hired servants than to support a class of half-monks who had been found not very amenable to discipline. The arrangement was economically a good one…’ Chron. de Melsa III xliii-xliv.Google Scholar