RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



assize l at St. Edmunds, on the complaint of the 

 abbot, who gave in the names of about 300 

 alleged offenders out of a great multitude, in- 

 cluding three rectors, nineteen chaplains or 

 assistant parochial clergy, a merchant, six drapers, 

 four mercers, two butchers, a tailor, and two 

 taverners. Among the particular offences speci- 

 fied are beating and wounding the abbey's ser- 

 vants and imprisoning them till they paid fines ; 

 mowing the abbey's meadows, felling the trees, 

 and fishing the fish-ponds ; preventing the 

 holding of courts and collecting rents and tolls 

 and other customs ; cutting off the abbey's 

 water-conduit ; breaking down the fish-ponds at 

 Babwell ; throwing down the houses of the 

 abbey in the town ; carrying away the timber, 

 and burning the abbot's manor houses at Barton, 

 Pakenham, Rougham, 'Eldhawe/Horningsheath, 

 Newton, Whepstead, Westley, Risby, Ingham, 

 Fornham, ' Redewell,' and ' Haberdon,' with 

 their granges and corn ; carrying away 100 horses, 

 120 oxen, 200 cows, 300 bullocks, 10,000 

 sheep and 300 swine, worth £6,000 ; and 

 besieging the abbey with an armed force and 

 great multitude ; breaking the gates and doors 

 and windows of the abbey ; entering the con- 

 ventual buildings and assaulting the servants ; 

 breaking open chests, coffers and closets and 

 carrying off gold and silver chalices and other 

 plate, books, vestments, and utensils, and 

 money to the value of £1,000, as well as 

 divers writings ; imprisoning Peter de Clapton, 

 the prior, and twelve monks in a house in the 

 town ; taking the said prior and monks to 

 the chapter-house and forcing them to seal a 

 document setting forth that the abbot and con- 

 vent were indebted to Oliver Kemp and five 

 other townsmen in the sum of £10,000 ; and 

 imprisoning the abbot and using his seal as well 

 as the corporate seal to documents obtained by 

 duress, the contents of which neither he nor the 

 monks saw or heard. On 5 November, 1328, a 

 commission was issued to the Bishop of Ely and 

 two others to compose the differences between 

 the abbey and the townsmen. An agreement as 

 to the matters in dispute between the abbey and 

 the town was finally drawn up at Bury, in the 

 presence of the king, at Trinity, 1 33 1, to the 

 effect that in consideration of the remission of 

 the huge fine of £140,000 imposed on the 

 defendants, they should pay the abbey the sum 

 of 2,000 marks during the next twenty years, in 

 sums of 50 marks at a time. 2 The great seal 

 was affixed to this covenant, and the defendants 

 were conditionally discharged. 3 



Licence was granted in August, 1330, for the 

 abbey to appropriate the churches of Rougham and 

 Thurstan of their advowson, in consideration of 

 the grievous losses they had sustained at the hands 



1 Assize R. 853. 



3 Pat. 3 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 35. 



3 Had. MS. 65+, fol. 141. 



63 



of the men of St. Edmunds, and because, at the 

 king's request, they had pardoned a great part 

 of the sum recovered by them as damages. 4 As 

 a further compensation from the crown for their 

 losses, the king in the following month granted 

 free warren in all demesnes of the abbey, a 

 weekly market at Melford, and an annual fair 

 of nine days at the same place. 



The riotous attacks on the abbey and its 

 possessions in 1327 took place at the time when 

 it was known that the king and his forces were 

 in Scotland. When Edward III was at York, 

 on 23 October, 1334, preparatory to another 

 expedition into Scotland, protection was granted 

 by the king and council to the abbey owing to 

 the increasing hostility of the townsmen, and for 

 fear another attempt should be made at the 

 abbey's overthrow when the forces were across 

 the border. 5 



Abbot Richard died on 5 May, 1335. The 

 king's licence for a new election was speedily 

 obtained, and the new abbot, William of 

 Bernham, the sub-prior, was hastily chosen on 

 25 May, in order to forestall the expected inter- 

 ference of the pope. Abbot William proceeded 

 to Rome for confirmation, and on 29 October, 

 1 335, received the mandate of Benedict XII to 

 betake himself to the abbey to which he had 

 been appointed, having received benediction 

 from Anibald, bishop of Tusculum. 6 He ruled 

 for nearly twenty-six years. 



A peculiar privilege was granted by Edward III, 

 for life, to Abbot William in 1338, namely that 

 the chancellor was to issue the writ De excom- 

 municato capiendo in the case of persons excom- 

 municated by the abbot at his signification and 

 request, as he did in like cases at the request of 

 archbishops and bishops. 7 



Five of the king's justices being directed to 

 hold a session at Bury St. Edmunds in 1 34 1, 

 for hearing and determining complaints as to 

 oppressions by ministers in the county of Suffolk, 

 the abbey protested that this was an infringement 

 of their chartered rights against the holding of 

 any secular courts in the town. Edward III 

 thereupon (out of the affection which the king 

 bore for the glorious martyr, St. Edmund the 

 King) granted a charter to the effect that this 

 session was not to prejudice as a precedent the 

 liberties of the abbot and convent. 8 



A dispute arose in 1345 between the abbey 

 and William Bateman, bishop of Norwich, the 

 latter making strenuous efforts to obtain a 

 reversion of the abbey's exemption from diocesan 

 control ; but the effort completely failed. 9 A 

 mandate was issued in 1349 by Pope Clement III 



4 Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 7. 

 s Ibid. 8 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 18. 



6 Cal. Pap. Reg. ii, 529. 



7 Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 29. 



8 Ibid. 15 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 24. 



9 Yates, Hilt, of Bury St. Edmundi, 109. 



