A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



beginning of the thirteenth century. St. Felix 

 and the cell of the priory of Eye (which is 

 noticed independently) were among the first to 

 perish, and these were followed, at about 1300, 

 by the loss of St. Leonard's church. 1 About 

 1 33 1, the sea swallowed up the churches of 

 St. Bartholomew and St. Michael. 3 The last 

 institution to St. Martin's was in 1335, and to 

 St. Nicholas's in 1352. St. John Baptist's church 

 was taken down to save the materials from the 

 sea in 1540. St. Peter's was not pulled down 

 till 1702.' The ruins of All Saints' are now 

 gradually disappearing over the cliff. 



In 1 29 1 the taxation roll shows that their 

 total income from Dunwich was ^40 2s. 2d. at 

 that date. In 1535 they had no income in 

 temporalities from Dunwich, and merely received 

 jTio 1 3*. \d. from the rectory of All Saints, a 

 portion of 13J. \d. from the church of St. John, 

 and a general pension from the remains of other 

 parishes of 26*. Sd. 



In April, 1296, the king, when at Berwick- 

 on-Tweed, instructed the treasurer and barons 

 of the Exchequer to cause the custody of the 

 priory of Eye to be restored to Edmund earl of 

 Cornwall, to be held by writ of Exchequer, 

 securing the right of the king and others ; for 

 the king had learnt from an inquisition that 

 Edmund took the custody of the priory into his 

 hands on Thursday before Palm Sunday, 1294, 

 as true patron and advocate (advocatus) thereof, 

 by reason of the death of Richard the late 

 prior ; and that Richard, Edmund's father, had 

 always had the custody in times of voidance ; 

 and that on the eve of St. Andrew, 1295, 

 Richard Oysel, by reason of the king's orders 

 to take into the king's hands (on account of the 

 war) the alien houses in Norfolk and Suffolk, 

 ejected the earl and his men from the priory 

 and barns and outer manors. 4 



On the death of Prior Nicholas Ivelyn, in 

 1 3 13, a dispute again arose as to the charge of 

 the priory during the vacancy. The king's 

 escheator and his bailiffs of the honour of Eye 

 seized into the king's hands the priory with its 

 appurtenances. The alleged reason for this 

 action was that the advowson had fallen in by 

 the death of Margaret, late the wife of Edmund 

 earl of Cornwall, who held it in dower by 

 grant of her husband of the king's inheritance. 

 But the sub-prior and convent represented that 

 Eye Priory was founded by Robert Malet as a 

 cell of the abbey of Bernay in Normandy, and 

 that neither the founder nor his heirs, nor 

 Henry III, into whose hands the priory fell as 

 an escheat by forfeiture, nor the earls of Corn- 

 wall, who afterwards held the advowson as a gift 



1 Gardner, Hist, of Dunwich (1754), passim. 



* Harl. MS. 639, fol. 71, where it is said that 

 the fruits of these two parish churches had been 

 worth £40 to the monks. 



5 Gardner, passim. ' Close, 24 Edw. I, m. 8. 



74 



of Henry III, were accustomed to receive any- 

 thing out of the priory at time of voidance, but 

 only to appoint a warden or janitor for the gates 

 of the house, who had during voidance merely a 

 competent sustenance as a token of their dominion. 

 A commission was appointed on 17 July to 

 inquire as to this, and on 10 August the tem- 

 poralities were restored to Durand Frowe, who 

 had been preferred by the abbot of Bernay to be 

 prior of Eye. 5 In October, 13 13, the king's 

 licence was obtained for the appropriation of the 

 church of Laxfield, the advowson of which was 

 already held of the priory ; for this licence a 

 fine of j£20 was paid by the prior. 6 The 

 appropriation of Laxfield was not, however, 

 carried out until 10 January, 1326. Ten days 

 later grant was made by Edward II assuring the 

 priory of the payment as before to them of the 

 pensions out of the churches of Thorndon and 

 Mells, the advowsons of which they had quit- 

 claimed to the king. 7 



The farm of £94 ioj. due from the alien 

 priory of Eye was assigned by Edward III, 

 in 1347, to the king's scholars at Cambridge, 

 during the war. 8 



At the special request of the queen, their 

 patron, and on payment of a fine of £60, the 

 alien prior and convent of Eye were, in 1385, 

 granted a charter of denization. The priors 

 were henceforth to be Englishmen. No subsidy 

 was hereafter to be exacted from them as aliens, 

 but the priory was in all respects to be like that 

 of Thetford. It was stated that at this time, 

 through ill-government, the priory had become 

 so impoverished that it could hardly maintain a 

 prior and three or four monks. Certain persons 

 had, however, promised to relieve and repair it 

 when nationalized. 9 



The visitations of this house during the latter 

 part of its existence are much to its credit. 

 Archdeacon Goldwell, as commissary of his 

 brother the bishop, visited this priory in February, 

 1494, when Richard Norwich the prior and 

 nine monks were present. It was found that 

 no reform was needed. 10 The next recorded 

 visitation was in August, 15 14, when Bishop 

 Nykke visited in person. Three of the eight 

 monks who were examined testified omnia bene. 

 The rest made various complaints, the nature of 

 which appears in the bishop's injunctions. The 

 bishop ordered the prior to procure the return 

 of the books lent to Doctor White before 

 Christmas, and to exhibit a true inventory and 

 statement of accounts before the Michaelmas 

 synod ; he also ordered that Margery, the washer- 

 woman, was not for the future to enter the 



5 Pat. 7 Edw. II, pt. i, mm. 16, lyd. 



6 Ibid. m. 8. 



7 Ibid. 19 Edw. II, pt. 1, m. 6. 



8 Ibid. 20 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 9. 

 3 Ibid. 8 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 3. 



10 Jessopp, Visit. 40. 



