A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



Peter to the monastery of Butley, which had 

 been appropriated to this house by William de 

 Suffield, bishop of Norwich. 1 An undated con- 

 firmation by Norwich priory, c. 1266, also con- 

 firmed the appropriation to Butley of the church 

 of Gissing. 2 



The taxation of 1291 shows that the priory 

 then held the appropriation of fifteen churches, 

 yielding a total income of £i2j 6s. 8d. ; the 

 most wealthy of these were Debenham, ^30 ; 

 Upton, £16 135. 4</. ; Ashfield-cum-Thorp, 

 j£i3 6s. 8d. ; and West Somerton, £12. The 

 temporalities in about sixty Suffolk parishes, and 

 in a few parishes of Norfolk and Lincoln pro- 

 duced £68 <)s. 8d., and give a total annual income 

 from all sources, at that date, of ^195 1 6s. ^.d. 3 

 By far the largest holding of the priory, under 

 temporalities, was at West Somerton, Norfolk, 

 whence their income amounted to ^37 3*. \\d. 



There were several minor bequests in the 

 fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. An important 

 but temporary addition was made to the priory's 

 income by Henry VIII, in 1508, when the cell 

 of Snape, which till then had belonged to 

 St. John's, Colchester, was given to the Butley 

 canons, together with the manors of Snape, 

 Scottow, ' Tastard,' Bedingfield, Aldeburgh, and 

 Friston. The Colchester monks, however, 

 showed themselves, not unnaturally, very trouble- 

 some over this transfer, and the prior of Butley 

 resigned it in 1509. 4 



When the Valor of 1535 was drawn up it 

 was found that this priory had an income con- 

 siderably exceeding ^3,000 of our money. The 

 clear annual value of the temporalities amounted 

 to j£2io ~js. l\d. Among the deductions was 

 the sum of £8 165. 8d. paid in pence to the poor 

 of Chesilford at the chief festivals, out of the 

 rentals of that manor. The spiritualities pro- 

 duced a further clear income of j£io8 gs. "^d., 

 leaving a total net income of ^318 ljs. 2$d. b 

 The priory had lost in recent years, through 

 various causes, two or three of its appropriated 

 churches ; those that it still retained were Butley, 

 Capel, Gedgrave chapel, Wantisden, Glemham 

 Magna, Kesgrave, Shelley, Redisham, Willing- 

 ham Magna and Parva, Ramsholt, Ashfield-cum- 

 Thorp, Aspall, Fornham, Harleston, Kylmton, 

 Weybread, Debenham, Finborough, Benhall, 

 Bawdsey, in Suffolk ; West Somerton, Gissing, 

 Upton, and Bylaugh, in Norfolk ; Byker, in 

 Lincoln ; St. Stephen Coleman, City of London ; 

 and Debenham, Essex — twenty-seven in all. 



The leper hospital of West Somerton, Nor- 

 folk, was in the charge of the prior of Butley in 



1 Bodl. Chart. SufF. 190. ' Ibid. 191. 



3 Pope Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.), 19, 24^, 74,78^, 



79- 8 3<*» 97*, i°4*> '°5> "3. H5*, i'7» 119. I2 3, 

 129/$, 13 iJ, 133^. 



' Dugdale, Mon. vi, 38 1, where Henry VII's 



charter of transfer is cited in full. 



1 Valor. Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 418-22. 



96 



the time of Edward I. A commission was 

 issued to William de Ormesby and William de 

 Sutton in February, 1299, touching the persons 

 who entered the West Somerton lazar-house — in 

 the custody of the prior of Butley, by the king's 

 orders — and carried away the corn and goods and 

 the muniments of the hospital. 6 In October of 

 the following year the crown granted to the 

 prior of Butley, keeper of the leper-house of 

 West Somerton, in consideration of a fine of 

 IOO marks, to hold the hospital quit of any 

 account, as his predecessors used to do, but 

 subject, like other hospitals of the king's advow- 

 son, to be visited by the chancellor or his 

 deputies to correct defects. 7 



An inquisition held on 14 November found 

 that Ralph Glanville, whose heir the king was, 

 granted to the prior and convent of Butley the 

 custody of the hospital of West Somerton, on 

 condition that they maintained in it thirteen 

 lepers, with a chaplain to celebrate daily there 

 and a clerk, praying for the souls of Ralph and 

 his father and mother ; that the prior for twenty 

 years past had ceased the maintenance of nine 

 of the lepers and of the chaplain and the clerk ; 

 that for twelve years the prior had withdrawn 

 from the four lepers who were there on that 

 date seven gallons of ale a week, worth id. 

 each ; and that the hospital was worth ten marks 

 annually. Thereupon the hospital was taken 

 into the king's hands. In November 1399 the 

 priory informed Henry IV that the hospital at 

 the time of its first endowment was worth ^60 

 a year, and that as it was now worth only 

 10 marks it could not possibly discharge its first 

 obligations ; and that the place where the hos- 

 pital formerly stood was desolate. Whereupon 

 Henry IV discharged the priory of all its hospital 

 obligations, on condition that two canons of the 

 priory celebrated daily for the good estate of the 

 king, and for the souls of his progenitors and 

 predecessors, and for the souls of Ralph, the 

 founder, and his father and mother. 8 



Much light is thrown upon the inner working 

 of a fairly large house of Austin canons, towards 

 the close of the monastic system, by the visita- 

 tions of Bishops Goldwell and Nykke, of which 

 unusually full records remain. 9 It is evident that 

 here, as elsewhere, the tone of a house depended 

 much upon the character of the superior. 



Bishop Goldwell visited this priory on 10 July, 

 1494, when the prior (Thomas Framlinghr.m) 

 and thirteen canons were examined. Another 

 canon was absent. The report stated that the 

 brethren who had granted 13*. $d. of their 

 stipends to the prior for the needs of the house, 

 sought restitution ; that the prior punishes at his 



1 Pat. 27 Edw. I, m. 37a'. 



7 Ibid. 28 Edw. I, m. 3. 



8 Ibid. 1 Hen. IV, pt. iii, m. 10. 



8 Bodl. Tanner MSS. 108, 132, 210 (ed. Dr. 

 Jessopp for Camd. Soc. in 1884). 



