RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



' till my lord privy seal's pleasure be further 

 known.' ' 



Among the corporation records of Ipswich are 

 two wills of interest with regard to this friary. 

 Robert of Fornham, who died in 13 19, left the 

 tenement that he had purchased of Claricia Strike, 

 and the tenement he had purchased of Leman 

 Le Bakestere to the Grey Friars ; but John 

 Strike and Geoffrey the cook, on coming before 

 the bailiffs and coroner of the court of Ipswich 

 as executors of Robert of Fornham, could only 

 produce an unsigned and unwitnessed will. 



Probate, however, was granted on the testimony 

 of two of the Grey Friars (although their house 

 was to benefit), who ' on the peril of their souls ' 

 certified that the deceased had made this will 

 when of sound mind. 2 



Weever mentions the following distinguished 

 persons who sought and obtained burial in the 

 conventual church of the Grey Friars. 



Sir Robert Tiptot and Una his wife, the 

 founders ; the heart of Sir Robert Vere the 

 elder ; Margaret, countess of Oxford, wife of 

 Sir Robert Vere, the younger ; Dame Elizabeth, 

 wife of Sir Thomas Uffbrd, and daughter of the 

 Earl of Warwick ; Sir Thomas Tiptot, the 

 younger ; Margaret, wife of Sir John Tiptot ; 

 Robert Tiptot, esquire ; Elizabeth Uffbrd ; 

 Elizabeth Lady Spenser, wife of Sir Philip 

 Spenser and daughter of Robert Tiptot, with 

 Philip, George, and Elizabeth their children ; 

 Joan, daughter of Sir Hugh Spenser ; Sir Robert 

 Warlesham and Joan his wife ; John son of 

 William Cleydon ; Sir Thomas Hardell, knight ; 

 Elizabeth, wife of Sir Walter Clopton, of 

 Hadley ; Sir William Lancham ; Sir Hugh 

 Peach and Sir John Lovelock, knights ; the 

 heart of Dame Petronilla Uffbrd ; Dame Beatrice 

 Botiler ; Dame Aveline Quatefeld ; Dame 

 Margery, aunt of Sir Thomas Uffbrd ; and 

 Dame Alice, widow of Sir John Holbrook. 3 



To these may be added Sir Robert Curson, 

 at whose great house in Ipswich Henry VIII 

 had visited in 1522; the hearse-cloth over the 

 hearse above his tomb is named in the 1536 

 inventory. 



40. THE AUSTIN FRIARS OF CLARE 



Richard de Clare, earl of Gloucester, was the 

 first to introduce the Friars Heremites of St. Aus- 

 tin to this country, and it is generally assumed 

 that the first establishment of the Austin Friars 

 was at Clare, and that they were brought here in 

 the year 1 248.* 



1 L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii, pt. i, 699 ; xiii (2), App. 

 16. The whole inventory is set forth at length in 

 Wodderspoon, Mem. of Ipswich, 315-19. 



3 Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. ix, 225. 



3 Weever, Funeral Monuments, 751. 



* Their next house was founded at Woodhousc, 

 Salop, in 1250, and their third at Oxford, in 1252. 



The Austin Friars, like the rest of the 

 mendicant orders, were not permitted by their 

 rules to hold other property save the site of their 

 house ; but in this instance the rule was inter- 

 preted in a somewhat liberal sense. Houses of 

 friars, owing to their freedom from the cares of 

 property, appear to have seldom possessed any- 

 thing of the nature of a chartulary ; but in the 

 case of Clare there is a fairly long chartulary 

 extant, containing transcripts of nearly two 

 hundred separate deeds. 6 The high position of 

 the founder and his posterity, coupled with the 

 fact that Clare was the parent house of the 

 order in England, placed this friary in a some- 

 what exceptional position, particularly as Clare 

 was a favourite residence for royalty in the 

 thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The 

 majority of the numerous grants in the chartu- 

 lary were for quite small plots of meadow land, 

 or of adjoining small lots of buildings, which 

 were added to the site for enlargement, and 

 would have been lawful for any friary. Other 

 charters are mere evidences of the title to small 

 properties on the part of benefactors. Others 

 again are the recital of indulgences and various 

 privileges, or the record of particular events. 

 But a few of them are undoubtedly in direct 

 antagonism to the usual mendicant rule, and 

 involve grants that would not have been accepted 

 save by the consent of the provincial and of the 

 general chapter of the province. Thus in 1349, 

 John, prior of this house, accepted the gift of the 

 manor house of Bourehall from Michael de 

 Bures. 6 



The most noteworthy record of abnormal 

 gifts is the first entry of the chartulary, headed 

 Carta mortijicationis, which recites the licence of 

 Edward III, in 1364, for the alienation in mort- 

 main, to the prior and brothers of the Austin 

 House at Clare, of Ashen and Belchamp St. Paul, 

 for their benefit and for the enlargement of their 

 manse. 7 



Many of the small grants of adjoining property 

 were from Maud, countess of Gloucester and 

 Hereford, for the repose of the soul of the 

 founder, her husband, who died in 1262. 



In 1278 William bishop of Norwich granted 

 a licence for any bishop of the Catholic Church 

 to consecrate the cemetery round the friars' 

 church. 8 In the following year Anianus, bishop 

 of Bangor, when on a visit to Clare, granted a 

 forty days' indulgence from enjoined penance to 

 penitents contributing to the enclosure of the 

 cemetery, or the construction and repair of the 



5 Had. MS. 4835. It is a quarto of paper in a 

 15th-century hand, entitled ' Registrum Chartarum 

 Monasterii Heremitarurn S. Augustini de Clare.' 

 Among the Jermyn MSS. (Add. MS. 8188, fol. 55- 

 84), is a full transcript of this chartulary. The 

 subsequent references to these charters give their 

 numbers in the transcript. 



6 Chartul. No. 102. 7 Ibid. No. I. 

 8 Ibid. No. 166. 



127 



