A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



Ere the scandalous tale of the wholesale dissolution of monasteries is 

 reached, it should be mentioned that precedents for suppression in England 

 were numerous, from the cases of the Knights Templars and the alien priories 

 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, down to the reign of Henry VIII. 

 But it should also be remembered that in all these the papal sanction had 

 been asked and granted, and that the possessions and funds of a suppressed 

 house were (with very rare exceptions) devoted to other religious purposes.* 

 In fact it was a policy similar to that now followed by the Ecclesiastical 

 Commissioners when they transfer funds from the estates of bishoprics and 

 chapters to the augmentation of small livings. Northamptonshire yields 

 several examples. In the fifteenth century, for example, the small priory 

 and the manor of Weedon Pinkney (also called Weedon Lois) were made 

 part of the endowment of Archbishop Chichele's foundation of All Souls', 

 Oxford.^ In 1494, the pope, at the request of Henry VII, granted a bull 

 for the suppression of Luffield Priory, which was too poor to maintain itself, 

 and for the incorporation of its property with his new foundation at Windsor,* 

 a grant which was subsequently revoked by Pope Julius II in favour of 

 Westminster Abbey and the chapel of Henry VII there.* In the next reign 

 (1526) Cardinal Wolsey carried this principle a great deal further, and 

 obtained both papal and regal consent to the suppression of many of the 

 smaller monasteries to enable him to found that great college at Oxford 

 which was afterwards known as Christ Church ; one of the establishments 

 thus suppressed being the Cluniac House at Daventry. 



It may be mentioned in passing that for a few months Wolsey was 

 himself the ecclesiastical ruler of Northamptonshire. After having held the 

 deanery of Lincoln for six years he was consecrated bishop of that see on 

 6 March, 15 14; but six months later (November) he was translated to 

 York, and neither as dean nor as bishop was he much in the diocese of 

 Lincoln. Afterwards, however, not long before his death, which occurred 

 in November, 1530, he spent Easter at Peterborough. On Palm Sunday he 

 carried his palm in the procession ; on Maundy Thursday he washed the 

 feet of a number of poor men, with the abbot as his attendant ; and on 

 Easter Day he sang high mass in the abbey,'' The practice to which he 

 had resorted so recently in the case of Daventry and a few other religious 

 houses, was destined to become, five years after his death, a general policy, 

 directed by far more unscrupulous hands and actuated by far more doubtful 

 motives. 



The principal monastic houses in Northamptonshire at this time were 

 the abbeys of Peterborough (Benedictine), Pipewell (Cistercian), St. James, 

 Northampton (Austin Canons), Sulby (Premonstratensian), the priory of 

 St. Andrew, Northampton (Cluniac), and the nunneries of Delapre 

 (Cluniac), and Catesby (Benedictine). In addition to these, the friars of each 

 of the four orders had a house in Northampton, and the Knights Hospitallers 

 a preceptory at Dingley. 



' So, in the case of the priory of Luffield (vUe infra), the bulls of Alexander VI and Julius II for its 

 annexation to other foundations expressly stipulate that it should not revert to profane, or as we should say, 

 lay uses. Dugdale, Mon. iv, 352. 



' Ibid, vi, 1018 ; CaJ. of Pat. Edw. IV, 1 46 1 -7, 1 48. 



' Ibid, iv, 352. * Ibid. 



' Gunton, Hist. cfCh. of Peterb. (1686), 57. 



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