RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



St. Oswald.' Owing to the alternate heavy 

 fining of the abbey by king and barons, Abbot 

 Robert left the temporal affairs of his monastery 

 in dire confusion. On his death becoming 

 known at Peterborough, brother William of 

 Woodford, a monk of much shrewdness, was 

 dispatched to court, to try to secure the custody 

 of their temporalities during the vacancy. The 

 king was abroad, but an arrangement was made 

 with the council by which the temporalities 

 were secured on payment of a fine of 300 marks. 

 On the return of Edward I. from the Holy Land 

 in 1274, Richard of London, the prior of the 

 monastery, was elected abbot by his brethren. 

 By his prudence and economy he considerably 

 retrieved the fortunes of the abbey, which he 

 found in debt to the amount of 3,000 marks. He 

 retired for some time, after doing homage on his 

 appointment, to the Isle of Wight, in order to 

 avoid the extravatrance of an inausjural feast. 

 The chronicle, which may safely be assigned to 

 his successor, William of Woodford, gives full 

 details of the various law-suits in which Abbot 

 Richard was engaged for nearly the whole of 

 the twenty years of his rule — suits in which the 

 monastery was almost invariably successful.' 

 Among other numerous legal triumphs, he 

 established his right to the tithe of all venison 

 killed within the royal forests of Northampton- 

 shire, and succeeded in putting down the hand- 

 mills used by the townsfolk of Oundle as 

 constituting an injury to the lord's mill. The 

 king himself was defeated when trying to resist 

 the abbey's claims to have a prison at Peter- 

 borough, and to hold various hundred courts 

 involving the right to the chattels of felons and 

 fugitives. In those days, when capital punish- 

 ment was frequent, and when those who obtained 

 sanctuary had eventually to submit to perpetual 

 banishment, the right to the chattels of felons, 

 outlaws, and fugitives was one of considerable 

 importance and value. In this way the large 

 sum for those days of ,^37 15^. id, was received 

 by the monastery.' 



Woodford chronicles three visitations of the 

 abbey during the rule of Richard of London, 

 and we may perhaps assume from the brevity 

 of the entries that the visitors found nothing mate- 

 rial to redress. On 17 June, 1283, the monastery 

 was formally visited by Bishop Oliver Sutton ; 

 and on 5 September of the same year the bishop 

 made a second surprise visitation [nulla pre- 

 municione facta). Archbishop Peckham visited 

 the abbey on 6 October, 1284, and it is merely 

 recorded that he received 4 marks as procuration 

 fees.* Abbot Richard died in 1295, having 

 liquidated the debt of his predecessor by 2,000 

 marks. The convent elected William of Wood- 

 ford, the late abbot's legal adviser, who was then 



1 Sparke, op. cit. pp. I 39-140. 

 « Soc. of Antiq. MS. Ix. fF. 80- 



» Ibid. ff. 116- 

 2 



32- 



117. 



* Ibid. fE 95, 107, 108. 



sacrist. For two years William had acted as 

 coadjutor abbot, on the appointment of the 

 bishop of Lincoln, owing to Richard's infirmi- 

 ties. After four years of careful rule. Abbot 

 William died on 2 September, 1299.5 Godfrey 

 of Crowland, who was cellarer at the time of his 

 appointment, was abbot from 1299 to 1 321. 

 Of him Gunton writes that he was ' so famous 

 for worthy actions that there was scarce his like, 

 either before him or after.'* In the first year of 

 his rule certain persons fled for sanctuary into 

 the chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr at the gate 

 of the monastery, whither they were pursued 

 and illegally dragged out, blood being shed 

 during the struggle. Bishop Dalderby put the 

 chapel under an interdict, until the fugitives had 

 been restored to the liberty of the place. Even- 

 tually the fugitives were brought back, and the 

 bishop authorized the abbot to cleanse the chapel 

 with holy water, and to restore it to divine use.' 



In 131 3, the same bishop, in connexion with 

 the purgation of a charge brought against Godfrey 

 of Crowland, of incontinence, licensed that abbot 

 to go on a pilgrimage to the shrines of the 

 Blessed Edmund of Pontigny, and of St. Thomas 

 of Hereford.8 In the same year the bishop 

 issued an inhibition of the veneration of the 

 place of burial, in the hospital of St. Thomas 

 the Martyr for the sick at Peterborough, of 

 the body of Lawrence of Oxford, who had 

 been hung on account of his evil crimes, 

 and where miracles were supposed to take 

 place. A further inhibition was issued later in 

 the year, accompanied by a prohibition to the 

 monks of accepting the off^erings of those flocking 

 there.9 A visitation of the abbey made by the 

 bishop whilst this strange veneration of a criminal's 

 remains was in progress, caused much dissension 

 among the monks, some of them encouraging 

 folk to visit the grave. Those who took this 

 course were, however, excommunicated, and the 

 bishop issued a third stern inhibition.io 



The church of Warmington was appropriated 

 to Peterborough Abbey in 1316. In their peti- 

 tion to the bishop for sanction, the monks stated 

 that they had become impoverished and in debt, 

 (i) by reason of their nearness to an important 

 highway, which necessitated much hospitality, 

 (2) by the wars in those parts, and (3) by divers 

 oppressions, exactions, and expenses.^' The second 

 of these reasons referred to the resistance of 

 the barons to the evil favourites of Edward II., 

 notably Piers Gaveston. When Piers visited 

 Peterborough at an earlier date with Edward II., 



5 Sp.irke, op. cit. pp. 151-2. 

 * Gunton, Hist. ofPeterb. 39. 



7 Line. Epis. Reg. Memo, of Dalderby, f. 22. 



8 Ibid. f. 245. St. Edmund Rich, Abp. of 

 Canterbur}-, died at Pontigny in 1242, and was 

 there enshrined. 



9 Ibid. fF. 246b, 249. We have not been able to 

 ascertain anything further respecting Lawrence. 



10 Ibid. fF. 250, 263b. " Ibid. f. 335. 



89 12 



