RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



references we have to the house is contained in 

 a letter of Peter the Venerable, ninth abbot of 

 Cluny, and friend of St. Bernard, whose rule 

 from 1 122 to 1 157 raised the order to the sum- 

 mit of fame and prosperity. It was addressed to 

 the brethren dilectis filih et fratribus de Noran- 

 tone^ and stated with great affection that, 

 though it was unlikely the writer would ever 

 visit their house in bodily presence, they were 

 daily, nay, continually, in his thoughts. The 

 fame of their good conversation, and particularly 

 of Thomas, their prior, who was personally dear 

 to him, had reached him. Thomas was an inti- 

 mate friend and most beloved in Christ, and 

 therefore nothing could be more grateful to him 

 than to receive their gifts with others from the 

 Ciuniac houses in England. The brethren 

 should not regret the prior's absence, for their 

 coming together would be to the profit of all.' 



Notwithstanding its size and importance,^ the 

 priory of St. Andrew's was at times anything 

 but popular. The priors, according to the policy 

 of centralized government initiated by the order, 

 were appointed by the mother house and not by 

 the chapter. Hence the superiors were almost 

 invariably foreigners, and were usually promoted 

 from some smaller French house. Even then 

 several of them spent more time on the conti- 

 nent than in the priory, as may be gathered from 

 the leave of absence so frequently noted in the 

 patent rolls. In the case of Ciuniac houses, the 

 withdrawal of a superior by the parent house 

 was generally quite arbitrary, and ad interim 

 appointments frequent.^ For the discipline and 

 management of the monastery the sub-priors 

 must have been very largely responsible. 



The jealousy displayed by the town of North- 

 ampton towards the ecclesiastical jurisdiction 

 exercised by this foreign priory at their very gates 

 appears to have been shared by many of the 

 parochial clergy, who though nominated by the 

 prior and convent founded, or permitted the laity 

 to found, chapels for divine offices outside the 

 control of the priory. The brethren, however, 

 brought this infringement of their privileges 

 before the Roman Court, and Innocent III. in 

 1202 issued a mandate to the archbishop of 

 Canterbury and the bishops of London and Ely 

 (the see of Lincoln being then vacant) strictly 



1 Petri Ven. Abb. Clun. EpistoU, lib. ii. 8. 



5 Mention has already been made in the Ecclesias- 

 tic.ll Section, p. 8 of the ever-memorable escape of 

 Thomas i Becket from St. Andrew's, and of the hold- 

 ing of Parliament within its walls. On Ascension Day, 

 12 May, 1338, the Great Seal was delivered to the 

 king in a chapel of the prior}-, who forthwith delivered 

 it to the bishop of Lincoln for custody. In January of 

 the following year the bishop waited on the king in a 

 chamber of St. Andrew's Priory, wherein Queen 

 Isabella was then lodging, and in the presence of the 

 earls of Surrey and March delivered the seal to the 

 king in a sealed bag. 



* See Bermondsey, V.C.H. S:trrey. 



prohibiting this independent action of the North- 

 ampton clergy.* This was not the only dispute 

 in which the priory engaged. In 1 186 Robert, 

 then prior of St. Andrew's, entered into a solemn 

 agreement with Vivyan, abbot of Aunay, whereby 

 the tithes of Meats Ashby were granted to the 

 monks of Aunay on payment annually at 

 Michaelmas of six loads of wheat, according to 

 the king's great measure at Northampton, in the 

 barn at Ashby. ^ The dispute of the prior and 

 convent with the prior of the Knights Templars 

 respecting the church of Hardwick was brought 

 before the king's court in the octave of All 

 Saints, 1 199.8 In 1233 a quarrel between the 

 prior and convent of St. Andrew's and Philip 

 son of Robert de Northampton, for the advowson 

 of the hospital of St. David's without North- 

 ampton, was settled by arbitration to the effect 

 that the prior should have the right of patronage 

 in the said hospital, and that Philip should present 

 two among the brethren to the hospital, one lay 

 and one clerical, so that the total number be not 

 increased.' 



Various encroachments and withdrawals of 

 ancient service or custom are recorded against 

 the priory in the Hundred Rolls, among others 

 that the prior and convent, who were bound to 

 find a chaplain to celebrate annually in the 

 chapel of St. Martin, Northampton, for the 

 souls of all the kings of England, had so neg- 

 lected the chantry that the chapel had become 

 ruinous, to the loss of the king and his ancestors of 

 five marks a year and more.* That they had 

 encroached on the king's highway by the west 

 gate of the town, had enclosed a spring called 

 ' Nonnewoll,' with a piece of land adjoining, to 

 the injury of the whole commonalty, and had 

 appropriated to themselves under the wall of the 

 town all the holmes once pertaining to the 

 townsfolk with a garden adjoining, from the 

 holm of Giles to the water, and had enclosed a 

 common way under the wall of the town.' 

 Another instance of the unpopularity of this 

 alien house may be found in the account of the 

 siege of Northampton by the king in 1264, 

 given in the ' Annals of Dunstable,' wherein it 

 is stated that the town which was being held by 

 the citizens for the barons was betrayed to the 

 royalists by a ruse of Guy, the prior of North- 

 ampton. ^^ 



The priory received various grants of royal 

 favour from time to time. In Klarch, 1 208-9, 

 King John signified that he had taken under his 



* Bodleian Charters, Northants, ch. 7. 



' For the due observance of this charter six priests 

 signed as witnesses, three on one side and three on the 

 other. Ca/. 0/ Doc. France, 187-8. 



* Rot. Cur. Regis, ed. by Palgrave, ii. 1 18. 



7 Ca/. Jnct. D. (P.R.O.) ii. C 2280. 



8 HunJ. R. (Rec. Com.), ii. 2. 



* Ibid. pp. 2, 3. 



10 Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.) iii. 229. 



103 



