RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



and among the magnates attending the ceremony 

 were Thomas, earl of Lancaster, Baron William 

 de Ros, and Baron Richard Basset. ^ It appears 

 also that there was at this date a complete rebuild- 

 ing, not only of the church but of the conventual 

 buildings, as otherwise they would not have 

 required benediction. In spite of and perhaps 

 on account of the outlay necessary for building 

 purposes in 1320, when Abbot Thomas resigned, 

 the debts of the house were very considerable. - 

 Nicholas, the nineteenth abbot, succeeded in 

 1322, and in September of the following year 

 the monks in general chapter resolved, on the 

 ground of poverty, to abandon the abbey, the 

 chronicles citing the six causes already men- 

 tioned as the reasons for this distress.' But this 

 measure was only a temporary expedient. 

 Thomas, who rapidly succeeded Nicholas as 

 abbot, resolved to be more careful of the remain- 

 ing woods, and took action against some of the 

 offenders.* In 1328 one Robert de Rushton, 

 clerk, received a pardon from the king for 

 having felled five oaks in the wood of the 

 abbot of Pipewell during the reign of the late 

 king ; ° in the year 1331 a commission was 

 issued on the complaint of the abbot that 

 Robert de Veer, knt., and others depastured his 

 grass at Benefield with cattle, took away three 

 carts with nine horses sent to bring home his 

 hay, prevented him from mowing the rest of his 

 grass, carried away a great part of the hay and 

 other goods, drove 60 oxen, 10 bullocks, 30 

 cows, and 10 heifers, worth ;^I00, thence to 

 the castle of Rockingham, and impounded them 

 for a long time, not suffering the monks to 

 replevy them according to law and custom.^ 



The abbey appears in the fourteenth century 

 to have resorted to the appropriation of churches 

 in order to lessen the weight of poverty and debt 

 with which the community was perpetually 

 overburdened. In 1344 Pope Clement VI. con- 

 firmed to the abbot and convent the appropria- 

 tion of the church of Wickhambrook, Suffolk, 

 of the yearly value of 27 marks.^ In the same 

 year the royal assent was obtained for the appro- 

 priation of the church of Hinxworth.^ Boni- 

 face IX. in 1397 sanctioned the appropriation to 



1 Cott. MS. Otho. B. xiv. f. 197 and Line. Epis. 

 Reg. Memo, of Dalderby, f. 2 1 od. 



' Entries recording the acknowledgement of debts 

 and loans on the part of the heads of this house 

 during the middle of the fourteenth century are very 

 numerous in the Close Rolls of that period. 



s Cott. MS. Otho. B. xiv. ff. 150-51. 



* Ibid, 6 Pat. 1 Edw. IIL pt. i, m. 15. 



6 Ibid. 5 Edw. III. pt. 3, m. I5d. 



'' Cal. 0/ Papal L. iii. 175. In August of the same 

 year a letter was sent to the constable of Dover order- 

 ing him to permit Abbot Nicholas to cross the seas to 

 proceed to Rome on the affairs of his house with horses 

 and equipage, and to provide him with j^20 for his 

 expenses. 



8 Pat. 18 Edw. III. pt. I, m. iS, 43. 



the abbey of the churches of Elkington and 

 Hinxworth, the united value of which did not 

 exceed 36 marks, and that of the monastery 

 300 marks. The churches might be served by 

 monks of the monastery, or secular priests pre- 

 sented by the abbot and convent.® The same 

 pope in 1399 permitted the appropriation to the 

 table of Roger, abbot of Pipewell, of the church 

 of Dunchurch, Warwickshire, so long as Roger 

 remained abbot. The church might be served 

 by a religious or secular priest appointed and re- 

 moved at the abbot's pleasure. At the same 

 time the abbot received an indult for life ex- 

 empting him from being visited by a visitor or 

 chapter general of his order.^° In 1366 Bishop 

 Bokyngham granted an indulgence for the altar 

 of the Holy Trinity in the conventual church of 

 Pipewell. 11 



In spite of the alleviations thus provided, the 

 abbey seems to hav^ been in a very poor way 

 in the early fifteenth century. In 1412 a peti- 

 tion was presented to the pope in which it was 

 represented that the houses and buildings were 

 very ruinous and worn with age, that many of 

 the tenements had been abandoned by their in- 

 habitants on account of the barrenness of the 

 lands, so that their income was insufficient for 

 the maintenance of the abbot and monks and for 

 the due discharge of their ancient hospitality. 

 The pope appropriated anew to the abbey the 

 church of Elkington, which was of their pat- 

 ronage, and of which the parish, in consequence 

 of pestilences, was destitute of all inhabitants 

 save three or four servitors of the monastery. 

 The previous appropriation of Boniface IX. in 

 1397 did not take place on account of that 

 pope's subsequent general revocation of appro- 

 priations.^^ 



Entries relating to this abbey during the fif- 

 teenth century and up to the eve of the dissolu- 

 tion are few. Henry VIII. on 3 August, 151 1, 

 spent Sunday at Pipewell Abbey ; 6j. id. was 

 charged in the accounts ' for the King's offering 

 upon this Sunday.' 1' The sum of ;^66 131. ^d. 

 was exacted in 1522 from the abbey by way of 

 loan, due from the spirituality towards the king's 

 expenses in France for the recovery of the 

 French crown. ^* 



Sir William Parre wrote to Cromwell on 

 15 November, 1535, to intercede for the abbey, 

 giving it an excellent character. He said : ' When 

 the visitors were lately in these parts they visited 

 the monastery of Pipewell, where the abbot and 

 his brethren obeyed the injunctions. But this 

 house being of very small revenue, keeping con- 

 tinual hospitality, relieving the poor, maintaining 



9 Cal. of Papal L. v. 77. 

 10 Ibid. pp. 185, 186. 



1' Line. Epis. Reg. Memo, of Bokyngham, f. 37. 

 1- Cal. of Papal L. vi. 39^. 



13 P.R.O. 'BokeofKvng'sPavmente5':3Hen.\'III. 

 1* L. and P. Hen. Fill. iii. 2+S3. 



119 



