A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE 



22. THE CARMELITE FRIARS OF 

 NORTHAMPTON 



The order of the Carmelites or White Friars, 

 driven from Mount Carmel by the Saracens in 

 1238, reached England in 1240. Their friary 

 at Northampton was founded in 127 1 by Simon 

 Montford and Thomas Chitwood. The house 

 is mentioned in an inquisition held at Northamp- 

 ton in 1275 respecting certain men who arrived 

 by night in the town and left a package in the 

 custody of the brothers of Mount Carmel, but 

 sought a lodging for themselves in the house of 

 a certain Alice Baron. The town bailiffs, sus- 

 pecting them to be robbers, sent to seize them at 

 the house of the said Alice, but the strangers 

 anticipated the authorities and escaped before 

 day. The package deposited at the friary was 

 opened and found to contain two coats of mail. 

 Sir William de Lymar, knight, then appeared 

 and claimed the harness and horses which the 

 robbers had left, stating that they were his pro- 

 perty of which he had been robbed.' In the 

 same year the town jury of Northampton found 

 that the brothers of Mount Carmel had for four 

 years past defrauded the town of 28d. a year due 

 to the ferm of the king for tenements they had 

 obtained in free alms from Simon de Pateshill 

 and others, to the injury of the king and his 

 bailiffs of Northampton.^ 



The friars applied to Edward I. in 1278 for 

 leave to enclose a portion of the town wall that 

 adjoined their close and to block up its crenelles. 

 A jury was impanelled to ascertain what damage, 

 if any, would ensue if such a licence were 

 granted. The return found that it would be to the 

 damage and nuisance of the town of Northamp- 

 ton to enclose the wall and fill up the crenelles, 

 inasmuch as the burgesses of the town, and espe- 

 cially the sick, often walked on the wall from 

 one gate to another to take the air, and that in 

 the winter time they used the same route for the 

 sake of cleanliness, instead of the noisome and 

 muddy way under the wall, between it and 

 the place of the Carmelites. The proposed 

 action of the friars would interfere with these 

 uses. Moreover, the night watchmen going 

 their rounds on the town walls were in the habit 

 of using the crenelles to watch for malefactors 

 approaching the town, and if these openings 

 were closed, as proposed, various misdeeds and 

 stratagems might pass undetected.' Licence was 

 obtained by the Carmelite Friars in 1299 to retain 

 in mortmain a plot of land east of their dwell- 

 ing-place, acquired by them since the statute, 

 without licence, and to enclose it with a wall for 

 the enlargement of their close.^ A further en- 

 largement of their site was sanctioned in 1363.^ 



1 HunJ. R. (Rec. Com.), ii. 5. 



' Inq. p.m. 6 Edw. I. pt. 79. 



* Pat. 27 Edw. I. m. 32. 



6 Ibid. 37 Edw. III. pt. I, ni. i;. 



2 Ibid. p. 2. 



In 1380, on payment of half a mark, the friars 

 obtained a grant for a third enlargement of their 

 close by the alienation to them of a plot of land 

 29 perches long by i6 broad, the gift of John 

 Sauce and Robert Lincoln.' 



The church of St. Mary of Mount Carmel, 

 Northampton, must have been of considerable 

 size, for in 1 3 10 Bishop Dalderby granted a 

 licence to the friars to have five fixed altars in 

 their church ; he also licensed the dedication of 

 an altar to St. Catherine.' In 1363 Bishop 

 Bokyngham granted an indulgence in connexion 

 with the image of the Blessed Virgin in the 

 outer chapel of the Carmelite friars of North- 

 ampton, next the entrance of their church.* 



William Tomson in 15 12 left I2(^. by will 

 ' to the blessyd ymage of o' lady in the house of 

 the Friers Carm. w'in the town of Northampton.' 

 Agnes Haywarde left her second ring to this 

 same image just before the dissolution. Richard 

 Packman, in 1528, desired to be buried 'att the 

 Whyte Freirs before saint Katerin." A commis- 

 sion was issued in 1400 to inquire into a report 

 that the friars were giving shelter to evil-doers, 

 and that William Hawk, John Carpenter, and 

 six others lately arrested on suspicion of larceny 

 and other felonies, and committed to gaol in the 

 castle of Northampton, had escaped and were 

 then in the church of the friars of the order of 

 St. Mary of Mount Carmel in the same town.'" 



Two of the more celebrated writers among 

 the English Carmelites were connected with 

 this house. John Avon, who was born at North- 

 ampton, and became a Carmelite friar of that 

 town, was a doctor of divinity and distinguished 

 mathematician. His chief work, in addition to 

 sermons, was ' The Philisophical Ring,' or 'a 

 perpetual almanack to find every year for ever, 

 the moveable feasts, the immoveable, the aspects 

 of the heavens, the changes of the moon, and all 

 things relating to the ordering of the divine 

 offices according to the several solemnities 

 throughout the year.' He died about 1350, 

 probably of the plague, and was buried in the 

 friary at Northampton. William Beaufeu, doctor 

 of divinity, of the university of Oxford, and a 

 considerable theological writer, was sometime 

 prior of this house. He died in 1390, and was 

 buried in the friary.^' Of the heads of this house 

 few names have been preserved, but Nicholas 

 Cantelowe may be mentioned as having been 

 prior in 1471.^'' 



The dissolution of the Northampton friaries 

 has been already described. The Carmelites 



6 Ibid. 4 Rich. II. pt. I, m. 3. 

 ■^ Line. Epis. Reg. Memo, of Dalderby fF. 162, 

 168. 



8 Ibid. Memo, of Bokyngham, f. 8b. 



9 Wills at the Probate Office, Northampton. 



10 Pat. 2 Hen. IV. pt. I, m. lad. 



11 Stevens, Jddition to the Mon. ii. 164, 167. 



^^ Liber Custumarum of Northampton, f. 1 13^. 



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