A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



interesting to note that at that time the total of the benefices, 485, almost 

 exactly corresponded with the number in the Norwich Taxation of 1256. 

 Some chapelries of the earlier date had meanwhile attained to the honour of 

 being separate parishes ; but this slight increase was counterbalanced by the 

 amalgamation of others. 



Reverting to the general ecclesiastical history of the county, it is to be 

 noted that Suffolk shared to the full in the troubles and tumults of the reign of 

 Henry III, when under the episcopal rule of Simon de Wauton (1258-66). 

 Bishop Simon, in 1261, took the side of the king against the barons 

 and was bold enough to publish the papal absolution of Henry III from 

 keeping the oath he had sworn in 1258 as to carrying out certain reforms. 

 This action of the bishop excited great indignation in East Anglia. Civil 

 war broke out, and the irony of events caused Bishop Simon to seek safety 

 for a time in the abbey of St. Edmunds, as the only place in his diocese 

 where he felt he could be secure from popular fury. 1 On the death of 

 Simon in January, 12667, the monks of Norwich obtained a free election, 

 and in the same month chose their prior, Roger de Skerning. There was 

 grievous civil strife at the beginning of Bishop Roger's episcopate. Many of 

 the local followers of Simon de Montfort, who had been dispossessed of their 

 property after the battle of Evesham, took refuge within the precincts of the 

 abbey of St. Edmunds, from whence they were driven out by the royalists, 

 and both abbey and town fined for their support of the insurgents. But these 

 disturbances, which were not quelled until July, 1267, pertain more to 

 political than ecclesiastical history. 



It was during the episcopate of William de Middleton (1278-80) that 

 Friar John Peckham, the energetic archbishop of Canterbury, came into East 

 Anglia during the visitation tour of his province. He began to visit the 

 religious houses of Norfolk towards the end of November, 1280, and was in 

 that county throughout December and the greater part of January. In 

 February and March, 12801, the archbishop was in Suffolk, and we know 

 from the dating of his letters that he was at the priory of Blythburgh, and 

 also tarried at Framlingham and Freckenham. 8 In the first week of Lent, 

 Peckham held an ordination for candidates from his own diocese at Sudbury. 8 

 The archbishop, in his strenuous life, kept a general control over the Southern 

 Province, outside the lines of metropolitical visitation. In January, 1282, 

 he issued his mandate to the official of the archdeacon of Sudbury, directing 

 him to cite the abbot and convent of St. Edmunds, concerning their tenure 

 of the appropriated churches of Mildenhall, Barton, Pakenham, and Bret- 

 tenham, to appear before him on the first Monday in Lent wherever he 

 might happen to be in his own diocese. The mandate states that his 

 previous summons for an earlier date had been contumaciously neglected. 

 We find from a later letter of Peckham, written to his proctors at Rome, 

 that the abbot and convent again failed to appear and refused to allow any 

 inspection of their documents, and that they had appealed to the pope in 

 justification of their refusal.* 



In July of the same year Peckham wrote to the Bishop of Norwich with 

 reference to a dispute about the Suffolk rectories of Risby and Redgrave, to 



1 Bart, de Cotton, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), 139. 



' Reg. Epii. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), i, 178-90. ' Ibid, i, 173. ' Ibid, i, 267-8, 307. 



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