A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



bers were usually recruited from the gentlefolk. Ipswich had two Austin 

 priories within its walls, dedicated respectively to the Holy Trinity and to 

 SS. Peter and Paul ; between them they held the advowsons of almost all 

 the churches in Ipswich and its suburbs, and were otherwise of no small 

 influence in the administration of the affairs of the town. 



Ixworth was next in importance to Butley among these priories, both 

 in numbers and name ; sixteen canons, in addition to the prior, signed the 

 acceptance of royal supremacy in 1534. The priories of Blythburgh and 

 Letheringham were also Austin foundations ; the former a cell of St. Osyth, 

 Essex, and the latter a cell of St. Peter, Ipswich. 



The Austin nuns had two foundations, Campsey and Flixton. The 

 former was an establishment of renown, the sisters always being ladies of 

 birth, daughters of the old landed gentry of Norwich diocese ; it seems to 

 have been always free from the slightest taint of scandal, although it was 

 unique among all English nunneries in having a small college of secular 

 priests within the precinct walls. 



The Premonstratensian or White canons held the abbey of Leiston, in 

 the extreme south of the hundred of Blything ; the site was changed in 1363. 



The Knights Templars had an early foundation at ill-fated Dunwich, 

 the church of which was known as ' the Temple ' long after their suppression. 

 The Suffolk commandery of the Knights Hospitallers was at Battisford, 

 whence annual contributions were sought throughout the whole county. 



Suffolk was well supplied with the mendicant orders. There were 

 three houses of Dominican friars, namely at Dunwich, Ipswich, and Sudbury. 

 There were also three houses of Franciscan friars, namely at Dunwich, 

 Ipswich, and Babwell near Bury St. Edmunds. The Austin friars had also 

 three priories in Suffolk, at Orford, Gorleston or South Yarmouth, and at 

 Clare in close connexion with the castle. This foundation at Clare seems 

 to have been the most important house of their order in England. The 

 Carmelites had a single house at Ipswich. 



At Bruisyard, founded on the site of a former college in 1366, was an 

 establishment of Nuns Minoresses, or poor sisters of St. Clare, under the rule 

 of an abbess. There were only four houses of this Franciscan order in 

 England, namely the head house at the Minories without Aldgate in the 

 city of London, this Suffolk abbey, and the Cambridgeshire houses of 

 Denney and Waterbeach. 



With regard to alien priories, in addition to Eye and Stoke-by-Clare, 

 whose denization saved them from extinction, and the semi-alien Cluniac cell 

 of Wangford, there were in Suffolk three small cells of foreign Benedictine 

 abbeys, which fell at the time of the general suppression of the alien houses. 

 These were Blakenham, pertaining to the great abbey of Bee, Greeting 

 St. Mary to the abbey of Bernay, and Greeting St. Olave to the abbey of 

 Grestein. 



The hospitals of the county for such establishments ought always to 

 be included in lists of religious houses, as they were under the rule of those 

 who led vowed lives, and usually of the Austin profession were fairly 

 numerous. They were to be found at Bury (5), Ipswich (3), Dunwich (2), 

 Orford (2), Beccles, Eye, Gorleston, Sibton and Sudbury. Out of these 

 seventeen, no fewer than eleven were founded for the use of lepers. 



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