A HISTORY OF SUFFOLK 



to the Bishops of London and Chichester touching ' 

 the complaint of the Bishop of Norwich, whose 

 citation the abbey of St. Edmund's refused to 

 obey, sending Sir Richard Freysel, knight, to the 

 king's chancellor, pleading that by royal letters 

 they were exempt from episcopal jurisdiction, 

 and asking for letters prohibiting their diocesan 

 from making any such attempts. Thereupon 

 the bishop excommunicated Richard, who re- 

 turned to the chancellor pleading that this had 

 been done in contempt of the king's majesty, 

 and that the bishop, the prior of Kersey, and 

 other beneficed clergy in the dioceses of Norwich 

 and York had published the excommunication. 

 Thereupon he obtained letters citing the bishop 

 and his commissaries before the king's justices, 

 before whom exception was taken that the jus- 

 tices could not and ought not to take cognisance 

 of excommunication, and that appeal lay with 

 the archbishop. Nevertheless the justices 

 ordered the imprisonment of the commissaries, 

 and James, rector of Wrabness, Essex, one of those 

 who had published the excommunication, was 

 put in the abbot's prison at St. Edmunds. The 

 prior of Kersey and Hamo, rector of Bunny, lay 

 in hiding, and Simon, rector of Wickhambrook, 

 Suffolk, got away privily to the apostolic see. 

 The justices, the king being abroad, ordered all 

 the goods of the bishop to be seized and to 

 remain in the king's hands until the excom- 

 munication vows were revoked and satisfaction 

 made to Richard, who made the huge claim of 

 10,000 damages. Letters were sent to the 

 sheriffs of four counties where the episcopal estates 

 lay ordering the seizing of all temporalities of 

 the see, and the bishop, fearing he would be 

 taken, betook himself, with his household, to his 

 cathedral church and shut himself up therein. 

 The pope ordered that, if these things were so, 

 the abbot and Richard were to be cited to appear 

 before the pope within three months to receive 

 what justice requires for their excesses and sins. 1 



In April, 1350, the pope sent a mandate to 

 the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of 

 Exeter and Chichester, enjoining the public 

 excommunication of all who hindered the Bishop 

 of Norwich from prosecuting his cause, which 

 had been going on for five years at the Roman 

 court, against the abbot and convent of St. 

 Edmunds, who claim exemption from episcopal 

 jurisdiction, certain persons having obtained 

 letters from King Edward ordering the bishop 

 to prosecute the cause before him and his council, 

 and not in the Roman court. 2 In the following 

 July a further mandate was sent to the same 

 papal commissioners ordering the public excom- 

 munication of all the abettors of Richard 

 Freysel. 3 



Abbot William died on the last day of 

 February, 1361-2, and Henry de Hunstanton 



1 Cat. Pap. Reg. iii, 304-5, 



' Ibid. 388. ' Ibid. 391-2. 



64 



was elected his successor in the following month ; 

 but proceeding to Avignon in the summer, to 

 obtain papal confirmation, Henry fell a victim 

 to the plague which was raging in that province, 

 dying on 24 July, in a village two miles distant 

 from that city. Pope Innocent VI seized this 

 opportunity of appointing a successor, and made 

 John of Brinkley, a monk of Bury, abbot on 

 4 August. Edward III gave his consent on 

 1 2 November, and on the 1 6th of that month 

 the new abbot was duly installed at St. Edmunds. 

 His was a comparatively uneventful abbacy, but 

 he was a learned man, and for ten years was 

 president of the provincial chapter of English 

 Benedictines. The last recorded miracle of St. 

 Edmund occurred in 1375, when Symon Brown, 

 nearly lost at sea, vowed to St. Edmund and was 

 saved. 4 



On 6 January, 1379, the prior and convent 

 obtained licence to elect a successor to Abbot 

 John, deceased, and on 28 January notification 

 was dispatched to Pope Urban of the royal assent 

 to the election of John de Timworth, sub-prior 

 of that house, to be abbot. In August of the 

 same year there is a further entry relative to the 

 election on the Patent Rolls, namely, orders for 

 the arrest of Edmund Bromefeld, a monk, who 

 was scheming to annul the election of Tym- 

 worth as abbot, although it had received the 

 royal assent, and who had procured a papal 

 provision thereof for himself besides divers 

 bulls, 6 and on 14 October, 1379, the Earls of 

 March and Suffolk, with the sheriff of Suffolk, 

 were appointed to arrest Edmund Bromefeld, 

 who, notwithstanding the Statute of Provisors 

 of 25 Edward III, had procured provision 

 of the abbey from the Roman court, and 

 had taken possession of the abbey by the aid of 

 John Medenham and fourteen other monks of 

 the abbey, and by the aid of various clerks and 

 laymen. All the abettors of the monk Edmund 

 were also to be arrested for this contempt of the 

 crown. 6 



This controversy, caused by the appointment 

 of Edmund Bromefeld to the abbacy by Urban VI, 

 dragged on for five years ; but the pope's nomi- 

 nee never obtained more than a partial and 

 very short-lived recognition at St. Edmunds. 

 Nevertheless, without the papal confirmation 

 John Tymworth was not technically abbot 

 until 4 June, 1384, when the pope at last 

 gave way. 7 



Whilst this dispute was in progress, namely in 

 1381, Jack Straw's rebellion broke out in East 

 Anglia, when John of Cambridge, the prior, and 



4 Nov. Leg. Angl. ii, 678. 



'Pat. 2 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 10; pt. ii, m. 38 ; 

 3 Ric. II. pt. i, m. 33 </. 



6 Pat. 3 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 22 d. 



7 The list of abbots in Lakinghethe Register enters 

 after the death of John de Brinkley, ' Abbatia racavit 

 per sexennium.' 



