RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Sir John Cavendish, chief justice, were among 

 those murdered at Bury by the mob, who plun- 

 dered the abbey to the extent of ^1,000. For 

 this outrage the town was outlawed and fined 

 2,OOO marks. 1 . 



An indult was granted by Boniface JV, in 

 1398, in order to relieve the abbey of the perils 

 and expenses of the journey to Rome, that the 

 convent might upon voidance freely elect their 

 abbots, who thus elected should be eo ipsa true 

 abbots, and be so regarded and administer the 

 monastery without any confirmation of the said 

 see. Further, the abbots might receive bene- 

 diction at the hands of any Catholic bishop of 

 their choice. In compensation for first-fruits, 

 common and minute services, &c., heretofore 

 paid to the pope and various papal officials, the 

 abbey was to pay to the collector in England 

 twenty marks yearly at Michaelmas. If in any 

 year such payment be not made within two 

 months of the lapse of the year, then this indult 

 was to be void.* 



In 1383 Richard II and Anne of Bohemia 

 paid a ten days' visit to Bury, putting the abbey 

 to an expense of 800 marks. Archbishop 

 Arundel paid a visit to the monastery in the 

 year 1400, arriving from Norwich at the con- 

 clusion of a visitation of that diocese and Ely. 

 The manner of his reception and entertainment 

 are set forth with some detail by one of the 

 monastic scribes, to serve, as he states, for the 

 use of posterity if the house should again be 

 visited by an archbishop. He was received with 

 the greatest respect and sumptuously entertained, 

 but every care was taken to show that his re- 

 ception was one of courtesy and due to his high 

 office, and that he was nowise to construe 

 their hospitality as the least recognition of him 

 as a ' visitor.' There was no solemn procession 

 to meet him at the abbey gates, but the abbot, 

 cellarer, sacrist, and other officials met the arch- 

 bishop on the road between Thetford and 

 Ingham, and conducted him to Bury. On 

 reaching the abbey he was taken into the church 

 through the cemetery and not through the great 

 west gates, nor were the bells rung. The prior 

 and convent met him in the nave. On the 

 morrow, the abbot and his retinue escorted the 

 archbishop on his road southward as far as 

 Frisby. 8 



During the rule of William of Exeter, the 

 twenty-third abbot (1415-29), the building of 

 the present church of St. Mary, on the site of 

 an older church, was undertaken in the south- 

 west corner of the abbey cemetery ; and under 

 William Curteys (1429-46) the western tower 

 of the abbey church fell, but immediate steps 

 were taken to erect it afresh. 4 In 1427, Thomas 



1 Walsingham, Hist. Angl. (Rolls Ser.), 276-7. 



1 Cal. Pap. Reg. v, 152. 



8 Harl. MS. 1005, fol. 40, 41. 



4 Add. MS. 48468, fol. 



Beaufort, second son of John of Gaunt, was 

 buried in the great conventual church. 6 



Henry VI paid a long visit to the abbey, his 

 sojourn extending from Christmas, 1433, to St. 

 George's Day (23 April), 1434. The monastery, 

 during this visit, presented him with a grandly 

 illuminated ' Life of St. Edmund ' by John 

 Lydgate, which now forms one of the treasures 

 of the British Museum. 6 It is supposed that 

 this visit was chiefly due to the pleasure taken 

 by Henry and his court in the loyal ballads of 

 the abbey's famous poet-monk, presented to the 

 king in 1429, and again when he passed through 

 London on his return from France in 1433. 

 Of this visit Lydgate has much to say in his 

 metrical life of St. Edmund, of which this is the 

 opening stanza : 



When sixte Henry in his estat roial 



With his sceptre of Yngland and of France 



Heeld at Bury the feste pryncipal 



Of Cristemasse with fulest habundance, 



And after that list to have plesance, 



As his consail gan for him provide, 



There in his place til hesterne for to abide. 



When the news of the royal visit reached the 

 abbot he at once set eighty masons and artificers 

 at work to enlarge and beautify the abbot's 

 lodgings. He invited and obtained the cordial 

 co-operation of the town in the royal reception. 

 Five hundred townsmen turned out to meet the 

 young king, headed by their aldermen and chief 

 burgesses in scarlet, whilst the Bishop of Norwich 

 and the abbot (so often rivals if not actively 

 hostile) united in giving him holy water as 

 he dismounted from his palfrey. Of this 

 visit Abbot Curteys has left many particulars in 

 his register. 7 There, too, are the various letters 

 from the king to the abbot, whom he evidently 

 regarded as a tried and trusted friend. He con- 

 sulted him freely in his anxiety about the 

 progress of the French arms, asked his help in 

 making due preparation for the reception of the 

 French princess he was about to marry, and in 



' The coffin was discovered and reinterred in 

 1772. 



6 Harl. MS. 2278. 



1 This abbot's register (Add. MS. 14848) con- 

 tains several entries of local events not elsewhere 

 chronicled. The exact hours of the fall of the 

 southern side of the great western tower on 1 8 De- 

 cember, 1430, and of the fall of the eastern side of 

 the same on 30 December, are set forth (fol. 104^). 



Abbot Curteys, in January, 1429-30, entered into 

 an agreement with John Housell, goldsmith of Lon- 

 don, to make him a pastoral staff, weighing 12 Ib. 

 9J oz., to have on one side at the top the image of 

 the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, and on the 

 other the Salutation of the same, and in the circum- 

 ference of the same part twelve tabernacles with as 

 many apostles, and in the curve of the staff a taber- 

 nacle with the image of St. Edmund of the best 

 workmanship. The whole to be of silver-gilt, and 

 finished before the ensuing All Saints' Day, when pay- 

 ment of 40 was to be made to Housell (fol. 78). 



