RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



I 

 II 



his wife ; the church of Braiseworth, by 

 Geoffrey de Braiseworth, &c., &c. In further 

 augmentation the founder gave the church of 

 Yaxley, with all the churches and tithes of the 

 house of Eye, together with the privilege of a 

 four - days' fair at Eye. This charter was 

 solemnly offered on the high altar of the church 

 of Eye. Beatrice, sister of the founder, added 

 to all this, by an independent charter, the gift 

 of the hamlet (villula) of Redlingfield. 



King Stephen in 1138 granted to the monks 

 a full charter of confirmation ; among the wit- 

 nesses were his son Eustace and his queen 

 Matilda. William, earl of Boulogne, son of 

 Stephen, granted confirmation of the priory's 

 possessions at Stoke and Occold, and the priory 

 also received a confirmatory grant from Thomas 

 a Becket, as archbishop of Canterbury. 1 



The exceptionally large church patronage 

 held by this priory aroused particular attention at 

 Rome ; various popes desiring to secure some of 

 its preferments for their friends or favourites. 

 As early as 1251 the pope (Innocent IV) issued 

 his mandate making provision in favour of Giles, 

 a scholar, son of Lanfranc Rossi, of Genoa, of 

 a benefice of the prior and convent of Eye, 

 worth thirty or forty marks. In July, 1264, 

 Pope Urban IV directed the Bishop of Norwich 

 to make provision to Master Walter of Lincoln, 

 a poor clerk, of some church in the gift of the 

 prior and convent of Eye, usually assigned to 

 secular clerks, his fitness as to learning and his 

 life and conversation having been inquired into 

 by the bishop. The bishop was also instructed 

 to enforce residence. 3 



The taxation roll of 1291 abounds in refer- 

 ences to the possessions of the priory of Eye. 3 

 The value of the spiritualities amounted to 

 ^58 145. ; the appropriated rectory of Eye 

 was worth 33 6s. 8d. a year, All Saints', 

 Dunwich, 10 13*. 4^., and Play ford 8 ; and 

 there were appropriations of pensions and por- 

 tions from twenty-six other churches. The 



1 These five charters are cited at length in Dug- 

 dale's Man. iii, 4046. Bishop Tanner quotes from 

 two chartularies of Eye, the whereabouts of which 

 are not now known. Fortunately, however, in the 

 collections of Sir Symonds D'Ewes there are tran- 

 scripts or abstracts of the contents of both. The 

 volume containing them is Harl. MS. 639 ; fols. 

 58-68 give the abstracts from the chartulary known as 

 'Malet,' and fols. 68-71 of that known as 'Danoun.' 

 The first of these gives full copies of the five charters 

 that appear in the Man. and of various compositions 

 as to tithes, and of charters of Kings Richard I, 

 John, and Henry III, and of Popes Adrian and 

 Innocent III, and Richard, king of the Romans ; 

 there is nothing later than Henry Ill's reign. 

 ' Danoun ' is shorter, and is chiefly concerned with 

 the rentals and custumaries of different manors. 



1 Cal. Pap. Reg. i, 273, 414. 



3 Pope NicA. Tax (Rec. Com.), 6ob, 62, 80, 

 841$, 115*, 116, Ii6i, 117/5, 118, 118/5, 123, 

 125^, 127, 127/5, 128/5, 129^, 



temporalities, from twenty different manors 

 or parishes, amounted to the annual value 

 f 6$ I0 *' 9i^-> giving a full total of 

 124 4/. 9^. 



The full accounts of the manor of Eye for 

 1297-8, when it was in the hands of the crown 

 owing to the war with France, are extant. 

 They show that the total receipts from rents, 

 manorial court dues, &c. amounted to ,54 $s. $d., 

 whilst the expenses were 4 is. 4%d. 



The accounts for the same year of other 

 property of the priory, paid to the receivers or 

 crown bailiffs, show that the tithes of the chapel 

 of Badingham and of the churches of St. 

 Leonard and All Saints, Dunwich, together with 

 certain rents, amounted to 33 us. io^d. ; 

 the sale of corn realized 39 8;. 3^. These 

 items, with certain smaller amounts, produced 

 a total of 73 13*. i^d. But the outgoings 

 were 49 2s. \\d. ; of this sum 37 8*. dfd. 

 were spent on the sustenance of the nine monks 

 of the priory. The clear total handed to the 

 crown that year from the priory seems to have 

 been 74 141. 9^.* 



An extent of the possessions of Eye taken 

 in 1370, during the war of Edward III 

 with France, gives its total annual value as 

 123 us. 8d. 5 



The Valor of 1535 gives 112 195. $\d. 

 as the clear annual value of the temporalities from 

 the manors of Eye, Stoke, ' Acolt,' Laxfield, 

 Bedfield, and Fressingfield. As to the spirituali- 

 ties, the churches of Laxfield, Yaxley, All 

 Saints, Dunwich, and Playford in Suffolk, and 

 Barchly and Sedgebrook in Lincoln, were ap- 

 propriated to the priory. They also received 

 portions or pensions from twenty-three Suffolk 

 churches, with one from Essex, two from Lin- 

 coln, and two from Norfolk, yielding a total 

 income in spiritualities of ji los. 2d. But 

 the outgoings from this part of their income 

 were so considerable, including 14 12s. ^.d. 

 given to the poor, that the clear value was 

 only ,23 7*. 4^., leaving a total income of 

 161 2s. 3 ^. 6 



The income of the monks, on the eve of 

 dissolution, would certainly have been higher, 

 had it not been for their serious losses at Dun- 

 wich from the incursions of the sea. There 

 was only one church at Dunwich, dedicated to 

 St. Felix, in the days of the Confessor, but two 

 more were built in the reign of the Conqueror, 

 and several others shortly afterwards, so that 

 there were churches of St. Felix, St. Leonard, 

 St. John Baptist, St. Martin, St. Nicholas, St. 

 Peter, St. Michael, St. Bartholomew, All Saints, 

 and the Templars' church of St. Mary, by the 



4 Mins. Accts. bdle. 996, No. 12. Certain of the 

 spiritualities escaped record in these accounts. 



5 Add. MS. 6164, fol. 424; Dugdale, Man. Hi. 

 407-8, where it is set forth in full. 



8 yahr Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iii, 476-7- 



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