RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



teries of England. There have been writers who, though they con- 

 demned the wholesale destruction of all monasteries by Henry VIII., 

 have yet been disposed on the whole to accept the statements contained 

 in the preamble to the First Act of Suppression ; and there is indeed 

 at first sight something very plausible in the theory that the smaller 

 houses were worse than the large ones, as less influenced by public 

 opinion both within and without. The question however is not what 

 might have happened, but what actually did happen ; and so far as this 

 county is concerned, there is no evidence that the smaller houses were 

 more degenerate than the greater ; they were nearly all well spoken of 

 at the last by the local commissioners. Nor do we find here any signs 

 that one order was on the whole worse than another, though the latest 

 reports of the abbey of Missenden tend to justify Wolsey's efforts to 

 reform the Augustinians. But indeed it very often happened that two 

 houses 1 of the same order, separated by only a few miles of country, 

 might be in a very different condition ; and the same house which at 

 one visitation was censured might a few years later be praised ; not 

 because of any fault in the times, or in the order, but simply because 

 of the change of superiors. This fact has not perhaps received as much 

 consideration as it deserves : duly weighed, it will account for a good 

 deal that would otherwise be difficult to understand. 



Five of the Buckinghamshire monasteries were destined to come 

 to an end before the general dissolution. The priory of Luffield was 

 suppressed in 1494 to endow Henry the Seventh's new chapel at West- 

 minster ; and the priories of Tickford, Ravenstone, and Brad well formed 

 part of the endowment of Cardinal's College in 1524. The priory of 

 Chetwode had been absorbed into the abbey of Nutley in 1461. 



HOUSES OF BENEDICTINE MONKS 



i. THE PRIORY OF LUFFIELD Hamo son of Meinfelin. 5 The endowments 



, T rr i j u ui ,-j, in the twelfth century were not extensive, and 



The priory, >f Luffied was probably the considerable ^ were added at any 



first house of this order in Bucknghamsh.re,* nc conjd g ^^ ^ ^ ^ 



and was dedicated to the honour o St. Mary ; ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ 



the name of the founder Robert de Bossu, \ koned almost from the first as a 



Earl of Leicester, shows the date o founda- foimdation> and the royal patronage was 



tion to have been earlier than 1133. Gifts Y ' ^ ^ of Qeed< 



of land for the support of the monastery were J d b the chronicler of Dun . 



confirmed by Henry I. and the Empress * fl the year 1244 a band of five- 



Maud and also by bulls of Eugemus II. and ^wentyro^trs "burst int'o the monastery 



Alexander III.- there is no well-known -n th / monks were singing vespers, and 



name among its benefactors except that of J^ ^ ^ ^ ^^ ornam ents of 



i E.g. the abbeys of Warden and Woburn in the church, with everything else they could 



13 

 34 8. =' tkil " mt - 



347 



