RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



and one woman who received board, and 

 possibly lodging also, at the expense of the 

 priory. 1 The priors too at this time were 

 foreigners, sent direct from Marmoutier, and 

 by no means always men of high character. 

 William de Menevere in 1329 was accused of 

 taking the goods of John Kimble of Filgrave. 2 

 The vicar of Newport Pagnel complained in 

 1340 that Fulk de Champaigne, then prior, 

 with two others, had lately besieged his house 

 at Tickford, had broken the doors and win- 

 dows, when he tried to escape had insulted, 

 beaten and wounded him, and threatened to 

 burn the house over his head if he returned. 3 

 This prior, or his successor, died in the year of 

 the Great Pestilence, which probably lowered 

 still further the numbers and resources of the 

 priory. 



The lands and revenues of aliens were again 

 in the king's hand during the reign of Ed- 

 ward III., and Tickford was farmed out for 

 twenty-three years 4 : it was in the same con- 

 dition in the time of Richard II. It must 

 have been extremely difficult to maintain the 

 ordinary discipline of the house while its 

 revenues were administered by secular offi- 

 cials, whose only interest was to secure some 

 margin of profit for themselves, after paying 

 the rent due to the king. It was indeed some- 

 times hard to know who was the real head of 

 the house. In 1386 the farmer and chaplain 



1 The account of these corrodies is interesting, 

 as tending to show that the monks of mediaeval 

 England fared on the whole neither more nor less 

 luxuriously than ordinary citizens of the middle 

 class that is to say, of the class from which most 

 of them came, during the thirteenth and until the 

 sixteenth century. If the fare provided in the 

 refectory of the convent had been much poorer 

 than was customary in this class of life, the secular 

 chaplains and vicars who served their appropriate 

 churches would scarcely have been expected to 

 take their meals ordinarily with the monks, and to 

 regard this board as part of their stipend : if the 

 food had been better and more costly than that 

 eaten by ordinary citizens, the monks themselves 

 would not have been so ready to grant corrodies for 

 life to their lesser benefactors. Bread and beer are 

 constantly mentioned as the staple diet of the 

 monks. See the account of Dunstable Priory in 

 the V.C.H. Beds, i. 375. Nearly all these pen- 

 sioners at Tickford received a loaf of bread and a 

 gallon of conventual beer daily : one had in addi- 

 tion four dishes of meat every week, another a robe 

 every year : in one case it is expressly stated that a 

 monk's corrody was granted in satisfaction of a 

 debt of 25*. 



a Pat. 2 Edw. III. pt. i., m. 34d. 



3 Pat. 14 Edw. III. pt. i., m. 2od. These last 

 are merely accusations, and may not of course 

 have been actually proved. 



Bull, History of Newport Pagnel. 



appointed at Tickford by letters patent suc- 

 ceeded in disseising John Dvien, recently 

 elected prior, on the ground of an ordinance 

 of Parliament dated I Richard II., expelling 

 all aliens except priors who had a title for life. 

 On the occasion of the king's journey to Scot- 

 land, when he lodged in the monastery, John 

 Dvien however managed to lay his complaint 

 before Richard himself, and was restored to 

 office and allowed to hold the priory instead 

 of the other farmers, at a rent of 40 marks a 

 year. 5 It is not surprising, under such con- 

 ditions as this, to find notice of ' waste, de- 

 struction and other defects ' in this house. 6 

 Nor was John Dvien, it must be owned, a man 

 who was likely to help his brethren to regain a 

 higher standard of life. He was charged in 

 1398 with trying to obtain tithes from the 

 Rector of North Crawley on false pretences ; 

 the case was proved against him, and he was 

 condemned to pay the costs ; but he refused 

 to accept the sentence and appealed finally to 

 Rome, only to be condemned again. In 1400 

 he and his convent were threatened with ex- 

 communication if they still refused to give up 

 the tithes and pay the costs, and James, 

 bishop of Ploek, was to invoke the secular arm 

 against them if necessary. 7 



From the reign of Henry IV. onwards the 

 priory ceased to be immediately subject to 

 Tours ; and the priors were thenceforward 

 nominated by the prior of Holy Trinity, York, 

 as proctor-general of the Abbot of Marmou- 

 tier. 8 Once indeed in 1499," at the death 

 of William Pemberton, the abbot wrote and 

 appointed a monk of St. Peter's, Westminster, 

 in his place ; but no notice was taken of his 

 letter. The delegates who visited all the 

 Cluniac monasteries in England in 1450 men- 

 tion Tickford by name, but it is doubtful if 

 they really came to this priory : they reported 

 that it was immediately subject to the priory 

 of Lewes, which was not the case, and also 

 that it contained sixteen monks, which seems 

 improbable at this time. 10 



Thomas Broke, who was elected in 1503, 

 had been previously Prior of Snelshall. The 

 last prior surrendered the house to Wolsey 



Pat. 10 Richard II. pt. i., m. 36. 



6 Ibid. 9 Richard II. m. 4od. 



' Cat. of Pap. Letters, v. 93-4, and 271-2. 



8 Line. Epis. Reg. 



Bull, History of Newport Pagnel, 80 ; from 

 Bodleian Library, Bucks Charters, 59. 



10 Sir G. F. Duckett, Visitations of English 

 Cluniac Foundations, 43. In the same author's 

 Charters and Records of the Abbey of Cluni the 

 words are debent esse sexdecim, which is probably 

 the correct form of the statement made by the 



visitors. 



363 



