RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



travers, knt., for her soul after death, and that of 

 her husband, for the maintenance of their anni- 

 versary, and for certain other charges and works 

 of piety .''■' The Clopton chantry, founded by 

 Sir Walter Clopton, was valued at the time of 

 its suppression at io8s. 4*/." The Strangeways 

 chantry was founded in 1 505 in the chapel of 

 St. Mary within the abbey, the abbot by a tri- 

 partite deed between himself and the convent of 

 the one part, William abbot of Milton of the 

 other part, and Thomas Strangeways, executor 

 of Alianor, late the wife of Thomas Strangeways, 

 senior, of the third part, engaging in return for 

 certain benefactions to provide a chaplain to cele- 

 brate daily for the good estate of Henry VII and 

 Edmund, bishop of Salisbury, &c., and for the 

 souls of the said Alianor and Thomas Strange- 

 ways and their friends and ancestors.^^ This 

 does not exhaust the number of those who made 

 considerable bequests to the community in order 

 to receive the benefit of their prayers. 



The poverty which befel Abbotsbury in the 

 fourteenth century, though largely due to its 

 situation — exposed on the one hand to the 

 attack of invaders, and eaten up on the other 

 by the forces sent to defend the coast — was at 

 the same time greatly fostered by the bad govern- 

 ment of one of the abbots, Walter de Stokes 

 (1348-54).*' The attention of the bishop was 

 drawn to the house during his rule, and on 29 

 October, 1353, he wrote to the abbot and 

 convent that since visiting their monastery 

 ' for various causes ' and being at considerable 

 pains to reform what he had found amiss, it had 

 come to his ears that against ' good obedience ' 

 the community had deliberately spurned his 

 orders to the danger of souls and the scandal of 

 the neighbourhood ; he therefore summoned 

 them to appear before him or his official in the 

 chapter-house of their abbey on Monday, after the 

 feast of St. Martin the Bishop (11 November) to 

 answer for their conduct.^* A letter from 

 Edward III to the bishop soon followed, stating 

 that he had committed the custody of the goods 

 of the house, which, owing to the defective rule 

 of the abbot, were insufficient to maintain the 



" Pat. 16 Ric. II, pt. I, m. 79. 



" Chant. Cert. 16 (Dorset), Nos. 45-64. Thomas 

 Jenkyns is here given as the last incumbent. 



" Dugdale, Mon. iii, 58, No. 12. A copy of this 

 deed may be seen in Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, ii, 

 720. 



" He succeeded to Walter de Saunford, who pro- 

 probably fell a victim to the plague in 1348. The 

 episcopal registers record that in December of that 

 year the abbot and vicar of Abbotsbury were both dead. 

 Sarum Epis. Reg. Wyville, pt. 2, fol. 192. 



" Ibid. pt. I, fol. 167. In his inability to attend 

 personally to the matter, the bishop wrote to two 

 canons of Salisbury and commissioned them, with 

 John de Wyley, rector of S., to correct the mis- 

 deeds of the brethren, and see his decrees carried out ; 

 ibid. fol. 166 d. 



community or to meet its debts, to Robert de 

 Faryngdon, prior, and Henry de Tolre, monk, 

 Walter Waleys, clerk, Thomas Carey, and John 

 de Mautravers.*^ This arrangement was not 

 destined to run as smoothly as might have been 

 desired. Among the collection of Ancient 

 Petitions is a letter addressed by the abbot, whose 

 bad rule had caused him to be set aside, to the 

 archbishop of York, in which, complaining bit- 

 terly of his treatment at the hands of the above 

 custodians, he states that they had withdrawn 

 from him all the privileges to which he was 

 entitled — his accustomed chamber, competent 

 board and clothing, the services of a squire, two 

 chamberlains and two grooms to attend to his 

 horses — so that, 'insufficiently clad' {indecenterves- 

 W«j) and with his shoes ' enormously in holes' 

 {enorrniter infracth) he had been compelled to 

 proceed more than 18 miles on foot in order to 

 execute his business.'" The prior and other 

 custodians had also their tale of complaints. 

 According to them, the abbot had declined to 

 fall in with the arrangements made for the whole 

 community to lodge in one convenient house 

 until the debt on the abbey, amounting to ;^534, 

 had been wiped off ; he omitted to attend the 

 offices, would not come to the refectory, required 

 all his meals to be served at his own convenience 

 in his own chamber, and was spending money in 

 divers parts of the county, heaping up debts and 

 obligations which the house was wholly unable 

 to meet ; at the same time the seal of the abbey 

 had been stolen by his adherents, and affixed to 

 various deeds and grants prejudicial to the monas- 

 tery." These complaints were not groundless, 

 as was found by an inquisition held on 25 

 March, 1354, to inquire as to the lands and 

 rents illegally alienated ; the jury reported that 

 among various grants by the abbot before the 

 custody had been taken out of his hands was one 

 for a corrody and a robe for which he had received 

 ^^20 ; he was also said to keep hunting dogs, to 

 have retained an excessive number of servants, 

 and retainers, and to be in the habit of giving 

 unnecessary presents ; the injury he had thus done 

 to the house being estimated at ^£85 5 lOJ. id}'' 

 Fortunately for the community the abbot's career 

 was cut short by death the same year. The follow- 

 ing year the church of Winterborne St. Martin 

 was appropriated to the monastery ; '^ in 1 36 1 the 

 church of Toller Porcorum was annexed on 

 account of poverty, and the charges incurred 

 by the reception of numerous guests.'* In 

 1386 Pope Urban VI, in reply to a petition 

 from the abbot and convent representing their 

 house, which was situated on the coast, as 



" Ibid. 



'° Anct. Petitions, 10470. 



" Ibid. 1047 1-2-3-4. 



" Ibid. 10475. 



" Sarum Epis. Reg. Wyville, pt. I, fol. 241. 



" Ibid. fol. 242. 



51 



