RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Edward III granted to William de Montacute, 

 earl of Salisbury and his heirs the advowson of 

 the priory of Montacute, with the custody 

 whenever it should be seized into the king's 

 hand by reason of the war with France, and at 

 the earl's petition the following year he added 

 on similar terms the advowson and custody of 

 Carsweli, Holme, St. Carrie, and Malpas, cells 

 pertaining to the said priory ' from the time of 

 which memory does not exist.' '' One of the 

 earliest acts of Henry IV on his accession was to 

 restore, among others, the alien priory of 

 Montacute with its subject cells, remitting the 

 farm lately paid to the king and his heirs or, by 

 virtue of a former grant, to the earl of Salis- 

 bury and his heirs, and reserving only the 

 payment of the ancient ' apport,' paid in time of 

 peace to the head house. The prior in 1407, 

 by the payment of a sum of 300 marks, ob- 

 tained a charter of denization for his house, 

 which made the priory, with all its posses- 

 sions, advowsons, &c., indigenous of England, 

 and provided that its superior should be elected 

 by the convent without collation or institu- 

 tion of the abbot of Cluny.'* Holme continued 

 up to the Dissolution as a dependent cell 

 with a prior 'dative and removable' by the head 

 house.'* 



Though ordained by the founder for the 

 maintenance of thirteen monks, there appears 

 from early times to have been a considerable 

 decline from the original design. The inquisition 

 held in 1281 declared that the prior of Monta- 

 cute held the church and manor of Holme 

 subject to the charge of finding four monks to 

 sing for the soul of Alured de Lincoln, his 

 progenitors and successors." Two years previous 

 to that the priors of Mont Didier in France and 

 Lenton in England, appointed by the abbot of 

 Cluny, in 1279, to visit English houses of the 

 order, found here two monks and a prior,'' while 

 a fifteenth-century description, probably drawn 

 up from visitation reports of 1298, 1390, and 

 1405, stated that the community consisted of 

 a prior and two monks.'* Leland, in the 

 sixteenth century, said that the four cells 

 belonging to Montacute had only two monks 

 each." 



" Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 7. Notwithstand- 

 ing this grant the prior of Holme was summoned 

 before the council at Westminster with other aliens to 

 answer for his charge in 1341 and 1347. (Close, 15 

 Edw. Ill, pt. 3, m. 6 ; 2 1 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 6d.) 

 On the conclusion of a peace in 1 361 Edward III 

 restored their possessions to Montacute and nine other 

 alien priories. Rymer, Foedera, vi, 311. 



" See inspeximus charters of Henry IV to the 

 priory of Montacute. Pat. 12 Hen. IV, m. 37. 



'* Valor Ecd. (Rec. Com.), i, 196. 



" Inq. p.m. 9 Edw. I, No. 47. 



" Duckett, Chart, and Rec. of Cluny, ii, 136. 



" Ibid. 213. 



" Collect, i, 8 I . 



With regard to the internal condition and 

 management of the house, the visitors appointed 

 in 1279 reported that the inmates lived well and 

 commendably according to the rule, fulfilling 

 their religious duties as far as the exigencies 

 of the place permitted and the limited num- 

 ber of the community.^" The prior, who had 

 been in office for three years, had taken over 

 the house burdened with a debt of twenty 

 marks, which he had managed to pay off, 

 and it was now free of debt.^' The buildings 

 and church were in good repair, and there 

 was a sufficient store to last till the follow- 

 ing harvest. The Cluniac order being exempt 

 from episcopal jurisdiction and visitation by 

 the ordinary the Salisbury registers throw no 

 light on the history of the house, but various 

 references are made to it in other records. In 

 January, 1331, a commission of oyer and ter- 

 miner was issued on the complaint of the abbot 

 of Bindon against John de Montacute, some- 

 time abbot of Bindon, who, both before and 

 after his deposition, proved such a source of 

 trouble to his house ; in his quarrel with his 

 own community he seems to have enlisted the 

 active support of the then prior of Holme, 

 Walter de Welham, at all events the two, with 

 others, were accused of breaking into the abbey 

 by night, driving away cattle, and carrying off 

 books, vessels, and ornaments of the church, 

 together with the conventual seal, which they 

 further proceeded to append to various docu- 

 ments to the prejudice of the community.-^ 

 In 1348 a certain Ralph de Midelneye was 

 charged with having acquired from the same 

 prior, Walter de Welham, then deceased, certain 

 premises in Winterborne Wast, Bockhampton, 

 and Swanage, and having entered on the same 

 without obtaining a licence of the king.^' 

 Edward III, in 1344, directed the mayor and 

 bailiffs of Dover to permit Gerard de Noiale, 

 prior of Holme, to cross the Channel in order to 

 visit the Roman court ' for the correction of his 

 soul.' 2* 



The Valor of 1535 states that John Wales 

 was then prior of this cell, valued at 

 £16 9J. 4^.,^* and on the surrender of Mon- 

 tacute Priory, 20 March, 1539, the same John 

 was appointed to serve the cure of Holme witii 

 a stipend of £?> ; in the event of his being ' im- 

 potente and lame ' and past work he should 

 receive a pension of ^5 ly. 4^.-" The house 

 and site of the dissolved cell were granted by 

 Henry VIII to Richard Hamper for a term of 



'» Duckett, Chart, and Rec. of Cluny, ii, 136. 

 " Ibid. 



" Pat. 4 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 7 </. ; see below, Bindon, 

 p. 84. 



'^i Pat. 22 Edw. Ill, pt. 2, m. 40 a'. 

 " Close, 18 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 13 a'. 

 " Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 196. 

 »« L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (i), 575. 

 I II 



