A HISTORY OF DORSET 



original settlement had either ceased to exist or 

 that the friars were for some reason compelled 

 to vacate their premises. No further attempt 

 to re-establish the Carmelites in Bridport appears 

 to have been made. 



1 6. THE CARMELITE FRIARS OF 

 LYME 



In November, 1325, a jury of inquest declared 

 that it would not be to the king's prejudice if 

 he licensed William Darre, chaplain, to grant a 

 •■nessuage and 8 acres of land in Lyme to the 

 Carmelite Friars. The land paid 155. lof^a'. 



towards the firm of the town and was worth 21. 

 a year besides.'^ 



The house does not seem to have been 

 founded.'* 



17. THE AUSTIN FRIARS OF SHER- 

 BORNE 



In 1343 Robert of Bradford had licence to 

 grant to the provincial prior and Austin Friars in 

 England a messuage and 8 acres of land in 

 Sherborne to build thereon an oratory and 

 houses for friars of their order." The house 

 does not seem to have been founded. 



HERMITAGE 



18. THE 'PRIORY HERMITAGE' 

 OF BLACKMOORi 



Obscure though the early history of this house 

 is it may reasonably be assumed that, originally 

 a hermit settlement in the heart of the forest of 

 Blackmoor, it attracted to itself so large a com- 

 pany of the faithful that a community was 

 formed, a rule adopted — apparently similar to 

 that of the friars hermits of St. Augustine, 

 though the hermitage seems clearly never to have 

 been affiliated to that order — and the brethren 

 placing themselves under the protection of the 

 lords of the forest, the earls of Cornwall, who 

 had permitted if not built the earlier foundation, 

 acquired the site of their dwelling and such 

 property from time to time as the generosity of 

 their patrons added to them. The precise date 

 of these events cannot be given, though they 

 probably took place in the reign of Henry III. 

 Edmund, earl of Cornwall, died in 1300 seised 

 of the hermitage in Blackmoor,' and in 1314 

 Edward II granted a licence to the brethren to 

 retain without let or hindrance of any justice or 

 forest officer the land which they had acquired 

 within the forest without licence from his pre- 

 decessors, comprising the site of their hermitage, 



" Inq. a q.d. file 183, No. 4. 



" Willi.im of Worcester (//;'». 372), speaking of 

 Thomas Beaufort, duke of Exeter, says : ' Item habuit 

 iii vel iiii infantes et obierunt apud Lyme inter 

 fratres.' (?) 



" Inq. a. q.d. file 265, No. 12 ; Pat. 17 Edw. Ill, 

 pt. I, m. 17. 



' This house has not been fully or correctly treated 

 by previous compilers. Tanner, in the earlier Notitia 

 (1744), mistaking it for an Austin priory of the same 

 name in Essex, states that it was dedicated to St. 

 Lawrence and attributes to it various references relat- 

 ing to the Essex house. The matter is not cleared 

 up in the later Notitia, and the edition of the third 

 and corrected edition of Hutchins, while giving much 

 fresh information, repeats some of the old errors. Hist. 

 0/ Dorset, iv, 467. 



consisting of 10 acres of land the gift of Ralph, 

 earl of Cornwall, 7 acres acquired from Richard, 

 earl of Cornwall, who died in 1272, and 7 acres 

 bestowed by Edmund, the late earl,' which they 

 had inclosed according to the assize of the forest 

 so that the deer could enter and leave. Tlie 

 following year the prior and hermits were allowed 

 8 acres of land out of the waste of the forest in 

 a place called ' Rocumbe,' with liberty to 

 inclose the same with a little dyke and low 

 hedge and bring it into cultivation,'' and in 

 1325 Ingelram Berenger, who had been ap- 

 pointed steward of the forest,' made over to them 

 100 acres of land in ' Rocumbe,' held in chief 

 for the service of rendering 32/. ,^d. at the 

 Exchequer, on condition that they should find a 

 chaplain to celebrate daily in the church of the 

 hermitage for the souls of the said Ingelram and 

 the faithful departed and for the maintenance of 

 ten mendicants to be refreshed once a day in the 

 hermitage.^ The List charge seems to have 

 dropped speedily out of practice and even 

 memory, for the return made to the writ of 

 Edward III, dated November, 1338, requiring 

 to be certified whether it would be to the injury 

 of the king or any other for the prior and 

 chaplains of the hermitage of Blackmoor Regis, 

 Dorset, to retain 14 messuages, 100 acres of 

 land, 2i- acres of meadow with a rent of 

 67J. ^d. and of a pound of cummin in Knighton, 

 Fossil, Winfrith, and Baltington, which they 

 had acquired in fee from the late Ingelram 

 Berenger since the publication of the Statute of 

 Mortmain without licence of the late king, 



' Inq. p.m. 28 Edw. I, No. 44. Unfortunately 

 the section giving the return relating to the hermitage 

 within Blackmoor forest, parcel of the duchy of Corn- 

 wall, is reported as ' missing ' at the P.R.O. 



' Pat. 7 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 15; see Dugdale, 

 Baron, of Engl, i, 76 1. 



* Pat. 9 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 28. 



' Ibid. 18 Edw. II, pt. I, m. 25. 



° Ibid. 19 Edw. II, pt. 1, m. 13. 



96 



