RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



obliged to maintain three or four monks at Glou- 

 cester Hall in Oxford, and furnish them each 

 with 15 marks a year, which they then had 

 difficulty in doing. 1 On 30 April, 1391, 

 Richard II granted the advowson of the church 

 of Holy Trinity, Gloucester, with the chapel of 

 St. Mary, Grasslane, to the abbot and convent.* 

 According to the petition to Boniface IX, the 

 revenues of the convent had then reached 2,000 

 marks.* However, owing to representations 

 which were made to him in 1402 he insisted 

 that vicarages should be created. 4 Boniface IX 

 also granted to Walter Froucester the privileges 

 of a mitred abbot. 1 During his rule the muni- 

 ments of the house, which were kept in the 

 treasury,* appear to have been set in order. It 

 was probably by his wish and influence that one 

 of the monks compiled the chronicle which 

 briefly relates the lives and good deeds of the 

 abbots, concluding with Walter Froucester. 7 

 Several registers were compiled by him, and of 

 these two have survived. 8 One of them con- 

 tains a collection of royal charters and a series 

 of documents referring to churches appropriated 

 to the monastery.* The other, which was com- 

 piled in 1 393, contains documents arranged in dis- 

 tinct sections, concerning the property often of the 

 officers of the house, viz. : of the sacrist, almoner, 

 hostiller, sub-almoner, master of the works, 

 chamberlain, masters of the frater, the farmery, 

 and Lady Chapel, and precentor. 10 The office of 

 master of the works existed under Abbot Henry 

 Foliot (1228-43)," ' l was perhaps created by 

 him after the death of Elias, the sacrist, in 1237. * 

 A register of the property of the common fund 

 of the convent, which was administered by 

 treasurers or receivers, 1 * seems also to have 

 been compiled at this time. 14 The other officers of 

 the house, who are known to have held property 1 

 are the prior, kitchener, custos or master of the 

 churches, and master or monk of the town. A 

 document which may probably be assigned to 

 the first half of the fourteenth century shows 

 the relative value of the property held by each 

 of these officers at a time when the total revenue 



1 Cal. Papal L. v, 599-600. 



' Cal. of Pat. 14 Rich. II, pt. 2, m. 17. 



' Cal. Papal L. v, 600. 



4 Ibid. 60 1. 



Hiit. et Cart Glout. (Rolls Ser.) i, 56. 



Ibid, iii, 106. ' Ibid, i, 1-58. 



Reg. Froucester A. and B. (MSS. of Dean and 

 Chapter of Glouc.). 



' Ibid. A. lo Ibid. B. 



" Ibid. Registrum Magistri Operis, fol. 3 v, 6. 



u Hiit. et Cart. Glouc. (Rolls Ser.), i, z8. 



" Ibid, iii, 105. 



14 An index, as far as Brompton, of the manors be- 

 longing to the common fund of the monastery, i to 

 be found on fol. I of Froucester A. Brompton oc- 

 curred on fol. 1 6, and it may be concluded that the 

 index ends abruptly, because the scribe discovered that 

 he was entering it in the wrong volume. 



" Hitt. et Cart. Glouc. (Rolls Scr.), 232, 233. 



of the monastery amounted to ^1,623 i6j. 4^-'* 

 It is interesting to note that at Gloucester the 

 common fund was large, its income being nearly 

 ,830. The abbot's personal income was only 

 jio. In view of the great expenditure of 

 Abbot Horton, it may perhaps be concluded 

 that he appropriated the offerings at the tomb 

 of Edward II to his office, or that he got a 

 larger share of the common fund. The 

 separate income of the abbot, though usual in 

 Benedictine houses, was contrary to the injunc- 

 tion of Winchelsey, archbishop of Canterbury 

 of 1301. 



The fifteenth century is almost barren of 

 interest save in the continuance of the building. 

 The west front was the work of Abbot Morwent 

 (1420-37)" the rebuilding of the central tower 

 was begun by Abbot Sebroke (1450-7)** and 

 finished after his death by a monk named Tully. 

 The Lady chapel was built during the rule of 

 Richard Hauley (1457-72) and William Farley 

 (1472-98)." In 1428 the cell of Kilpeck 

 was united to the mother house by Thomas 

 Spofford, bishop of Hereford.* When Thomas 

 Polton, bishop of Worcester, visited the 

 monastery early in 1429 he was extremely dis- 

 satisfied with its condition ; pressure of other 

 business apparently compelled him to depart in 

 some haste, and he appointed a commissioner to 

 conclude his work." Abbot Boulers (1437-50) 

 was a shrewd man of affairs and was sent on an 

 embassy to Rome in 1449, when the convent 

 allowed him ^400 for his expenses.** In 1450 

 he was seized by Richard, duke of York, and 

 imprisoned for a time in Ludlow Castle. In 

 that year he was promoted to the bishopric of 

 Hereford ; in 1453 he was transferred to Lich- 

 field, and shortly before his death in 1459 he 

 willed his books to the library at Gloucester. 

 In 1484 Richard III granted in mortmain to 

 Abbot Farley ^2O a year, the reduced fee farm 

 payable by the burgesses of Gloucester.*' 



At the elections of the Abbots Braunche and 

 Newton, there were hot disputes in the monas- 

 tery. Matters reached such a pass that in 1 500, 

 and again in 1510, the king issued a mandate to 

 the prior to maintain order.* 4 In 1510 there 

 were forty-eight monks in the house, two who 

 were scholars at Oxford, and fifteen who were 

 at the four cells.** All these assembled to elect 

 an abbot, and the choice of the majority fell on 

 John Newton, a bachelor of divinity, then prior 



"Ibid, iii, 133, 234. 

 " Fosbrooke, History of Gloucester, 177. 

 "Ibid. 178. "Ibid. 179. 



10 Heref. Epis. Reg. Spofford, i, fols. 1 1 3-4 J. 

 " Wore. Epis. Reg. Pulton, fol. 59 J. 

 " Fosbrooke, op. cit. 177-8. 

 " Cal. of Pat. i Ric. Ill, pt. iv. m. 24. 

 " Fosbrooke, op. cit. 178 ; Hiit. et Cart. Glouc. 

 (Rolls Ser.), iii, p. xxxv. 

 K Hist, et Cart. Glouc. (Rolls Ser.), iii, pp. xxxii- 



XXXIV. 



59 



