A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



sentence of excommunication in his diocese, to 

 cause the prior and canons to be denounced as 

 excommunicate, and to forbid all the faithful in 

 Christ to eat, drink, buy, sell or communicate 

 with them in any way until they should receive 

 absolution. 1 He bade the bishop inquire in the 

 town of Gloucester and the neighbourhood, and 

 cite all who should have communicated with 

 them. 2 Apparently the sentence was revoked 

 by the keeper of the spiritualities of Canterbury 

 after Peckham's death. 3 Bishop Giffard was 

 not deterred from attempting to exercise rights 

 of jurisdiction over the prior and canons. In 

 1300 he appointed two commissioners to visit 

 the priory. 4 He excommunicated the prior, sub- 

 prior, sacrist, precentor, cellarer, and elder 

 canons, because they refused to admit John, 

 bishop of Llandaff, to hold an ordination in their 

 church, by his authority. They claimed an ex- 

 emption but it was well-known that Walter de 

 Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, had held an 

 ordination there in I242. 6 The convent suffered 

 from the effect of the excommunication. In 

 1301, one of the canons appeared before the 

 justices at Worcester, and declared that the bishop 

 had done them much evil that year, causing 

 them to be so straitened that the greater part of 

 the convent had suffered from illness. 6 At the 

 instance of the prior and convent, Edward I 

 summoned Giffard to appear before him and his 

 justices, but he died very shortly afterwards. 7 

 To avoid further trouble with the bishops of 

 Worcester, Corbridge, archbishop of York, bade 

 the prior and canons get the chrism and oil 

 from Southwell, and pay pentecostals and Peter's 

 pence to the dean of the archbishop's juris- 

 diction of St. Oswald. 8 Accordingly they did 

 so. Gainsborough, bishop of Worcester, com- 

 plained of their action to the king at the 

 Parliament of Carlisle in 1307,' but he was 

 inhibited from exercising any ecclesiastical juris- 

 diction over the priory, 10 and in 1318 Edward II 

 issued a general prohibition against any encroach- 

 ment on the liberties and privileges of St. Oswald's 

 Priory. 11 In 1374 when the see of York was 

 vacant, and the prior of Worcester was visiting 

 the diocese of Worcester during a voidance of 

 that see, Edward III forbade him to act to the 

 prejudice of the archbishopric of York. 13 



The rapid appointments and removals of priors 

 in the first few years of the fourteenth century 



I Were. Epis. Reg. Giffard (Wore. Hist. Soc.), 309. 

 "Ibid. 310. 



Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xiii, 1 26. 



4 Wore. Epis. Reg. Giffard, (Wore. Hist. Soc.), 531. 



Ibid. 532. 



Ibid. 543. 



7 Historians of the Church of York (Rolls Ser.), ii, 224. 



8 Ibid. 225. 9 Ibid. 224. 



10 Brist. and Ghuc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xiii, 126, York 

 Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield bet. fols 34, 35. 



II Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xiii, 126. 



u Wore. Reg. SeJe Vac. (Wore. Hist. Soc.), 306. 



86 



testify to misfortune and lack of governance. 13 

 After a personal visitation of the monastery in 

 1309, Archbishop Greenfield ordered that the 

 injunctions of Archbishop Gray should be strictly 

 observed, and he made further provision to insure 

 financial stability. 14 He insisted that a full state- 

 ment of the rents, revenues, and stock should be 

 presented to him every year, and that no corrodies 

 should be sold, no manors or granges let, no lands 

 alienated without his special permission. Two 

 bursars should be appointed by the convent as 

 receivers of all moneys, and the muniments like 

 the common seal should be under the charge of 

 three or four of the canons. 



There are only glimpses of poverty in the 

 later history of the priory. In 1335 Archbishop 

 William of Melton granted a licence to the prior 

 and convent to borrow ,100 for the foundation 

 of a chantry. 15 In 1417 the prior and convent 

 petitioned Edmund Lacy, bishop of Hereford, to 

 appropriate the church of Minsterworth to them. 18 

 They pleaded dire distress, their house was 

 ruinous, their rents and profits were so diminished 

 that the canons had but a bare living. Their 

 losses were very heavy from pestilences and mur- 

 rains, and they had also suffered from the mis- 

 government of former priors, and they were 

 oppressed by an insupportable load of debt. The 

 bishop ordered an inquisition to be made into the 

 state of affairs at the priory. He was satisfied of 

 the truth, 17 and consented to the appropriation of 

 the church. 18 In 1462 the canons of St. Oswald 

 were reduced to such penury that they were ex- 

 empted from payment of tenths. 19 



The priory came under the Act of 1536 for 

 the suppression of the lesser monasteries. On 

 23 April, 1536, Edward Lee, archbishop of 

 York, besought Cromwell to spare the house. 



It is not of foundation a monastery of religious men, 

 he wrote, but is libera capella archiepiscopi. No man 

 hath title in it but the archbishop : the prior thereof 

 is removable at my pleasure and accountable to me, 

 and the archbishop may put there if he will, secular 

 priests, and so would I have done at my entry, if I 

 had not there found one of mine acquaintance whom 

 I judged meet to be there under me.* 



His appeal was of no avail. On 4 September a 

 commission was issued for a survey of those 

 monasteries in Gloucestershire of which the 

 revenues fell below 200 a year, with a view of 

 taking them over on the king's behalf. 21 The 



13 Cf. list of priors, and York Archiepis. Reg. Green- 

 field, i, fol. 45 d ; ii, fol. 44. 



14 York Archiepis. Reg. Greenfield, i, fol. 45. 



15 Ibid. Melton, fol. 546. 



" Heref. Epis. Reg. Lacy, fol. 4. 



17 Ibid. fol. 1 6. 1S Ibid. fol. 17. 



19 Wore. Epis. Reg. Carpenter, i, fol. 178 ; 'per 

 casus fortuitos . . . quasi destruct. seu nimium de- 

 minut. et depauperat ' 



20 Suppression of Monasteries (Camden Soc.), 124. 

 " Dublin Review, April, 1894, p. 250. 



