A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



on account of a certain notable piece of the 

 wood of the true cross. The reason for this 

 piece of the cross being 'notable' is explained 

 by the statement that some, their sins it is 

 supposed being the cause, are unable to look 

 perfectly upon the said piece, thereby sometimes 

 incurring infirmities of divers sorts. At the 

 same date the priory received the papal con- 

 firmation of the appropriation of the churches 

 of Bardv/ell, Crostwick, and Tuttington, with 

 leave for one of the monks to serve Crostwick 

 as it was near the monastery. The priory, in 

 asking for this confirmation, assured the pope 

 that they had suffered grievously through the 

 sea irrevocably absorbing many of their lands 

 and tenements, through long pestilences, and 

 through fire.^ 



In order to still further help the priory of 

 Bromholm in this their special distress, Boniface 

 took the unusual step of granting indulgence 

 equal to that of the church of St. Mark's of 

 Venice to penitents who, on Passion Sunday, or 

 on the three days preceding and following, visit 

 and give alms for the conservation of this Cluniac 

 house in England. This grant also authorized 

 the prior of Bromholm to nominate six priests, 

 secular or religious, to hear the confessions of 

 such penitents." 



Fox gives a curious account of the alleged 

 burning of this cross at the beginning of the 

 fifteenth century. He states that one Sir Hugh 

 Pie, chaplain of Ludney, was accused before the 

 bishop of Norwich on 5 July, 1424, for holding 

 that people ought not to go on pilgrimage or to 

 give alms save to beggars at their doors, and that 

 the image of the cross and other images ought 

 not to be worshipped. He was also accused of 

 having ' cast the cross of Bromholm into the fire 

 to be burned, which he took from one John 

 Welgate of Ludney.' However Sir Hugh 

 utterly denied these articles, and purged himself 

 by the witness of three laymen and three 

 priests.' At any rate the cross was not burnt, 

 for it is in evidence more than a century later. 



There is a peculiarly interesting memorial of 

 the subject of the Bromholm pilgrimage in a four- 

 teenth-century ' Hours of Our Lady' in Lambeth 

 Library.'' To one of the pages an illuminated 

 leaf has been attached ; upon it is painted a 

 heart, containing within it a crucifix having the 

 two transverse beams of the patriarchal shape. 

 Above the heart is written ' Jesus Nazarenus 

 Rex Judeorum,' and on each side one of the two 

 lines forming this couplet : — 



This cross yat here peyntyd is 

 Signe of ye cros of bromholm is. 



' Cal. Papal Reg. v, 432-3. * Ibid. 384. 



' Fox, Jets and Monuments, iii, 5 86. 



' Lambeth MSS. 545. It was first noted by the 

 late Dr. Sparrow Simpson in 1873, and described 

 and illustrated by him in the Joum. of Arch. Assoc. 

 XXX, 52-61. 



Beneath the heart in a later hand, the concluding 

 line being partly erased : — 



Thys ys the holy cros that yt so sped 

 Be me ... in my need. 



Within the outline of the heart and round the 

 cross is written, in minute and much contracted 

 characters, the following hymn, which is also 

 given in full on an adjacent page : — 



Oracio Devota de Cruce, 

 O crux salve preciosa, 

 O crux salve gloriosa, 

 Me per verba curiosa 

 Te laudare, crux formosa 



Fac presenti carmine 

 Sicut tu de carne Christi 

 Sancta sacrata fuisti 

 Ejus Corpus suscepisti, 

 Et sudore maduisti, 



Lota sacro sanguine 

 Corpus, sensus, mentem meam, 

 Necnon vitam salves ream 

 Ut commissa mea fleam, 

 Ne signare per te queam 



Contra fraudes hostium. 

 Me defendas de peccato, 

 Et de facto desperate, 

 Hoste truso machinato 

 Reconsignas Dei nato 



Tuum presiduum. 



V. Adoremus Te Xpe. Quia per crucem, etc. 



Oratio. Adesto nobis, Domine Deus noster, et 

 quos sancte crucis letari facis honore ejus quoque 

 perpetuis defende subsidiis. Per Christum Dominum 

 nostrum. .Amen. 



Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sicut Domino 

 placuit ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini bene- 

 dictum. 



The so-called visitation of Legh and Leyton, 

 undertaken early in 1536, noted a cross called 

 ' The Holy Cross of Bromholm,' the girdle and 

 milk of the Virgin, and pieces of the crosses of 

 SS. Peter and Andrew. They also alleged that 

 Prior Lakenham and three of his monks had 

 confessed to them their incontinency. 



The county Commissioners for Suppression, 

 later in the same year, described Bromholm as 

 a head house of the Cluniac order, of the clear 

 yearly value of £ioc) as. ?>d. They found four 

 religious persons, all priests and requiring dis- 

 pensations, adding that ' they bene of very good 

 name and fame.' There were thirty-three other 

 persons having a living there, namely, four 

 waiting servants, twenty-six labourers and hinds, 

 and three almoners. The house was in good 

 repair, and the bells and lead valued at ;^200. 

 The movable goods, cattle, and corn were 

 valued at ;^49, and a hundred acres of wood at 

 Ibb 13s. ^d.' 



On 2 February, 1537, Richard Southwell 

 wrote to Cromwell that he had in his charge 

 the cross of Bromholm, which he would bring 

 up after the suppression was finished, or sooner 



Chant. Cert. Norf. No. 90. 



362 



