RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Peter, son of Peter de Nerford, granted in 

 1280, to the abbot and canons of St. Mary of 

 Dereham, Richard de Ayssepele, Simon le 

 Wodewide, and Simon the carter of Saham, 

 with their tenements, belongings, and services, 

 and I2d. of rents ; to hold the same in free alms 

 for the sustentation of one canon to celebrate in 

 the abbey of Dereham for the souls of the 

 faithful departed.^ 



The abbot and convent obtained leave in 

 1285 to enclose eight acres of land in West 

 Dereham, adjoining the abbey on the west side, 

 to wit from the stone bridge of West Dereham 

 to the end of their close called Fishercroft, for 

 the enlargement of their site.^ Other grants of 

 lands and rents were made by various benefactors 

 so that by 1291, when the ecclesiastical taxation 

 roll was drawn up, the endowments of this 

 abbey were considerable, being of the clear 

 annual value of £i6() 3;. 8^1?. Their chief 

 possessions were in Norfolk, scattered over thirty- 

 three parishes, but they had also property in the 

 dioceses of York, Ely, and Lincoln. 



Elizabeth de Burgo, the king's kinswoman, 

 had licence in 1336 for alienation in mortmain 

 of 7 messuages, 112 acres of land, 8 acres 

 of meadow, 10 acres of pasture, and los. %\d.of 

 rent in West Dereham and adjacent towns of 

 Norfolk, together with the fair of Wynwale, to 

 the abbey of Dereham, to find a chaplain 

 to celebrate daily in the chapel of St. Wynwale 

 for the soul of Gilbert de Clare, late earl of 

 Gloucester, and for the souls of herself, her 

 ancestors, and heirs.^ 



Boniface IX, in 1399, sanctioned the appro- 

 priation to this abbey of the church of Grimston, 

 value not exceeding 90 marks, and that of the 

 monastery, not exceeding 400 marks. On the 

 resignation of the rector the church might be 

 served by one of their canons.* In the same 

 year the pope confirmed the decision made by 

 the late bishop of Ely with regard to a dispute 

 between the abbey and the priory of Barnwell 

 as to the tithes of the sheaves of ' Nunne Court 

 fee ' pertaining to the church of Holy Trinity, 

 Cambridge. The decree ordered the priory to 

 pay 30i. yearly to the abbey for these tithes. 

 The pope completed the ordinance by enjoining 

 the priory to keep the chancel of Holy Trinity 

 in repair and to pay synodals.^ Two years later, 

 September, 1 40 1, this Cambridge church was 

 fully appropriated to the abbey, by sanction of 

 Boniface. At the same time the two parishes of 

 St. Peter and St. Andrew, West Dereham, 

 situate close together in one churchyard, were 

 united. It was stated that St. Peter's was so 

 diminished in income that a priest could not be 

 maintained. The convent and the parishioners 



of St. Peter's were freed from the repair of the 

 church and chancel, and considered parishioners 

 of St. Andrew's.* 



Another church about the possession of which 

 the abbey had some little trouble and litigation 

 at an earlier period, was that of Holkham, which 

 had been given them by Aymer de Valence, who 

 had made good his claim to it against the abbot 

 of Viterbo. In 1341 the latter abbot en- 

 deavoured to reclaim it from the abbot of West 

 Dereham, and the king ordered the prior of 

 Walsingham to do justice in the case,' which 

 was evidently decided in favour of the Norfolk 

 house as they are found in possession of the 

 rectory in 1535. 



When the abbey was visited in 1478 by 

 Richard Redman, bishop of St. Asaph and abbot 

 of Shap, and by Hubert, commissary-general of the 

 abbot of Pr^montr6, it was reported that the abbey 

 held five churches, the cures of which were 

 sometimes held by canons in perpetuity, some- 

 times by seculars, and sometimes by canons 

 removable at pleasure.* 



When the Valor Ecclesiasticus was taken in 

 1535 the clear annual value was declared to be 

 ;^228 OS. o%d. 



On 20 September, 1323, Canon Geoffrey de 

 Driffield, from the abbey of Egleston, was sent 

 to Dereham by the king, with the request that 

 he might stay with them for a time, as the 

 house of Egleston had been so destroyed by the 

 Scotch rebels that the canons could no longer 

 live there. At the same time, seven other 

 canons of Egleston were distributed among the 

 like number of Premonstratensian houses, in- 

 cluding the Norfolk abbey of Langley.^ 



In May, 1325, the county escheator was 

 ordered not to further intermeddle with this 

 abbey, which he had taken into the king's hands 

 on the death of the last abbot on the plea that the 

 lands that belonged to Aymer de Valence, late earl 

 of Pembroke, were in the king's hands. The king 

 had learnt by inquisition that the abbey was of 

 the advowson of the earl as of the inheritance 

 of Monchesney, and that from the time of its 

 foundation until then the patrons of the abbey, 

 when it was vacant, had no custody there, and 

 that the convent did not seek licence to elect 

 from any patron, and did not present him whom 

 they had elected to the patron before the in- 

 stallation. It was further ascertained that the 

 patron did not receive any profit at the time 

 of voidance, but that whenever a patron died, 

 the abbot and convent celebrated mass and dis- 

 tributed alms for his soul on the same scale as at 

 the death of an abbot, namely each canon-priest 

 of the house celebrated three masses, and each 

 canon not a priest said a psalter, and each lay 



Bodl. Chart. 169. 

 Cal. of Pat. 13 Edw. I, m. 25. 

 Ibid. 10 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 22. 

 Cal. Papal Reg. v, 196. ' 



Ibid. 



197. 



* Cal. Papal Reg. v, 197. 



' Chanc. Misc. bdle. 18, file 4, No. 7. 



' Stowe MS. 4935, fol. 9. 



' Cal. of Close, 17 Edw. II, m. 37 a'. 



415 



