A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 



1 00 ft. by 60 ft., and there were other extensions 

 about the same date.' 



In 1364 the friars were permitted to add five 

 tenements to their site, the gift of Thomas Drewe 

 and others." The bishop of Norwich, in 1383, 

 granted the friars a plot of land in Gaywood, 

 24 ft. by 16 ft., of the yearly value of id., for 

 making a subterranean conduit from a spring in 

 that plot through the bishop's demesnes to their 

 house.' 



There were further extensions of their premises 

 in the reigns of Henry IV * and V.* 



In 1535, when Thomas Potter was prior, this 

 house had three tenements in Lynn of the annual 

 value of lbs. 8d.^ 



The surrender of the house, dated 30 Sep- 

 tember, 1538, was signed by William Wilson, 

 prior, and ten others."^ 



52. THE FRIARS OF THE SACK, 



LYNN 



The Friars of the Sack, or De Penitentia, had 

 a house at Lynn in the thirteenth century. 

 This order, which never attained to much pros- 

 perity, was suppressed in France in 1293, ^^^ 

 members being obliged to join the Austin Friars 

 in consequence of the smallness of their numbers. 

 In England they came to an end in 131 7, when 

 the members were obliged to join one or other 

 of the four chief orders of the mendicants. At 

 the time of their suppression Robert Flegg, the 

 prior of the house at Lynn, was superior of the 

 whole order in England.* 



There is a reference in the Norfolk Fines of 

 1277 to the right of the prior ' de Penitentia 

 Jesu Christi in Lenn ' to certain messuages.' 



53. THE DOMINICAN FRIARS 

 NORWICH 



OF 



The Friars Preachers first took up their abode 

 in the city of Norwich in the year 1226. The 

 Norwich house was the third founded in England 

 after their arrival on our shores in 1221, and 

 ranked as one of the most important of the 

 Dominican priories.'" 



The old parish church of ' St. John Baptist 

 over-the- Water ' was assigned to them at an 

 early date by Sir Thomas Gelham. It stood on 



' Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 15. 

 ' Ibid. 38 EJw. Ill, pt. i, m. 16. 

 ' Ibid. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 23. 

 ' Ibid. 7 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 31. 

 ' Ibid. I Hen. V, pt. i, m. 17. 

 ' Fa/or Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iii, 398. 



• L. and P. Hen. Vlll. xiii (2) 182. 



* MS. Coll. Wren, fol. 125, cited in Tinner's 

 l^otitia. 



' Tanner, Notitin, Norf. xli, 10. 

 '" The late Father Palmer devoted three of his 

 learned articles on the Dominican houses to the Nor- 

 ^vich priory. They appeared in the RePiquary. 



the north side of Black Boy Street, and by its side 

 they created their first dwellings." Their rule 

 prohibited them from accepting any parochial 

 charge, so that the parish of St. John Bapti'^t 

 must have been united to that of St. George 

 before the gift was made. 



After another Dominican house had been 

 founded within the diocese at Dunwich, it be- 

 came necessary to assign limits for their ministra- 

 tions. Accordingly on 10 January, 1259, two 

 representatives of each house, elected by their 

 respective convents, met at the house of the 

 Austin Canons at Herringfleet and appointed an 

 arbitrator. His decision was in favour of the 

 river that divided Norfolk from Suffolk being the 

 boundary between the two houses, save that 

 the friars of Dunwich should have a right to 

 visit the parishes of Mundham and Rushford (r), 

 which lay in both counties.'' 



When Henry III was at Norwich in October, 

 1272, he ordered the sheriff to bestow 10 marks 

 on the Dominicans." Edward I, at a \isit in 

 September, 1 289, gave them 40.!. for three days' 

 food,''' and two years later, the executors of Queen 

 Eleanor of Castile gave looj. to this house.'* 



In 1280 they enclosed their site within a pre- 

 cinct wall, and between that date and the end of 

 the century, several extensions were granted them 

 for enlarging their plot.'^ 



Meanwhile a new but short-lived order of friars 

 appeared in the city. The Friars of Penance of 

 Jesus Christ, commonly known from their rough 

 brown habit as the Friars of the Sack, or Sackites, 

 had their origin at Marseilles in 1251, and first 

 appeared in London in 1257. In the next year 

 a party of them arrived in Norwich, and a site 

 was secured in the parish of St. Peter of Hun- 

 gate. Notwithstanding various small benefactions 

 enlarging their site, and such occasional windfalls 

 as the td, bequeathed them in 1272 by Thomas 

 son of Peter of Aldburgh," these Friars of the Sack 

 never flourished, and at last there was only left 

 the prior, William de Hoo, ' broken with old age 

 and nearly blind.' In 1307 the end came, for 

 Clement V suppressed the whole order.'* 



The site of the Dominicans had become too 

 confined for their increasing numbers, and the 

 approach was very narrow and subject to overflow 

 of the waters. Accordingly they negotiated with 

 success to acquire the abandoned plot of the 

 Sackites, licence being granted by Edward II in 

 October, 1307, to the Friars Preachers of Norwich 

 to hold that plot of land in the city which the 

 Friars ' de Penitentia ' formerly held in chief by 



" Kirkpatrick, ReRg. Ord. o/Nottv. 17. 

 " Cited bv Kirkpatrick (7, 8) from the original in 

 the Guildh.iil. 

 " Libente R. 56 Hen. Ill, m. 2. 

 '* Rot. Elem. Reg. 1 7 & 1 8 Edw. I. 

 '" Liberate R. pro regina, 19 & 20 Edw. I. 

 " Re/if uary (new ser.), vol. iii, 164. 

 " Anct. D. A I 1569. 

 " Kirkpatrick, Re/ig. Ord. o/Noixi\ 96-104. 



428 



