RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



tlie service ot l^d. yearly, subject to providing 

 reasonable sustenance for William de Hoc, a friar 

 of the latter order.' Hence the king was acknow- 

 ledged as the founder of the second Norwich 

 house, his successors as royal patrons. Sanction 

 for this new foundation was speedily forthcoming 

 from Clement V. 



In 1 3 1 7 Pope John XXII confirmed to the 

 Friars Preachers of Norwich the grant made to 

 them by Clement V (1306-14) of the place for- 

 merly occupied by the Friars of the Sack 

 (Saccitarum), according to the ordinance of 

 Thomas, cardinal of St. Sabina's.^ 



The Friars Preachers obtained in 1 3 10 licence 

 to acquire land adjoining their dwelling, whereon 

 to erect a church and other buildings, and also to 

 enlarge their cemetery and cloister.^ Fortified by 

 this grant and by various benefactions of small 

 plots of contiguous lands, the friars proceeded to 

 erect a large church, dedicated to the honour of 

 St. John Baptist, on the site of the smaller one 

 pertaining to the Sackites, and to provide conven- 

 tual buildings for the accommodation of sixty 

 religious. To house and provide for so large a 

 number required yet further extensions, and 

 further donations of adjoining houses were made 

 by the faithful. The friars also strained their 

 rules by purchasing others at some little distance. 

 The citizens took alarm at this appropriation of 

 so many houses in their midst, and urged that the 

 king should not permit this without the usual 

 inquisition and royal licence. Therefore the 

 crown seized the distant messuages, and returned 

 the purchase money of /^6o to the friars. In 

 1345 an inquest was held at Norwich as to any 

 damage that might accrue from the friars holding 

 the lands in their custody. A verdict favourable 

 to the Dominicans was returned, and a royal 

 pardon was therefore granted for all contraven- 

 tions of mortmain, with licence to retain all they 

 then held.* 



In the course of the next few years they built 

 another and yet larger church. 'In all likelihood, 

 the old church was then or soon afterwards con- 

 verted into the library, leaving, however, intact 

 the large groined-roof crypt, which was the 

 chapel of St. Thomas a Becket, with its altar.' 



During a royal visit to Norwich in January, 

 1325— 6, there was a pleasant interchange of gifts. 

 Edward II gave an alms of I Js. 8d. for a day's 

 food for the fifty-three friars then in residence, 

 and on the morrow they presented him with 

 fifty-three apples. Edward III when passing 

 through Norwich in 1328, repeated the same 

 alms for a like number of religious. 



On 4 May, 141 3, a grievous fire broke out at 



' CaL of Pat. I Edw. II, pt. i, m. 14. Inq. a.q.d. 

 file 66, No. 9. 



' Cal. Papal Reg. ii, 162. 



' Cal. of Pat. 4 Edvi'. II, pt. i, m. 25. 



* Inq. a.q.d. 19 Edw. Ill, No. 17; Pat. 19 Edw. Ill, 

 pt. i, m. 3. 



' Reliquary (new ser.), vol. iii, 169. 



Norwich, and consumed the greater part of the 

 city. Ths house and church of the Dominicans, 

 with all their contents, were destroyed, and two 

 of the friars perished in the flames.^ The friars 

 were now thankful that they had retained their 

 old house and church across the water, known 

 as the Black Hall. There they continued until 

 1449, when they returned to their newly built 

 convent and church.' 



The church was restored on a magnificent 

 scale between 1440 and 1470, mayors and other 

 leading citizens vying with one another in the 

 generosity of their gifts. There were two gilds 

 attached to this church, the gild of St. William 

 mentioned in 1 25 1, and the gild of the Holy 

 Rood in 1527.* 



Edmund Harcock, one of the last of a long 

 series of Dominican priors of this house, preached 

 a long sermon on Easter Monday, 1534, before 

 the mayor and aldermen of the city, taking for 

 his text the words from the Psalms, Ohscurentur 

 oculi eorumy ne videant. The mayor, on his 

 coming down from the pulpit, took him to task 

 for alleged political allusion, and afterwards sent 

 for him, to which summons there was no response. 

 Thereupon the ex-Friar Richard Ingworth, who 

 was then at Norwich on his visitation for reducing 

 all friars to the royal supremacy, arrested Harcock, 

 and made him write out an abstract. This 

 abstract was sent to Cromwell on i May, with a 

 request to know what was to be done with the 

 prisoner ; Harcock, who had already accepted 

 the supremacy, was alarmed, and offered to submit 

 himself to correction. Sir Roger Townsend was 

 ordered by Cromwell to arrest the prior and bring 

 him before the council.' Apparently he made 

 good his case, for he returned as prior to Norwich. 

 About a year later Harcock was again in trouble. 

 When preaching at St. Leonard's-without-Nor- 

 wich, on Ascension Eve, 1535, he said in his 

 prayer, ' Ye shall pray for our Sovereign Lord 

 King Harry, of the Church of England chief 

 head so called.' This sentence, together with an 

 equivocally worded extract from his sermon, was 

 sent up to London to the council.'" What was 

 his fate cannot now be discovered, but at all 

 events, he ceased to be prior. 



The priory was suppressed by Ingworth in 

 November, 1538. On 5 September the mayor 

 and council foreseeing the suppression of the friars, 

 besrged Cromwell to secure for their use the Black 

 Friars, which was in the midst of the city." A 

 fortnight later the Duke of Norfolk wrote to 



' Walsingham, Hist. Angl. 385. 



' Blomefield, misunderstanding the terms of the 

 royal licence of 1449, wrongly concludes that they had 

 been again driven out by fire from their old site. 



' Kirkpatrick, Relig. Ord. ofNoru-. 39. 



' L. and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 237, 270. The abstract 

 of the sermon is extant (Misc. Bks. [Exch. T.R.], 

 fol. 23). 



"• Ibid, viii, 254. 



" Ibid, xiii (2), 144. 



429 



