RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



There was a house standing between their 

 priory and the street, and in 1408 they obtained 

 the crown licence to pull it down and enlarge 

 the site of their church and cloister, and to build 

 a hermitage at the west end of the church, 

 adjoining the street, where they received alms.* 



In 141 3 Henry V granted licence to hold in 

 mortmain a messuage chapel and hermitage, 

 with a fair on the west or St. John's side of 

 Thetford.^ 



Margaret, wife of Sir John Puddenham, was 

 buried in the church of the Austin Friars in 1 4 1 1 , 

 by the tomb of her daughter, Elizabeth Hen- 

 grave ; she left 40X. to the priory. 



John Potche was prior of this house, and 

 English provincial of the order in the time of 

 Edward IV. In 1469 he admitted Thomas 

 Hurton and his wife Margaret to be full partakers 

 of all the masses and other devotions of the order 

 throughout England, and that at their deaths the 

 same offices should be performed for them as for 

 their deceased brethren. 



Martin enumerated several small bequests 

 made by will to the Austin Friars during the last 

 part of the sixteenth century. 



On 26 September, 1538, Thetford was visited 

 by John Hilsey, the ex-Dominican friar whom 

 Henry VIII had made bishop of Rochester, and 

 in whom he found a ready tool for the suppres- 

 sion of the friars. In a letter to Cromwell from 

 Thetford on the following day he stated that he 

 had found ' the Austin friars so bare that there 

 was no earthly thing at all but trash and baggage.' 

 He therefore at once proceeded to discharge them 

 from their house and take their surrender. He 

 apologised to the Lord Privy Seal for meddling 

 with this house and that of the Dominicans 

 without express order, ' but they were so far 

 gone that if they had continued all had been 

 spoiled.' ' The house was afterwards named in 

 a list of those friaries which had no lead on the 

 roofs, save the gutters.* 



The surrender into the king's hand of their 

 house, church, hermitage, and chapel of St. John, 

 was signed by Nicholas Pratt, prior, and Thomas 

 Parmynter and Roger Shyrwodd, two of the 

 brethren.' This was always a small house, the 

 full complement of friars being only six. 



The site of their house and their poor posses- 

 sions were granted to Sir Richard Fulmerston.^ 



62. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF 

 WALSINGHAM 



Licence was granted by Edward III on 

 I February, 1347, to Elizabeth de Burgh, coun- 



' Pat. 9 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 24. 



' Ibid. I Hen. V, pt. i, m. 19. 



' L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (2), 167. 



* Ibid. 480. 



* Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. 2, 44. 



* Mins. Accts. 32 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, Norf. 



tess of Clare, to found a house of Friars Minor 

 in Walsingham.' 



The celebrated Austin pricry of the same town 

 did their best to stop the countess, who was their 

 patroness, from carrying out her intention, 

 dreading no doubt that the poorer pilgrims to Our 

 Lady of Walsingham would find gratis accom- 

 modation with the friars. The soundest, per- 

 haps, of the many arguments that they addressed 

 to the countess was that the friars had already 

 sufficient habitations in the district ; for there was 

 Burnham, four miles on one side, and Snitterley 

 not much farther off on the other ; but they 

 omitted to state that these were Carmelite and 

 not Franciscan settlements. 



But their opposition was futile, for both royal 

 and papal sanction was obtained. Clement VI 

 granted to the provincial of the Friars Minor of 

 England licence, in 1347, at the request of King 

 Edward and Queen Philippa, to acquire a site for 

 a house in Little Walsingham, to accommodate 

 twelve friars.* 



Four years later, the friars obtained licence to 

 enclose a road in Little Walsingham, leading 

 from North Barsham to the chapel of St. Mary, 

 Little Walsingham, below their house. This 

 licence was inspected and confirmed in 1384.' 



In 1440 Richard, duke of York, their patron, 

 alienated to the friars a messuage, three acres of 

 land, a garden, and four tenements adjoining 

 their house.'" 



This house, with the other friaries of the 

 county was suppressed and surrendered to 

 Richard Ingworth, the ex-prior, towards the 

 close of 1538." 



63. THE DOMINICAN FRIARS OF 

 YARMOUTH >= 



The Dominican friars were first established at 

 Yarmouth in 1267, where they had a house by 

 the South Gate. Henry III gave them in 127 1 

 a plot of land 500 ft. square, called la Sirande, 

 and confirmed the previous gift to them of their 

 site by William Charles.*^ Thomas Fastolf was 

 a special benefactor to their house, which was 

 finished in 1278 ; and Godfrey Pilgrim, another 

 burgess of Yarmouth, erected their church, dedi- 

 cated to the honour of St. Dominic, in 1280, at 

 his sole cost.'^ Pilgrim, who died in 1304, was 

 therefore esteemed joint founder with Henry III 

 and Fastolf. 



' Pat. 21 Edw. Ill, pt. i. m. 2S ; 22 Edw. Ill, 

 pt. i, m. 48. 



* Ca/. Papal Reg. iii, 252. 



' Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 5. 

 '° Ibid. 19 Hen. VI, pt. iii, m. 32. 

 " L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1021. 

 " Reliquary (new ser.), i, 139-48 ; article by late 

 Father Palmer, 

 " Pat. 53 Hen. Ill, m, J. 

 " Speed, Ckron. 



435 



