A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



the diocese had no visitorial jurisdiction. Like the priories of Carlisle 

 and Lanercost, the monks had the right of electing their own superior, 

 but that election would be void unless it took place under the presidency 

 of the abbot of Melrose. In this respect the abbot of the mother house 

 stood in much the same relation to Holmcultram as the bishop did to 

 Carlisle and Lanercost, for in these houses the bishop's licence was 

 the necessary prelude to every election as his confirmation was indis- 

 pensable for its completion. By virtue of a series of papal bulls Holm- 

 cultram was freed from episcopal control. An unwarrantable exercise 

 of papal privilege brought the monks into conflict with the secular 

 clergy in 1401, when proctors were employed in the deaneries of 

 Carlisle and Allerdale, where the influence of Holmcultram was pre- 

 dominant, 'to labour pro clero against the Cistercians' in the matter per- 

 haps of the refusal of that house to contribute to a subsidy due to the 

 Bishop of Carlisle. 1 It is worthy of note that it was only in this house 

 that undoubted evidence of anarchy and disorder was discovered during 

 the great agitation which preceded the final overthrow of the monas- 

 teries in the county. 



The coming of the friars to Carlisle at so early a date as 1233 

 seems to have been due to the ecclesiastical sympathies of Bishop 

 Walter. At all events in that year the Dominicans or Black Friars 

 and the Franciscans or Grey Friars were introduced into that city. 

 Soon after the Augustinians gained a footing in Penrith. The Carmelites 

 or White Friars settled at Appleby, and, though not in Cumberland, they 

 were reckoned among the four mendicant orders which exercised their 

 vocation in the diocese of Carlisle. All the friars were under episcopal 

 control. The houses in Carlisle and Penrith were furnished with churches 

 and churchyards. 



It is claimed that hospitals should rank as religious houses among 

 eleemosynary institutions. Little is known of the nature or origin of 

 those which at one time must have been numerous in Cumberland. 

 No other hospital in the county, of which record has been discovered, 

 attained to the importance of St. Nicholas, Carlisle. It was of royal 

 foundation and originally a house for lepers only, but in process of 

 time, as it increased in wealth, it became an asylum for the sick and 

 needy. 



The foundation of colleges seems to have been attended with con- 

 siderable difficulty in Cumberland. The first attempt, undertaken at 

 Melmerby in 1342, utterly failed, and it was only after prolonged 

 negotiation that the project for converting the parish church of Grey- 

 stoke into a college was carried to a successful issue. The college of 

 Kirkoswald was founded a few years before the dissolution. 



1 In the accounts (compoti) of the deans of Allerdale and Carlisle for the financial year 1401-* 

 certain sums were allowed to the accountants for ' procuratoribus laborantibus pro clero contra ordinem 

 Cisterciensem.' These entries can only be explained in their relation to the monks of Holmcultram. 

 Compare statute 2 Hen. IV. cap. 4 and Chron. man. de Melsa (Rolls. Ser.), iii. 271-2, 279. 



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