RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



periods of repose. Like the rest of the 

 country on the immediate frontier, its pros- 

 perity depended on international relations. At 

 one time the ships of the convent traversed 

 the Irish Sea and carried on a brisk trade with 

 Ireland and the Isle of Man. In 1224 leave 

 was given that the abbot might send his ship 

 where he pleased with a cargo of wool. 1 On 

 the patent rolls of the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth centuries numerous licences are on 

 record to permit the buying of victuals in 

 Ireland, Gascony and elsewhere. The monks 

 had a good port at Skinburness within their 

 own franchise, which was used as a naval base 

 for the supply of provisions and stores during 

 the wars with Scotland, 2 and so great was its 

 use on these occasions that Edward I. gave 

 the monks the liberty to have a free borough 

 and a fair and market there in 1300, with an 

 allowance for wool seized to the king's use. 3 

 The monks like other practical men looked 

 after the affairs of their house and were not 

 afraid to assert their rights when occasion 

 demanded. In 1263 the abbot impleaded the 

 Archbishop of York for hindering the free 

 passage of his carts and carriages beyond the 

 bridge of Hexham which his predecessors had 

 always obtained when needful. 4 Before the 

 justices itinerant in 1292 the convent success- 

 fully maintained its title to all the lands and 

 privileges which were claimed as belonging to 

 the house. 5 There was no fear that a power- 

 ful personage like the abbot of Holmcultram 

 should tamely submit to unjust treatment 

 from the secular magnates of the land. In 

 1300 a commission of oyer and terminer was 

 appointed to try a cause on his complaint 

 that William de Mulecastre, lately while he 

 was sheriff, and others at divers times, took 

 some of the abbot's carts, laden with victuals 

 and other goods, on the high road in the 

 middle of the city of Carlisle and town of 

 Torpenhow, with the oxen drawing them, 

 and refused to let them be replevied, so that 

 a great number died, sold a palfrey the abbot 

 had lent him, broke his grange at Ellenborough 

 (Alneburgh) and carried away his oats, took 

 away a boat with its gear at Skinburness, led 

 away some of his beasts and sheep at Holm- 



1 Pat. 8 Hen. III. m. 5. 



2 Cal.ofPat. 1292-1301, pp. 389, 488, 554, 

 585. 



3 Harl. MS. 3891, ff. 21-3, 108. 



4 Cal. of Doc. Scot. (Scot. Rec. Pub.), i. 462. 

 The house had a charter of quittance from toll 

 pontage, passage, and all custom in England or 

 Ireland from King Richard (Fine R. 2 John [Rec. 

 Com.], 117-8 ; Chancellor's R. 3 John [Rec. Com.], 

 68-9). 



B Plac. de >uo Warrants (Rec. Com.), I 30. 



cultram, distrained his men and tenants of 

 Ellenborough by their carts and draught cattle 

 and detained them till they extorted ransom. 8 



The disturbed state of the Border did not 

 divert attention from the need of monastic 

 discipline. We read of John de Foriton for- 

 saking his habit in 1352 and William de 

 Levyngton escaping from the monastery by 

 night in 1354, but these refractory monks 

 were not permitted to return until they had 

 received a papal dispensation to be reconciled. 

 When John de Monte took it into his head 

 to visit the Roman Court without the leave 

 of his superior, the abbot of Holmcultram 

 was instructed to carry out the ordinances 

 against apostates as the monk wished to be 

 reconciled to his Order. It is pleasing to find 

 that some of the monks like Richard Gray, 

 who was made a papal chaplain in 1402, had 

 attained to ecclesiastical distinction. 7 



The exercise of the king's right to grant 

 corrodies for good service was often a burden 

 to the religious houses. An instance of one 

 of these may be given to illustrate the custom. 

 Edward II. informed the abbot and convent 

 in 1309 that he had caused Thomas de 

 Ardern, who served the king and his father, 

 to be sent to them, and requested them to 

 admit him to their house and to find him and 

 a yeoman and two grooms serving him, food 

 and clothing according to their stations, and 

 to provide reasonable sustenance for his two 

 horses. Letters patent for his lifetime to this 

 effect were to be given him under their 

 chapter seal and a speedy report made to the 

 king on what they had done therein. 8 A royal 

 pensioner of this sort could not have been a 

 welcome visitor at Holmcultram in the crippled 

 condition of their finances at that period. 



9 Cal. of Pat. 1292-1301, p. 554. 



' Cal. of Papal Letters, m. 470,522, 572-3, iv. 

 316. No inmate has attained to the fame of 

 Michael Scott, wizard and necromancer, celebrated 

 alike by Dante (Inferno, c. xx. 11. 1 1 5-7), Boccaccio 

 (Decameron) and Sir Walter Scott (Lay of the Last 

 Minstrel), who is said to have passed some time in 

 the monastery. Camden was told on his visit to 

 Cumberland that in Wolsty Castle near Holmcul- 

 tram, built by the monks for a treasury and place 

 of safety to lay up their books, charters and evi- 

 dences against sudden invasion of the Scots, the 

 secret works of Michael the Scot lay in conflict 

 with moths, ' which Michael, professing here a re- 

 ligious life, was so fully possessed with the study of 

 mathematickes and other abstruse arts, about the 

 yeere of our Lord 1 290, that beeing taken of the 

 common people for a necromancer, there went a 

 name of him (such was their credulity) that he 

 wrought divers wonders and miracles ' (Brit. [ed. 

 Holland] 773). 



s Close, 3 Edw. II. m. z6d. 



167 



