A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



greatest difficulty. 1 Another chronicler, la- 

 menting in verse over the unspeakable calamity, 

 has told us that amid all the ruins of ' the re- 

 nowned vill ' only the Jacobins, the French 

 name for the friars preachers, survived the 

 catastrophe. 2 During the panic occasioned 

 by the fire two thieves escaped out of prison, 

 one of whom took sanctuary in the cathedral 

 church and the other in the church of the 

 friars minors. In consequence the citizens 

 were amerced in a fine of 16 to the Ex- 

 chequer, but the king pardoned them on con- 

 dition that they should recognize that they 

 were bound to the safe custody of felons fly- 

 ing for sanctuary to churches within their 

 city. 3 



During the progresses of the king or mem- 

 bers of the royal family through the country, 

 the religious houses on the route, at which 

 they called or stayed, were the recipients of 

 royal bounties in consideration of the outlay 

 made by the religious men on their behalf, or 

 as gifts in alms to meet their immediate wants. 

 When the kings were in the north on their 

 various military expeditions against Scotland, 

 the local houses were often called upon to 

 provide accommodation for them in person or 

 for members of the court. In 1 300 Edward I. 

 stayed occasionally with the friars preachers 

 and friars minors in Carlisle, and made com- 

 plimentary gifts to them by way of acknow- 

 ledgment of their hospitality. Sometimes he 

 gave them alms for their food, or for the 

 performance of some religious act like the 

 celebration of mass for the soul of the Count 

 of Holland or the Earl of Cornwall. Similar 

 oblations were offered to the friars of St. 

 Augustine of Penrith and the friars of Mount 

 Carmel of Appleby, with the former of whom 

 he stopped two days and with the latter one 

 day on his journey south. The wardrobe 

 accounts of the first three Edwards contain 

 many items of gifts and offerings made to the 

 four houses of friars in the diocese of Carlisle 

 by these kings or by members of their house- 

 holds on their journeys through the district. 1 

 In other ways also the kings were benevolent 

 in dealing with these institutions. In 1334 

 the friars minors of Carlisle purchased victuals 

 to the value of 8 from Robert de Barton, 

 the king's receiver, for their maintenance, but 

 the king ordered the debt to be discharged 



1 Chron. W. de Hemingburgh (Engl. Hist. Soc.), 

 ii. 40. 



2 Chron. de Lanercost (Maitland Club), 147. 



3 Lysons, Brit. Cumb. Mag., 73, quoting Close 

 Roll, 21 Edw. I. 



* Liber )uot. Contrar. Garderobce (Soc. Antiq.), 

 4.2-3, etc. ; Trans. Cumb. and Westmld. Arch. 

 Soc. vi. 140-2. 



and the brethren acquitted in the following 

 year as an act of grace. 5 Edward III. must 

 have had pleasant memories of the happy 

 Christmas he spent with the minorites of 

 Carlisle in 1332, when the commonalty of 

 the city and neighbourhood displayed in a 

 marked degree evidences of loyalty and affec- 

 tion. 6 



Few things betoken the popularity of the 

 friars among the laity of every grade more 

 than their success with 'the dead hand' in 

 the matter of testamentary bequests. There 

 was no attempt to gain possession of real 

 property in lands or houses, like the monks 

 and nuns, beyond what was necessary for 

 their habitations and chapels or immediate 

 convenience, their vows of poverty forbidding 

 them to hold such possessions. But gifts of 

 money or in kind kept flowing in at their 

 solicitation. It is a striking feature of me- 

 dieval wills that the four orders of friars as a 

 class or one of the orders in particular usually 

 figured as a beneficiary in testamentary dis- 

 positions. It would be difficult to decide 

 whether the Dominicans or Franciscans were 

 most popular with the dying man. The 

 churchyards in Carlisle seem to have been 

 often used as places of burial by people in the 

 neighbourhood. When it is remembered that 

 the secular priest of the parish in which the 

 testator lived invariably claimed the mortuary 

 due to him wherever the body of his parish- 

 ioner was laid, it will be seen that burial in 

 the churchyards of the mendicant orders 

 involved a double burden to the deceased 

 man's estate. But financial considerations 

 did not prove a barrier to the persuasion of 

 the friars. In 1356 Matthew de Redman, 

 dating his will at Carlisle, bequeathed his 

 body to be buried in the churchyard of the 

 friars preachers of Carlisle with his best beast 

 as a mortuary to his parish church ; to the 

 friars preachers he left 20*. ; and a like sum to 

 the friars minors ; also 6s. $d. to Brother 

 Robert Deyncourt. A great local dignitary 

 like Sir Robert Tilliol of Scaleby desired his 

 body to be laid among the friars preachers of 

 Carlisle in 1367, as Robert del Shelde, a 

 humble citizen, had done ten years before 

 among the friars minors. Secular priests often 

 came under the same spell. In the same 

 year, 1362, two incumbents in distant parts of 

 the diocese disposed of their bodies in this 

 fashion : Johnde Seburgham, vicar of Walton, 

 desiring to be buried in the church of the 

 friars minors, and Richard de Ulnesby, rector 

 of Ulnesby or Ousby, in the church of the 



196 



Close, 8 Edw. III. m. 4d ; 9 Edw. III. m. 33. 

 Chron. de Lanercost, 271. 



