RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



friars preachers ; John de Dundrawe of Carlisle, 

 in bequeathing his body to be laid among the 

 friars minors in 1380, made arrangements for 

 the payment of 1 5 marks to two chaplains 

 for one year, or to one chaplain for two years, 

 to celebrate for his soul at Our Lady's altar in 

 their church, adding a jug and a mazer bowl 

 as a personal gift. 1 These benefactions were 

 not confined to testators in the immediate 

 vicinity of Carlisle. The friars had a wider 

 field of missionary enterprise which knew no 

 frontier of county or diocese. Sir Brian de 

 Stapilton was not forgetful of the friars of 

 Carlisle in 1394, and Sir Richard le Scrop, 

 lord of Bolton, bequeathed 205. in 1400 to 

 every house of friars in Carlisle, Penrith and 

 Appleby, a whereas John Knublow, rector of 

 Lamplugh, in the archdeaconry of Richmond, 

 singled out the friars preachers and friars 

 minors of Carlisle as the objects of his gener- 

 osity when he was making his will in 1469.* 

 The friars were not backward in looking after 

 their own interests, in cases where executors 

 neglected to pay the amounts left to them by 

 will. A curious case arose in the diocesan 

 court of Carlisle in 1340, in which the 

 Dominican prior was complainant and Agnes 

 widow of William Hare of Derham was the 

 defendant. After much litigation the bishop 

 decided that the friars were entitled to the 

 benefaction of five marks sterling bequeathed 

 by the deceased, and ordered Agnes the exe- 

 cutrix to pay that sum within six days together 

 with 20s. id. as costs. 4 



The relationship of the friars to the cor- 

 porate life of the church should not be mis- 

 understood. It was the bishop who conferred 

 holy orders on the inmates of their houses, 

 and it was under his licence that they exer- 

 cised their vocation in his diocese. In the 

 ordination lists on record in the diocesan 

 registers, the names of friars admitted to 

 successive degrees will be found. To 

 William de Eyncourt, a friar preacher, Bishop 

 Ross committed in 1330 the faculty to preach 

 throughout his whole diocese, to hear the 

 confessions of all who were willing to confess 

 to him, to give absolution, and to enjoin salu- 

 tary penance except in cases reserved by the 

 canons to the bishop himself. 5 The same 



1 Testamenta Karleolensia (ed. R. S. Ferguson), 

 10, 1 6, 40, 82, 135-7. William de Laton of 

 Newbiggin bequeathed his body in 1369 to be 

 buried in the church of the Augustinian friars of 

 Penrith (ibid. 90). 



2 Testamenta Eboracensia (Surtees Soc.), i. 198, 

 274. 



3 Rickmondshire Wills (Surtees Soc.), 8. 

 Carl. Epis. Reg., Kirkby, f. 414. 



' Ibid. Ross, f. 261. Bishop Kirkby, having 



licence was given to Brother Thomas de 

 Skirwyth in 1356 on the recommendation of 

 Robert de Deyncourt, a friar preacher of 

 Carlisle. 6 On 24 February 1354-5, Brother 

 William de Croft of the order of the Blessed 

 Mary of Mount Carmel in Appleby, having 

 been presented by the prior provincial iuxta 

 capitulum super catkedram, was admitted by 

 Bishop Welton to the office of preaching and 

 the hearing of confessions in the place of 

 John de Haytefeld of the same order. 7 In the 

 licences, the cases reserved to the bishop were 

 often set out by name. When William de 

 Dacre, lector of the convent of friars minors in 

 Carlisle, in whose integrity of conscience the 

 bishop of the diocese was fully confident, was 

 admitted to exercise his office in fora penitencie, 8 

 cases of the violators of nuns, perjurers in 

 assizes or indictments, matrimonial causes, 

 divorces and crimes involving the loss of life 

 or limb were specially excepted. In the 

 faculty which Thomas de Thornton of the 

 Augustinian Order in Penrith received in 1365 

 for one year, Bishop Appleby added to the 

 reservations the practice of usury and breaking 

 and entering his parks of Rose or Beaulieu to 

 take anything away. 8 It is evident that the 

 Bishops of Carlisle exercised an effective 

 jurisdiction over the acts of the mendicant 

 orders within the diocese. 



It is not to be expected that the friars, estab- 

 lished in the three different centres of the diocese, 

 would be popular with the parochial clergy if we 

 have regard to the nature of their vocation and 

 method of life. At every turn they were 

 apt to intrude on the office and tread on the 

 toes of the secular priest. They had a roving 

 commission to enter parishes, to preach, hear 

 confessions, solicit alms, and to perform various 

 ecclesiastical functions which in many instances 

 must have brought them into conflict with 

 the country clergy. As a matter of fact, 

 much unpleasantness had arisen and complaints 

 were numerous about the intrusion of the 

 friars. The privileges of the parochial clergy 

 were violated to such an extent that they 



formerly granted to Symon, prior of the Carmelites 

 of Appleby, licence ' penitenciarie nostre curam 

 gerere,' recalled the licence and revoked the prior's 

 commission in 1341. The same bishop made J. 

 de Levyngton, a minorite, the penitentiary of 

 Cumberland in 1346 (ibid. Kirkby, ff. 442, 488). 

 In 1355 Brothers Richard de Swynesheved, warden 

 (gardianus) of the convent of friars minors of Carl- 

 isle, William de Kirkby and Adam de Waldyngfeld 

 of the same convent were admitted to preach in 

 place of Robert de Shirewode, Thomas Faunell and 

 John de Dalton removed (ibid. Welton, f. 1 1 7). 



Ibid. f. 1 1 8. i Ibid. f. 115. 



8 Ibid. f. 118. Ibid. Appleby, f. 146. 



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