A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 



appealed to the pope for redress in 1300. 

 The bull of Boniface VIII. contra Fratres is 

 on record. 1 It was not by any means entirely 

 in favour of the secular clergy, though regu- 

 lations were laid down to restrain the friars in 

 their aggressions on the parochial office. The 

 pope prescribed the cases in which they might 

 preach and hear confessions, and at the same 

 time recommended the parish priests to receive 

 them kindly for the sake of the apostolic see. 

 In 1352 the clergy of Carlisle moved Bishop 

 Welton for relief. It was represented to 

 him that the mendicant orders, not content 

 with their own bounds, were in the habit of 

 betaking themselves frequently to divers 

 churches and chapels, not for the sake of 

 preaching the word of God, but in the same 

 churches and chapels on Sundays and Festivals 

 during the solemnity of mass, when a great 

 multitude of people were present, to the im- 

 pediment of divine culture and the stirring up 

 of tumult, with vain and heedless displays of 

 excessive indulgences and plenary remission, 

 sought quest of money and not gain of souls 

 with open books in their hands like questors, 

 contrary to canonical sanctions and the rules 

 of their orders and the customs anciently 

 observed, for which reason uproars among the 

 people and injurious reports were almost of 

 daily occurrence. The bishop, wishing to 

 remedy these abuses, sent his mandate to all 

 deans, rectors, vicars and parish chaplains, for- 

 bidding them under pain of the greater 

 excommunication to permit any friar of the 

 mendicant orders, even when licensed by him 

 in the form of the constitution, to exercise a 

 quest of any sort in their churches or chapels, 

 and specially in time of divine service, unless 

 on production of special letters. 2 



The Augustinians of Penrith had recourse 

 to various devices for the maintenance of the 

 house. It appears that the voluntary alms of 

 the people of that district were not sufficient. 

 Bishop Welton assisted them in some meas- 

 ure by appointing the prior in 1360 during 

 pleasure to the church of Newton Reigny, 

 which had been vacant for some time, and 

 allowing him to discharge the cure of souls 

 by some fit brother of the community. 3 The 

 same consideration was shown by Bishop 

 Appleby in 1365, when R. the sacrist of the 

 house was appointed to the same charge for 



1 Carl. Epis. Reg., Halton, ff. 44-5 ; Hist. 

 MSS. Com. Rep. ix. (i.), 180. 



2 Ibid. Welton, f. 43. 



3 Ibid. f. 69. The church cannot have been 

 vacant very long, for in June 1357 John de Bram- 

 wra was appointed on the resignation of Gilbert 

 Raket (ibid. ff. 33-4). 



198 



four years.* The brothers contrived a new 

 expedient in 1360, from which they expected 

 a substantial addition to their encumbered 

 finances. In that year they started and in- 

 tended to continue a light at mass in the con- 

 ventual church at Penrith in honour of the 

 Nativity of the Saviour and the blessed Mary, 

 so that when the divine office was sung the 

 light should burn on the feast of the Nativity 

 every year. But they were unable to con- 

 tinue this without the alms of the faithful. 

 In order to promote such a praiseworthy 

 devotion, the bishop issued a firm indulgence 

 for forty days to all in his diocese who went 

 to the conventual church in a contrite and 

 penitent spirit for the purpose of hearing mass 

 on that day or who contributed of their goods 

 for the keeping up of the said light. 8 



It may be regarded as a testimony of the 

 estimation in which the prior of the friars 

 preachers was held that he was sometimes 

 employed in important and delicate negotia- 

 tions or he was present at great functions. 

 The prior of the Carlisle preachers was a 

 witness to the award made in 1289 for the 

 settlement of a dispute between the Augustin- 

 ian priory of Pontefract and the Cluniac house 

 of Monk Bretton. 8 In 1329 he was appointed 

 in a commission with the abbot of Holrncul- 

 tram and the archdeacon of Carlisle by Pope 

 John XXII. to hear a cause between the 

 Bishop of Durham and the Archbishop of 

 York, but they refused to undertake the task 

 owing to the scarcity of lawyers in the district 

 and their distance from York. 7 Dr. Saunder- 

 son was one of the last wardens of the grey 

 friars in Carlisle, having been in possession of 

 that dignity in I523. 8 When the end of the 

 religious houses was drawing nigh, the king 

 made what use he could of the preaching 

 capacities of the friars in upholding the 

 authority of a general council 9 and belittling 

 the power of the pope, but no allegiance to 

 the national policy could avert their fall. In 

 1534 was begun the royal visitation with a 

 view to their extinction. George Browne, 

 prior of the Augustinian hermits in London, 

 was appointed by the Crown to the office of 

 provincial prior to the whole order of friars 

 hermits in England, and John Hilsey received 



1 Ibid. Appleby, f. 146. 

 e Ibid. Welton, 73. 



8 Dugdale, Mm. v. 123-4. * n vol. vi. 1485, 

 the date is given as 1269 by an oversight. 



7 Letters from the Northern Registers (Rolls Ser.), 

 359-60. 



8 B.M. Add. MS. 24, 965, ff. 115-6. 



9 B.M. Cott. MS. Cleopatra E, vi. f. 312 ; L. 

 and P. Hen. nil. vi. 1487. 



