A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



good on all future occasions, although in 1229 

 Pope Gregory IX declared it void, and vested the 

 right of appointment solely in the abbot of 

 Cluny. 16 



When the commissioners of the abbot of 

 Cluny visited Lewes Priory in 1262 they re- 

 ported that the spiritual condition of the house 

 was very satisfactory, the services duly performed, 

 alms administered, and the brethren well cared 

 for. 17 The material prosperity of the priory was 

 also notable, for while most of the English 

 Cluniac houses were deeply in debt Lewes had 

 a balance on the credit side. Disaster, however, 

 came upon the monastery two years later, when 

 in May, 1264, it was made the quarters of King 

 Henry's army, its courts and very altars defiled 

 by the licentious soldiery, and its buildings in- 

 jured by the attacks of Montfort's men, the 

 church itself being set on fire, and with difficulty 

 saved from destruction. Added to this there was 

 internal strife which ended in the sub-prior and 

 nine monks being sent out of the convent in 

 1266 to do penance in other houses for conspiracy 

 and faction. When, however, Prior William de 

 Foville died in 1268 he left the priory free of 

 debt, but in I279, 18 although the lives of the 

 monks were still conscientious and honourable, 

 the temporal state of the priory was desperate. A 

 debt of 4,000 marks had been reduced to 2,800, 

 but another 250 marks was owing for the building 

 of the church, and as much for stocking the 

 manors, for payment of which the silver vessels 

 of the house were pledged, and another 100 marks 

 were due for wool paid for by merchants but 

 not delivered. There was also a threatened de- 

 ficiency of all necessaries from the time of Lent 

 to the next harvest. The stock on the priory 

 manors was greatly depleted, 100 marks were 

 owing for wine, and the yearly payment to the 

 mother-house of Cluny was ^100 in arrear. 



In short the house of Lewes is in such a state that 

 it will scarcely be able to pull through, and if it can 

 it will not be for twenty years, so those hold who 

 know the facts ; by what means and through whose 

 action it has been brought down to such a lamentable 

 condition is sufficiently well-known, according to the 

 common report of reliable witnesses. 19 



Some idea of the manner in which the priory 

 had suffered by the appointment of foreigners 

 whose care for the house was limited to making 

 as much as possible out of its revenues may be 

 gathered from the letter of Archbishop Peck- 

 ham to the abbot of Cluny upon the vacancy oc- 

 casioned by the promotion of Prior John de 

 Thyengesto a continental priory in June 1285.* 

 The archbishop begins by expressing his particu- 

 lar affection for the priory of Lewes under whose 



16 Rec. of Cluni, \, 186-7. 



17 Ibid, ii, 122. '" Suss. Arch. Coll. ii, 29. 

 19 Rec. of Cluni, ii, 143. 



10 Reg. Epist. J. Peckbam (Rolls Ser.), 902-4. 



66 



shadow his boyhood had been spent, and from 

 whose inmates he had received honour and com- 

 fort. Then he points out how needful it is 

 that priors shall be appointed who will revive 

 the virtues of devotion, hospitality, and charity, 

 and set good examples, and who will present to 

 their benefices pastors in truth and not robbers ; 

 adding that though he is now an old man, 

 when he looks back he can scarcely remember a 

 case in which the prior and convent exercised 

 due heed in appointing a man to the care of souls. 

 Secondly, the prior must be one who will use 

 the revenues of the church for its good and 

 not his own, and at the same time be ready to 

 secure the favour of the leaders of the nobility 

 and church by all honourable means. He es- 

 pecially urges the need of propitiating the earl 

 of Warenne, and suggests that if he should ask 

 for the appointment of an English-speaking 

 prior it would be well to agree, adding that it 

 would be easy for the abbot to find such by 

 inquiry of his agents in England. 



The vacancy on this occasion seems to have 

 been filled by another foreigner, John of Avignon, 

 who had possibly already been presented when 

 Peckham wrote, but on the next occasion of a 

 vacancy the abbot appears to have remembered 

 the archbishop's suggestion, as an Englishman, 

 John of Newcastle, became prior in 1298. 



In 1288 the spiritual condition of Lewes is 

 noted as satisfactory, and the number of monks 

 is given at thirty-nine. According to the list of 

 English Cluniac houses made in I4O5, 21 there 

 ought to be thirty-six monks at Lewes, ' though 

 according to some there was not anciently any 

 fixed number, but sometimes there were forty 

 and sometimes fifty ' ; the latter number was 

 attained in 1279, and the visitors reported in 

 1306 that there used to be sixty monks there, 

 though at that date there were only thirty -three, 21 

 and in 1391 the number had again risen to 

 fifty-eight. 23 The earl of Warenne's statement 

 in 1240 that there were a hundred monks in 

 the priory M may be taken as an exaggeration. At 

 the time of the dissolution the number had fallen 

 to twenty-four. 



Meanwhile matters went from bad to worse, 

 and in 1292 it was reported that Lewes was so 

 involved in debt that there was no hope that it 

 could recover unless it were speedily assisted, 

 and the abbot was requested to consider what 

 had best be done. 88 The Close Rolls bear out this 

 state of affairs in their entries of acknowledge- 

 ments of debts to Italian merchants and others 

 made by the prior. 26 Next year, when the prior 

 was over at Cluny, the abbot was advised, in 

 face of the ruin which threatened Lewes, to take 



11 Rec. of Cluni, ii. 208. " Ibid. 279. 



" Cat. Papal Let. iv, 396. " Ibid, i, 186. 



K Rec. of Cluni, ii, 246. 



56 Close R. 1 6 Edw. I, m. 9 d. ; 1 8 Edw. I, m. 9 d. ; 

 20 Edw. I, m. 13 d. ; 2 Edw. II, m. 1 2 d. 



