RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



the same way Master Eustace de Wrotham, ap- 

 parently their legal adviser, was given an annual 

 pension, or retaining fee, of 4 marks with free 

 accommodation whenever he wished to visit 

 their house for relaxation 7 ; and a similar grant 

 was made to Master William de Tonebrig in 



1275." 



The position of law officer to the canons was 

 no sinecure, as they were often involved in suits, 

 of which the most noteworthy was that concern- 

 ing the church of Hailsham. The advowson of 

 this church had been granted to Michelham 

 priory in 1229 by Gilbert de Laigle, and Master 

 Robert de Blachington had been presented as 

 rector apparently about 1260, but some years 

 later the abbot of Bayham claimed the church as 

 a chapel of his church of Hellingly. Having 

 failed in the royal law courts he appealed to the 

 ecclesiastical courts in 1279, but was ordered by 

 the king to desist. The bishop of Chichester, 

 siding with the priory, excommunicated the 

 abbey, upon which the abbot appealed to the 

 king, maintaining that this was an infringement 

 of the liberties of their order 9 ; the bishop, how- 

 ever, in January, 1280, successfully invoked the 

 secular arm to remove these ' sons of perdition ' 

 from Hailsham church, 10 and accordingly the prior 

 and Master Robert with some thirty others drove 

 out by armed force the four canons and four lay 

 brethren of Bayham who were in possession. 11 

 An appeal to an ecclesiastical court in 1282 

 resulted in a decision by the archdeacon of South- 

 wark in favour of the abbot, but this was set 

 aside by the archbishop, and Master Robert had 

 peaceful possession for a short time, but in the 

 spring of 1287 the canons again seized the 

 church and held it in spite of the archbishop's 

 excommunication ; the secular arm was again 

 invoked and the church forcibly recovered. The 

 abbot now came to terms with the prior of 

 Michelham, who surrendered his claim to the 

 advowson in exchange for an annual payment of 

 ji6 13*. ifd, charged on the manor of Otham. 12 

 The secular rectors, however, continued to dis- 

 pute the abbot's title until 1296, when Arch- 

 bishop Winchelsey decided in the latter's favour. 

 Even this was not the end, for about 1458 there 

 was another long suit between the abbey and 

 priory over the payment of the jCi6 13*. \d. 

 from Otham ; in the end victory lay with the 

 priory, but it was a Pyrrhic victory, for the 

 canons of Michelham were so impoverished by 

 it that they had to sell their jewels, 13 and even 

 when the sheriff had put them into possession of 

 the abbey's manor of Exceit the abbot by a legal 

 trick endeavoured to force them to undertake a 



' Chartul. No. 396 *. ' Ibid. No. 397. 



9 Parly. Proc. file 2, No. 24. 



10 Anct. Pet. 11741. 



11 Coram Rege R. 60, m. 140. 

 "Feet of F. 1 6 Edw. I, No. 31. 

 " Chich. Epis. Reg. Story, fol. 28. 



new trial, which he as a wealthy and influential 

 prelate could better afford than they. 14 



The abbot of Bayham in 1225-6 was em- 

 ployed by the king on business in France, 15 and 

 in 1232 was selected by the pope as one of the 

 three visitors of the exempt monasteries in the 

 province of Canterbury, 16 but the monasteries 

 successfully refused to submit to this visitation, 17 

 and the bishop of Chichester was equally unsuc- 

 cessful in his attempt to cause the abbot to visit 

 Battle Abbey. 18 The abbot, again, was chosen by 

 the archbishop in 1240 to publish his excommuni- 

 cation of the monks of Christ Church, Canter- 

 bury. 19 This abbot appears to have been a friend 

 of St. Richard, bishop of Chichester, who stayed 

 here in September, 1242, when he granted an in- 

 dulgence to those who gave alms to the church, 

 similar to one granted by his beloved master 

 St. Edmund. When the latter's body was 

 exhumed for translation Bishop Richard wrote to 

 the abbot of Bayham giving an account of the 

 state in which it was found. 20 After his death 

 the bed in which the sainted bishop had slept at 

 the abbey was declared to possess miraculous 

 qualities. 



Bayham and St. Radegund's were the only 

 two English houses that were actually daughters 

 of the abbey of Prdmonstr6, that is to say, 

 colonized direct from the mother-house of the 

 order ; and it was possibly for this reason that 

 we find these two houses alone taking no part in 

 the refusal of the English abbots to attend the 

 general chapter at Preinonstr in I3IO. 21 In 

 December of the same year, however, all the 

 abbots seem to have been united in their chapter 

 at Lincoln in withstanding the demand for a 

 subsidy made by the abbot of Premonstrd, 22 and 

 it was the abbot of Bayham's proctor who sub- 

 sequently appealed to Rome on behalf of the 

 order, 23 with the result that in May, 1312, the 

 abbot of Bayham recovered 80 florins against the 

 father abbot, 24 who appears to have endeavoured 

 to stop his action by excommunicating and even 

 deposing him. 25 



Edward II paid a visit to the abbey in August, 

 I324, 26 and in the previous year the canons were 

 asked to receive one of the canons of the abbey 

 of Egglestone in Yorkshire which had been so 

 ravaged by the Scots that it was no longer fit for 

 habitation. 37 The hardships of war had also 



" Early Chanc. Proc. bdle. 1 6, No. 642. 

 15 Close 10 Hen. Ill, m. 19, 21, 28. 

 " Matt. Paris, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), Hi, 238. 

 17 Cal. Papal Let. i, 138. 18 Ibid. 



19 Gervase of Canterbury (Rolls Ser.), ii, 175. 

 " Matt. Paris, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), vi, 128. 

 " Gasquet, Coll. Angk-Premons. (Camd. Soc.), i, 

 Nos. 2, 3. 



" Ibid. No. 9. " Ibid. No. 10. 



" Ibid. No. 27. * Ibid. No. 1 6. 



K Suss. Arch. Coll. vi, 44. 

 97 Close 17 Edw. II, m. 



