244 Mr. George Tate on the Fame Islands. 



sition to the wishes of King Henry III., was elected Bishop of 

 Durham by the monks ; and although he resigned his preten- 

 sions to the see, yet, dreading the resentment of the King, he 

 took refuge in the Fame in a.d. 1244, where he spent the re- 

 maining two years of his life in austerities and devotion. He 

 was interred among the bishops at Durham, and miracles are 

 said to have been wrought before his tomb. 



Not long after this event, the Convent of Durham established 

 a monastic house at Fame, to which two monks were ap- 

 pointed, one the Master, and the other the Associate. The 

 name was changed from " The Hermitage " to " The House of 

 Fame"; and the House existed from a.d. 1255 till the disso- 

 lution of monastic bodies by Henry VIII. in 1536. The taste 

 of the middle age was strongly favourable to monastic bodies, 

 and hence the House of Fame was, from an early period, amply 

 endowed by various individuals. These endowments may be 

 succinctly stated, as giving interesting local illustrations of the 

 character of the period. 



Eustace de Vesci, Lord of Alnwick, gave seven horse-loads of 

 wheat yearly, of Alnwick measure, from the manor of Swinhoe ; 

 Sir William de Scremereston gave two bolls of wheat yearly 

 from Scremereston ; Simon de Lucre gave liberty to dig peats in 

 the peat-moss at Lucker, and five roods of land for building pur- 

 pose at South Charlton, and pasturage there for six cows with 

 their followers up to the age of three years, for two oxen, one 

 horse, and forty sheep with their followers, from Christmas to 

 Michaelmas ,- Sir James de Howburn, Knt., gave leave to dig 

 yearly forty cart-loads of peats in his great Peatery at Howburn, 

 called Mosse ; Sir Henry de Ditchend gave leave for forty cart- 

 loads of peat, from the " Michelmos " of the Lord of Houburn, 

 over the great Moor of Dichend ; Rob. fitz Goldewyne and 

 others gave houses and an acre of land in Bamborough ; Ber- 

 tram, Prior of Durham, assigned the corn-tithe of Aldcambus ; 

 John Fitz John Vecunte de Stanphord gave an acre of meadow 

 in Newton-by-the-Sea ; "Walter Corbet gave twelve pence for 

 ever from the mill in Newton in Glendale; Philip Bishop of 

 Durham gave two quarters of wheat for ever, from the manor of 

 Fenwick ; Robert de Neville, Lord of Raby, gave an annual 

 rent of twenty shillings from the manor of Raby ; the Mayor 

 and Corporation of Newcastle gave yearly ten quarters of wheat 

 and two casks of wine out of the farm of the town ; William 

 King, of Scotland, gave half a chalder of wheat from the mill at 

 Berwick; and King Henry III. in a.d. 1257 granted a plot of 

 ground near his mill of Brokesmouth, now called Monkshouse*. 



* Fuller accounts of these grants are in Hutchinson's ' History of North- 

 umberland,' and Rayne's ' North Durham.' 



