A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



the county. The Knights Templars had eight preceptories, but after the 

 dissolution of the order in 1310, although most of these estates passed to the 

 Hospitallers, Ribston was the only house which maintained a separate exis- 

 tence as a commandery. 



The different orders of friars were well represented in the county. In 

 York itself there were houses of Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Austins, 

 and of the short-lived Order of the Sack. In 1257 Walter de Kirkham, Bishop 

 of Durham, granted 4 acres of land at Osmotherley for the establishment of 

 a priory of Crutched Friars,^ and in 1 347 Thomas Lord Wake of Liddell 

 had royal licence to grant a toft and 10 acres in Blakehowe Moor in 

 Farndale for the foundation of a house of the same order,' but in neither case 

 does the design seem to have been carried out. In the same way Master 

 William de Alvcrton's proposed foundation of Austin Friars at Northallerton 

 in 1340,* and the house of Minoresses which Sir William de la Pole began to 

 found at Hull in 1365,' came to nothing. At Knaresborough there was an 

 important establishment of Trinitarian Friars. 



The list of hospitals which follows is lengthy, but it is probably not 

 complete ; so many small hospitals are known to us only from single refer- 

 ences that it is almost certain that others must have escaped notice altogether. 

 At the head of the list is St. Peter's, or St. Leonard's, of York, the largest and 

 wealthiest of all the early English hospitals. The identification of the 

 smaller, and for the most part unendowed, hospitals in the city is no simple 

 matter, many of them being known by more than one name. 



Of collegiate churches the most important were the Minster at York 

 (associated with which were the Bedern, St. Mary and the Holy Angels and 

 St. William's College), Ripon and Beverley, all three being of pre-Conquest 

 origin. Sir Richard le Scrope in 1393 had licence to found a chantry of six 

 chaplains, one of whom was to be warden, in his castle of Bolton, and at the 

 same time to give to the abbey of Easby lands for the support of six canons 

 and twenty-two poor men.' In 1399 he obtained a fresh licence to transfer 

 the proposed endowment from Easby to the church of Holy Trinity, Wenslcy, 

 making this church collegiate and attaching a hospital to it,' but although 

 this licence was confirmed by Henry IV' it does not appear that either of the 

 proposed colleges at Bolton or Wensley was actually constituted. Another 

 abortive college was begun by Richard III, who proposed to found a college 

 of a hundred priests in connexion with York Minster.' Several altars were 

 actually erected *" and the collegiate house begun, if not completed," before 

 Richard's defeat and death put an end to the scheme. A quasi-collegiate 

 chantry of twelve priests was established in Kirkleatham church in 1353,'^ 

 but was dissolved when the rectory was appropriated to the college of Staindrop 

 (county Durham) in 1408." A similar chantry of six priests was formed at 

 Harewood in 1353,^* and a semi-collegiate chapel was founded at Wilton-in- 

 Cleveland by Sir William Bulmer in 1528," but neither these nor Osmotherley, 



'Pat. 41 Hen. Ill, no. I. ' Pat. 21 Edw. Ill, pt. ii,no. 6 ; Dugdale, £<7rfl»j^^, i, 54I. 



' Pat. 14 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, no. 5. ^ Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 91. 



'Cj/. Put. 1391-6, p. 224. 'Ibid. 1396-9, p. 489. 



'Ibid. 1 399-1401, p. 344. 'York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, pt. i, fol. 100. 



'» Fabric R. (Surt. Soc), 87. " Test. Ebor. (Surt. Soc), iv, 79. 



"Torre's MS. fol. 59. " Mon. Angl. vi, 1401. 



" C.;/. Ckse, 1349-54, pp. 520-2. " 7V/A Ebor. (Surt. Soc), v, 319. 



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