A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



On the Friday before Passion Sunday 1349, 

 as the monks were singing ' He hath put down 

 the mighty from their seat' they were flung to 

 the ground by an earthquake shock, and the 

 meaning of the portent was seen later in the year 

 when on 12 August Abbot Hugh and five monks 

 died of the Black Death, which in that one 

 month carried oiF twenty-two monks and six lay 

 brethren, and at its departure left only ten 

 survivors out of a congregation of fifty.^^ With 

 rents diminished by the death of tenants and 

 lands untilled for lack of labour the new abbot, 

 William of Dringhow, was forced to raise ready 

 money by ruinous sacrifices, and the cellarer, 

 John Ryslay, was not slow to turn this to his 

 own advantage. Ryslay bribed the Abbot of 

 Fountains to visit Meaux in 1353 and deprive 

 Abbot William, and when the monks elected 

 Thomas of Sherborne the visitor refused him be- 

 cause he was blind in one eye and appointed 

 John Ryslay." The new abbot continued to 

 persecute his deprived predecessor and tried to 

 take away his allowance, but Dringhow escaped 

 and fled to Rome, where he got himself re- 

 appointed and issusd a citation against Ryslay, 

 who at once resigned, in July 1356, and 

 eventually retired to Roche Abbey.'* Robert of 

 Beverley was at once elected, and Dringhow was 

 persuaded to acquiesce in his election by the 

 grant of a very liberal allowance. On the death 

 of Abbot Robert, in November 1367, William of 

 Dringhow was again elected. Ryslay was then 

 at Rome and commenced proceedings against 

 Dringhow, but the latter obtained his adversary's 

 recall by the Abbot of Roche, and held office till 

 his death in 1372.'^ 



William of Scarborough, who was elected in 

 1372, appears to have had an artistic tempera- 

 ment; he enriched the fabric ofhis church, but was 

 extravagant and lax in discipline. After more 

 than twenty years' rule, when he was nearly eighty, 

 he desired to resign, but his monks, who appre- 

 ciated his laxity and feared the advent of a stricter 

 disciplinarian, refused their assent, and it was only 

 by the intervention of the Duke of Gloucester, 

 patron of the abbey, that he was able to retire 

 from office in 1396.'"' The ensuing election was 

 hotly disputed, but eventually the bursar, Thomas 

 Burton, a man of considerable ability, was 

 appointed. Very soon, however, a faction with- 

 in the convent began to try to unseat him, and 

 two monks were sent to a general chapter of the 

 order which was sitting at St. Mary of Graces, 

 London, to protest that Burton had been forced 

 upon the abbey by the Duke of Gloucester and 

 the Abbot of Fountains. The Abbots of Roche 

 and Garendon were appointed to inquire into the 



'* Chron. de Meha, iii, 37, 

 " Ibid. 87, 94. 

 *' Ibid, no, HI. 

 " Ibid. 166-7. 

 " Ibid. 



229-32. 



148 



matter, but upon arriving at Meaux found the 

 abbey held against them by armed force by 

 Robert Burley, Abbot of Fountains, and Abbot 

 Thomas Burton, who had meanwhile sent to 

 Rome to procure a bull annulling all the com- 

 missions issued by the chapter held at St. Mary 

 of Graces. This bull appears to have been 

 brought to them by a foreign monk, Sigismund ; " 

 and when the visiting Abbots of Roche and 

 Garendon returned, accompanied by the repre- 

 sentative of the patron, the Duke of Albemarle, 

 they were admitted and confronted with the bull 

 annulling their powers. By their good offices, 

 however, a compromise was eifected and peace 

 restored. Soon afterwards Abbot Burton went 

 to Vienna to represent the Yorkshire abbots at a 

 general chapter and had the honour of taking the 

 place of the absent schismatic Abbot of Clairvaux. 

 On his return the Abbot of Fountains held a 

 visitation and revived all the old trouble by trying 

 to punish those who had formerly disobeyed 

 Abbot Burton. The offenders appealed to Rome, 

 and Burton, to save his house the expenses 

 of protracted litigation, resigned on 24 August 

 1399, and devoted himself to writing the his- 

 tory of his abbey until his eyesight failed, some 

 ei2;ht years before his death, which occurred in 



1 he successor of Burton was William Wend- 

 over, who had been degraded from the post of 

 prior for his opposition to the late abbot.*' He 

 was a man of learning and many merits, but 

 unbusinesslike, and during his rule the officials of 

 the convent abused their powers, the bursar, 

 Robert Lekynfeld, even accumulating so much 

 money that he was able to go secretly to Rome 

 and get himself appointed Bishop of Killaloe, in 

 which capacity he acted as suffragan to the 

 Bishop of Lichfield.** 



Meaux had a splendid library and a wonderful 

 collection of relics, a list of books and treasures 

 being given in the Chronica.*^ 



The abbey was surrendered on 1 1 December 

 1539 by the last abbot, Richard Stopes, who 

 received a pension of £^o}^ The prior, George 

 Throstyl, received a pension of £6, fourteen of 

 the twenty-three monks pensions of £6, and 

 the remaining nine pensions of £s each, all 

 being in priests' orders.*' 



The gross value at the Dissolution was 

 ;^445 10s. sy., and the net ;^298 6s. 4^^.** 



" Early Chan. Proc. bdle. 29, no. 153. 



" Ciroti. de Melsa, i, pp. Iviii-lxx ; iii, 239-76. 



•^ Ibid, iii, 277-8. 



" Ibid. 279. 



" Poulson, Holdemess, 304 et seq. ; 31 1 et seq. 



« L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (2), 670. 



" Ibid. 



*' Lawton, ReRg. Houses, 59. At the end of 

 the 14th century the income of the house appears 

 to have been about ^^530 gross, or ^^430 net ; Chron. 

 de Melsa, ii, p. Ix ; Poulson, op. clt. 303. 



