A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



tenance of thirteen additional monks,' and on 

 13 May 1346'' Archbishop Zouch made a 

 formal appropriation of Hatfield Church to the 

 abbey, and ordained a perpetual vicarage in the 

 church. Hatfield Church was the only spirituality 

 which the abbey of Roche possessed.' The 

 abbey also obtained many other gifts of land 

 and other properties, which are set out alpha- 

 betically in detail by Burton.^ 



Not much is known of the internal aiFairs of 

 the house until the period of the Dissolution. 

 The patronage, which had descended to John 

 son of William Lyvett of Hooton Levitt, was 

 sold on 20 February 1377-8 to Richard Barry, 

 citizen and merchant of London.' In 1380— 1 

 the abbot was taxed at 45J. o^d., Hugh Bastard 

 was prior, and he and twelve other monks 

 forming the convent were taxed at 35. 4</. each ; 

 there was one conversus taxed at ild. At the 

 time of Pope Nicholas's taxation, a century 

 earlier, the only spirituality was Hatfield Church, 

 valued at £1^6 13J. ^.d., while the temporalities 

 amounted to ;^i38 in. lod. In the Fa/or 

 EccUsiasticus, the church of Hatfield was set 

 down at ^^41 14J. 8d., and the temporalities at 

 jTiao 4.S. 8d., making a total of £260 1 91. ^d. 

 Among the ' Elemosina ' was £ i distributed every 

 Maundy Thursday, 29J. for wax daily burnt before 

 the sacrament of the altar, of the foundation of 

 Richard Furnival, and 55. yearly on the obit of 

 Thomas de Bellewe. 



Drs. Layton and Legh reported in 1536 that 

 pilgrimage was made to the image of the 

 crucifix discovered (as it was believed) in the 

 rock, and that it was held in veneration. 

 Charges of gross immorality, as usual, were 

 brought against five of the monks,* and another 

 monk, John Robynson, suspected of treason, was 

 imprisoned at York, but his signature is appended 

 to the deed of surrender with those of the other 

 seventeen monks, who with their abbot were 

 supposed to have signed the document in the 

 chapter-house on 23 June 1538.' 



The abbot was assigned ^^33 ds. 8d. as his 

 yearly pension, and was to have his books, the 

 fourth part of the plate, the cattle and household 

 stulF, a chalice and vestment and ^30 in money 

 at his departure. The sub-prior (Thomas Twell) 

 received a pension of £6 I p. 8d. and the 

 bursar (John Dodesworth), one of the monks 

 charged with gross misconduct in the notorious 



' Dugdale, Mon. Jngl. v, 502 n. ; Cal. Pat, 

 1345-8, p. 16. 



* York Archiepis. Reg. Zouch, fol. 13. 



'It is remarkable that in the taxation of 1291 

 the church of Hatfield is set down as appropri- 

 ated to Roche Abbey ; Pope Nich. Tax (Rec. Com.), 

 299. 



' Burton, Moti. Ebor. 319-23. 



' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. v, 501. 



^ L.andP. Hen. T///, x, p. 138. 



' Ibid, xiii (i), 1248. 



comptrta, £6. Eleven other monks who were 

 priests received £s each; and four novices 66j. 8d. 

 each.i" 



By far the most important and interestmg 

 document relating to Dissolution times is a 

 graphic account of the despoiling of the monas- 

 tic buildings, written in 1591." No doubt it 

 describes scenes which, with varying details, 

 took place all over the country after the dissolu- 

 tion of the religious houses. 



So soon [the account reads] as the Visitors were 

 entred within the gates, they called the Abbot and 

 other officers of the House, and caused them to 

 deliver up to them all their keys and took an inven- 

 tory of all their goods both within doors and without ; 

 for all such beasts, horses, sheep, and such cattle as 

 were abroad in pastures or grange places, the Visitors 

 caused to be brought into their presence : and when 

 they had done so, turned the Abbot with all his con- 

 vent and household forth out of doors. 



Which thing was not a little grief to the Convent, 

 and all the servants of the House departing one from 

 another, and especially such as with their conscience 

 could not break their profession ; for it would have 

 made a heart of flint to have melted and wept to have 

 seen the breaking up of the House, and their sorrow- 

 ful departing, and the sudden spoil that fell the same 

 day of their departure from the House. And every 

 person had every good thing cheap, except the poor 

 Monks, Friars, and Nuns, that had no money to 

 bestow of anything : as it appeared by the suppression 

 of an Abbey hard by me, called the Roche Abbey, a 

 House of White Monks : a very fair builded House, 

 all of freestone ; and every house vaulted with free- 

 stone and covered with lead (as the Abbeys was in 

 England as well as the Churches be). At the break- 

 ing up whereof an Uncle of mine was present, being 

 well acquainted with certain of the monks there . . . 

 But such persons as afterward bought their corn and 

 hay or such like, found all the doors either open, or 

 the locks and shackles plucked away, or the door 

 itself taken away, went in and took what they found, 

 filched it away. Some took the Service Books that 

 lied in the Church, and laid them upon their wain 

 coppes to piece the same : some took windows of the 

 Hayleith and hid them in their hay ; and likewise 

 they did of many other things : for some pulled forth 

 the iron hooks out of the walls that bought none, 

 when the yeomen and the gentlemen of the country 

 had bought the timber of the Church. For the 

 Church was the first thing that was put to the spoil ; 

 and then the Abbot's lodging. Dorter, and Frater, 

 with the cloister and all the buildings thereabout 

 within the Abbey walls ; for nothing was spared but 

 the oxhouses and swinecoates, and such other house of 

 office, that stood without the walls ; which had more 

 favour showed them than the very Church itself : 

 which was done by the advice of Cromwell, as Fox 

 reporteth in his Book of Acts and Monuments. It 

 would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up 

 of lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and 

 throwing down of the sparres : when the lead was 



'» Ibid. (2), App. 25. 



" Ellis, Orig. Letters (Ser. 3), iii, 32-4, from Miss 

 Graham, St. Gilbert of Semfringham and the Gilbertines, 

 199-202. 



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