RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



The circular 13th-century seal,'^ 2^ in. in 

 diameter, has on its obverse our Lady crowned 

 and seated and holding the Child, with this 

 inscription at the sides — 



AUE MARIA GRACIA PL* 



On either side of her chair kneels a canon, 

 with a sun above his head. 



The reverse has St. Augustine seated in a 

 similar chair, blessing and holding his staff. At 

 the sides are the words — 



ORA P nob' be AVGV ' 



Above the kneeling canons are moons. The 

 legend is too much destroyed to be legible. 



50. THE PRIORY OF HALTEMPRICE 



With the exception of the two charterhouses 

 at Hull and Mount Grace,^ the Augustinian 

 priory of Haltemprice was the last founded of 

 Yorkshire monasteries. More than seventy 

 years had elapsed since the establishment of any 

 monastery in Yorkshire, and rather more than a 

 century since the foundation of that of Healaugh 

 Park,' the most recent of the Augustinian 

 priories, when Thomas Wake, lord of Liddell, 

 began his foundation of the priory of the Holy 

 Cross at Haltemprice. 



In December 1320 ' Pope John XXII issued a 

 mandate to the Archbishop of York to license 

 Thomas Wake to found a monastery of the 

 order of St. Augustine in his town of Cotting- 

 ham, and to incorporate the church of the said 

 town, being of the founder's patronage, with it. 

 An abbot or prior was to be appointed, and the 

 number of canons determined. In Cottingham, 

 however, a secure title to the site could not be 

 obtained, and on 26 June 1322^ Edward II 

 granted licence by Letters Patent to Thomas 

 Wake to confer a messuage in Newton on a 

 religious house of whatever order he wished to be 

 built there, and also to endow it with a carucate 

 of land and other property, as well as with the 

 advowson of the church of Cottingham. The 

 original site was evidently in Cottingham itself, 

 and Newton,about two miles south of Cottingham, 

 was within the parish. On I January 1325-6' 

 Pope John XXII issued a bull, addressed to the 

 archbishop, reciting that Thomas Wake had 

 begun to build an Augustinian monastery in his 

 town of Cottingham, and had erected the church 

 and other of its buildings, and that several canons 



" Cat. 0/ Seals, B.M. 3187, 50, 51. 

 'Hull 1377 ; Mount Grace 1396. 

 'Circa 1218. ^ Cal. Papal Letters,\i, 210. 



*Dugdale, Mon. Jngl.vi, 519. 

 'Add. Chart. 20554 (printed, but not quite 

 accurately, in Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 5 20, no. ii). 



of the house of Bourne in the diocese of Lincoln 

 had, with the leave of their abbot, taken up their 

 abode in it, and were celebrating mass and divine 

 offices, but that it had been found that owing to 

 certain statutes, constitutions, and customs of the 

 kingdom of England, the heirs or successors of 

 the founder would have power to demolish it. 

 The pope granted licence that the monastery 

 should be removed to another fit place, and when 

 so founded, the archbishop was to order the 

 canons, and unite the church of Cottingham to it. 

 The monastery therefore was removed to New- 

 ton. By his foundation charter, dated the Sun- 

 day after the Conversion of St. Paul (25 January) 

 1325-6,° Thomas Wake granted to God, Blessed 

 Mary, and all saints, in honour of the Nativity of 

 our Lord Jesus Christ, the Annunciation of the 

 Blessed Virgin Mary, and the Exaltation of the 

 Holy Cross, and for his soul, and those of his wife, 

 his father and mother, and his ancestors and 

 heirs, &c., to the canons regular of Alta Prisa 

 his manors and vills of Newton, Willerby, and 

 Wolfreton, with the rents and services of the free 

 tenants and serfs, ordaining that those three vills 

 Newton {que nunc Hawtemprice vacatur), Willerby, 

 and Wolfreton should be made a liberty, with a 

 court of frankpledge distinct from Cottingham, 

 and should have assize of bread and ale, &c. He 

 also gave half the toll of the market of Cotting- 

 ham, and of the fairs there,' and the advowsons 

 of the churches of Cottingham, Kirk Ella, 

 Wharram Percy, and Belton in the Isle of 

 Axholme.* The advowson of Kirk Ella' had 

 originally been given to the abbey of Selby by 

 Gilbert de Tyson, and confirmed to that house 

 by Richard I, and it continued a rectory while it 

 belonged to Selby. On the request of Thomas 

 Wake, Edward III granted licence in 1328 to 

 the Prior and convent of Haltemprice to give 

 certain land in Hessle to Selby in exchange for 

 the advowson of Kirk Ella, and to appropriate 

 the church to their priory. The original grant 

 of this church by Thomas Wake in 1325 

 suggests that the arrangement with Selby was in 

 contemplation, but had not been effected in law. 

 It was not, indeed, until 1331 that the Abbot 

 and convent of Selby granted the church of Kirk 



• Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 5 1 9. 



'Burton, Mon. Ebor. 313. According to Burton 

 (p. 3 1 4) the founder granted the custody of St. 

 Leonard's Hospital at Chesterfield to the priory of 

 Haltemprice, but this is not mentioned in the original 

 charter. Burton refers to his appendix (which has 

 not been printed) for authority for this statement. 



'Boniface IX confirmed the appropriation of 

 Belton Church to Haltemprice on 1 June 1399, the 

 value not exceeding 90 marks, and that of Haltem- 

 price not exceeding 400. The church was to be 

 served by one of their canons, or by a secular priest 

 removable at their pleasure. Cal. Papal Letters, v, 

 185. 



'See as to the church of Elveley (Kirk Ella) 

 Burton, Mon. Ebor. 315. 



213 



