RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



William Berwyk, 1471 



William Bramman, 1475 



William Ellyngton, 1480 



Peter Kendayll,^' confirmed 1499 



Richard Roundale, confirmed 1520" 



The 13th-century seal^* is a vesica showing 

 the prior standing on a carved corbel. Legend : — 



tji sigill' santi iohis de parco 



52. THE PRIORY OF KIRKHAM 



The Augustinian priory of Kirkham was 

 founded about 1130,^ and was the earliest of the 

 three religious houses which owed their existence 

 to Walter Espec. In his foundation charter,^ 

 addressed to Archbishop Thurstan and Geoffrey, 

 Bishop of Durham, Walter Espec records that he 

 had given to God and the church of the Holy 

 Trinity of Kirkham, and to the canons serving 

 God there, the whole manor of Kirkham, with 

 the parish church and the churches of Helmsley, 

 Garton, and Kirby Grindalythe, and other 

 property, including (in Northumberland) the 

 whole vill of Carham-on-Tweed, a mansura at 

 Wark, the whole vill of Titlington, and the 

 churches of Ilderton and Newton-in-Glendale 

 (now known as Kirknewton). As Thurstan 

 and Geoffrey were contemporaries in the sees of 

 York and Durham from 1133 to 11 39, the date 

 of this charter is definitely fixed between those 

 years. 



There is no reference to any son or child of 

 the founder,^ and no suggestion whatever in sup- 

 port of the legend that Walter Espec was led to 

 found Kirkham and his two other monasteries of 

 Rievaulx and Warden out of grief at the loss of 

 his only son by an accident. That story is told 

 with such definiteness of detail in a chartulary 

 of Rievaulx, that, were it not incidentally nega- 

 tived by the silence of all contemporary accounts, 

 including the foundation charters of the monas- 

 teries in question, it would almost carry a con- 

 viction of truth with it. The legend, as told in 

 the chartulary under the heading 'Fundatio 

 monasteriorum de Kyrkham Ryevalx et Wardon, 

 &c.',* is that Walter Espec, miles strenuus, married, 



*' The prior who caused the Chartulary with the 

 list of priors to be written. Confirmed 27 May 

 1499 : York Archiepis. Reg. Rotherham, i, fol. 138. 



"The last prior, confirmed 29 March 1520. 

 York Archiepis. Reg. Wolsey, fol. 53. 



" Egerton Chart. 516. 



' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 207. The date there 

 given for the foundation, 1 121, appears to be too 

 early. ' Ibid. 208. 



' The gifts were made with the assent of his 

 nephews, for the welfare of the souls of his and their 

 parents. 



* Cott. MS. Vitell. F. 4. 



when quite young, a certain Adelina, who bore 

 him a son named Walter. The son was a hand- 

 some youth, and greatly devoted to riding swift 

 horses. One day, mounting and urging his steed 

 beyond control, it stumbled against a small stone 

 cross at Frithby and threw him, breaking his 

 neck. The father, inconsolable at his bereave- 

 ment, consulted his uncle William, then rector 

 of Garton, at whose advice he made Christ his 

 heir, founding three monasteries at Kirkham, 

 Rievaulx, and Warden, appointing his uncle 

 William, who had received monastic instruction 

 in the house of St. Oswald, Nostell, the first 

 Prior of Kirkham, which he endowed to the 

 extent of 1,300 marks a year." Of the founder 

 himself a vivid picture has been drawn by Aelred, 

 the third Abbot of Rievaulx, in hisaccount of the 

 battle of the Standard.' He describes Walter 

 Espec as at that time an old man, full of days, of 

 quick wit, foreseeing in counsel, sober-minded in 

 peace, wary in war, always keeping friendship 

 with his companions, and faith with kings ; a 

 tall, big man with black hair, a full beard, an 

 open and free countenance, with large and keen- 

 sighted eyes, and a voice like a trumpet. Noble 

 in the flesh, Aelred says, but nobler far for his 

 Christian piety. 



The most important incident in the early his- 

 tory of Kirkham is undoubtedly the proposed 

 cession to the abbey of Rievaulx of Kirkham 

 itself, and a considerable amount of its property, 

 on the condition that the patron gave other lands 

 to the canons in lieu of those which were to pass 

 to Rievaulx. The proposal never took effect. 

 The document in the Rievaulx Chartulary'' is 

 headed Cyrographum inter nos [Rievallenses] et 

 Kirkham. It begins : ' These are the things 

 which we have conceded and given to the monks 

 of " Rievalle," for the love of God, and the well- 

 being of our souls, for peace, and the honour of 

 our prior, and at the will and desire of our 

 patron.' They are enumerated as * Kirkham 

 with the church and our buildings, and our 

 garths, gardens, and mills, and everything in 

 that place except one barn , . ., Whitwell, and 

 Westow, and 4 carucates in Thixendale (those 4, 

 to wit, which our patron hitherto holds in his 

 possession), and a wagon, and 100 sheep of our 

 stock,' and then follows the condition under 

 which the concession had been made, viz., ' that 



' Dr. Atkinson rejects {Rievaulx Chartul. p. xlv) 

 this sum as a gross exaggeration ; but when, in 1 3 2 1 , 

 the convent returned a statement of their revenues to 

 the archbishop, they stated that in time of peace they 

 were wont to receive 1,000 marks a year from their 

 Northumberland property alone. 



' Cited Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 209. 



''Rievaulx Chartul. (Surt. Soc), 108, no. cxlix. The 

 date of this document, which, as shown later on, was- 

 compiled within the lifetime of Walter Espec, must 

 be anterior to 1 1 54, for he died as a monk of Rievaulx 

 on 15 March in that year. Ibid. 265. 



219 



