RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



S3. THE PRIORY OF MARTON 



The priory of Marten was founded, as a double 

 house of Augustinian canons and nuns, by 

 Bertram de Bulmer, who lived at the end of the 

 reign of Stephen and the beginning of that of 

 Henry 11.^ The nuns did not remain there 

 long, but moved to Molseby (or Moxby, as it is 

 now called, a mile and a half from Marton) and 

 there formed an independent establishment on 

 land given them by Henry 11.^ Henry de 

 Nevill,' grandson of the founder, confirmed his 

 ancestor's grant of the vill of Marton with its 

 church and other gifts of land by Richard de 

 Runtcliffe and Roger de Punchardune. Henry 

 Nevill further gave to the canons of St. Mary of 

 Marton his manor of Woodhouse,^ except two 

 bovates of land in Appletreewick, which he 

 intended to give to the nuns of Monkton. 



From some unknown donor the canons 

 obtained the church of SheriflF Hutton,^ and in 

 1322 Archbishop Melton ordained a vicarage in 

 the church, ordering, inter alia, that the canons 

 were to pay out of its revenues the large 

 annual sum of 20 marks to the abbey of St. 

 Mary, York. The canons had also the church 

 of Sutton, in which Archbishop Walter Gray 

 ordained a vicarage in 1227.* 



The priory of Marton was in financial straits 

 in 1280,' when Archbishop Wickwane directed 

 that a complete statement of the temporalities 

 of the house should be compiled for the Prior of 

 Warter and Roger the archbishop's chaplain, 

 who were to report to the archbishop. The 

 prior was to retain the name and office, as such, 

 under his vow of obedience till the archbishop 

 ordered otherwise. On 2 August* the arch- 

 bishop accepted the resignation of Walter, the 

 prior, on account of age and decrepitude, and ' ad 

 quietam tuam et augmentum contemplacionis,' 

 and on the same date wrote to R. de Nevill, the 

 patron, that on account of the poverty of the priory 

 he was promoting Brother Gregory de Lesset as 

 prior, and in the formal letter to Gregory de 

 Lesset, canon of Newburgh, appointing him 

 Prior of Marton, dated 4 August, the appoint- 

 ment is said to be made with the consent of the 

 patron and of all the canons of the house. A 

 concurrent letter was sent to the Prior and 

 convent of Newburgh, asking that Gregory de 

 Lesset might be released from the office of sub- 

 prior of that house, and allowed to go as prior to 

 Marton. The archbishop, on 1 1 August, made a 



' Burton, Mu». Eior. 265. 



' Ibid. 268. The nearness of Moxby to Marton 

 seems to suggest that an entire separation of the two 

 was not originally intended. 



' Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 199, no. ii. 



* Ibid. no. iii. 



' Burton, Mon Ebor. 266. ° Ibid. 



' York Archiepis. Reg. Wickwane, fol. 12 d., 115. 



' Ibid, fol. 13, 115 d. 



public declaration ' that he had only made this 

 appointment under the pressure of necessity, and 

 that his action was not to be to the prejudice in 

 future of the priory or its patron. A few 

 months later (on 13 December 1281 ^^) the arch- 

 bishop wrote to the prior and convent that, 

 having beheld with paternal pity the almost 

 irreparable ruin to which they and their house 

 had been brought by their wantonness and 

 demerits, he had appointed Thomas, Archdeacon 

 of Cleveland, to carry into effect the ordinances 

 made for the house as a result of a recent visita- 

 tation. Subsequently " he commanded the prior 

 and convent to send certain of their less useful 

 brethren to religious houses in which holy 

 religion waxed more strongly. He had also sent 

 the Prior of Newburgh to their house, and, 

 according to the prior's arrangement, the arch- 

 bishop directed that the canons were to send 

 Brothers John de Esyngwald and Laurence to 

 other religious houses, to be named by the arch- 

 bishop. In a letter to the Prior and convent of 

 Newburgh ^^ the archbishop referred to the refor- 

 mation of the monastery of Marton. He had 

 learnt that its temporalities had almost come to 

 an end ; religious honesty was undone, the 

 observance of the rule was shamelessly banished, 

 and troubled businesses had taken the place of 

 pious zeal. He saw how honest and pleasing to 

 God was the behaviour of the congregation of 

 Newburgh, and on that account he ordered them 

 to send certain wise and honest of their number 

 to Marton, at the nomination of the prior of 

 that house, to the assistance and relief of Marton. 

 No doubt Gregory de Lesset, so recently sub- 

 prior of Newburgh, wished to be strengthened in 

 his work of reformation at Marton by the help 

 of some of his late brethren at Newburgh. 



Laurence, one of the two canons of Marton 

 who were to be sent away, must have been 

 exceptionally troublesome, for the archbishop, 

 addressing on 5 August 1283^' the Priors of 

 Nostell and Newburgh, presidents of the general 

 chapter of canons regular in the province of 

 York, stated that at the visitation of Marton the 

 congregation of his brethren there could not 

 submit to his reprobate and perverse behaviour 

 among them, and that the prior had no safe 

 place there in which to shut him up, especially 

 as no iron bolt could resist him, but he loosened 

 it as he would, and got out. The archbishop 

 asked them to find some safe place of detention, 

 that he might undergo salutary penance. 



In 1286 " Gregory de Lesset left Marton and 

 returned to Newburgh. During his rule at Marton 

 he seems to have obtained from that house a manor 

 in Craven, and Archbishop Romanus ordered 

 that this was to be restored to Marton, and that 

 Gregory was to give up the writings he had about 



' Ibid. 



"Ibid. fol. 35 d. 



"Ibid. fol. 138 d. 



" Ibid. fol. 35 d., 138. 



" Itil 



" Ibid. Romanus, fol. 50 d. 



223 



