A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



unsuitable as a habitation for the council, 'standing 

 very cold on the water of the Ouse without 

 open air, saving on the same water, which always 

 is very contagious as well in winter as in 

 summer, by means of sundry corrupt and common 

 channels, sinkers, and gutters of the said city 

 conveyed under the same.' They suggested 

 however that the stone and glass might be 

 used in making the Black Friars into a house 

 for the council fit to receive the king when he 

 came to York. Sir George Lawson repeatedly 

 wrote to Cromwell begging for a free gift of the 

 site which ' is of small extent, with no ground 

 but a kitchen garden adjoining the walls of my 

 house.' " Sir George held the site to farm, but 

 all the possessions of the Austin Friars in York 

 (consisting of a tenement and twelve messuages) 

 were' granted in June 1545 to Sir Richard 

 Gresham, kt.** 



Priors 



4 

 1369 « 



Robert," 1278-80 

 William,*' Feb. 1333 

 Thomas Ganse, 

 John de Pickering, 

 William de Staynton,*' '372 

 John Tansfield,*" 1 52 1-2 

 John Aske, 1536-8 



Impressions of two seals of this house (both 

 pointed oval) are known to exist : °^ (i) a king 

 crowned standing in a canopied niche holding a 

 sceptre ; in base under a cusped arch three friars, 

 half-length, in prayer. Legend : — 



S . COE IS : SCI AVGVSTINI : EBOR 



(2) The other closely resembles the first, with 

 the legend : — 



s' FRM h'eITAR OR I AVG'tINI EB . . 



" L. and P. 



969 ; (2), 293 



Hen. Fill, xiii (2), 761 ; xiv (i), 

 XV, 465. 



" Partic. for Grants, file 526 ; i. and P. Hen. Fill, 

 XX (l), 1081 (19). The site was granted in 1558 

 to Thomas Lawson and Christiana his wife ; Drake, 

 Ebor. App. p. 1 ; Mins. Accts. 1-2 Eliz. (Yorks.), 

 no. 44. 



" Baildon, Mon. Notes (Yorks. Arch. Soc), i, 244. 



" Chan. Warr. file 1767, no 12, arrest of Friar 

 Richard of Lichfield, apostate. 



" Baildon, Mon. Notes, i, 244 ; Inq. a.q.d. file 372, 

 no. 18. Both were executors of the will of W. de 

 Grantham, mercer, of York ; in one document Ganse, 

 in the other Pickering, is described as prior. 



"Trin. Coll. Dublin MS. 286. 



"• Madox, Formukre, 341 ; L. and P. Hen. Fill, 

 vi (2), 3380(9). 



" B.M. Seals, Ixxv, 39 ; Ixxv, 50. The seals num- 

 bered xii and xiv in Drake's Eboracum are probably 

 the seals of the prior of the Austin Friars of York 

 and of the diffinitores of the provincial chapter. 



296 



102. THE FRIARS OF THE SACK, 

 YORK 



A house of the order of the Penance of Jesus 

 Christ was founded in York probably about 1260. 

 In 1274, the year in which the order was sup- 

 pressed — i.e. forbidden to admit new members — 

 by the Council of Lyons, two friars of tlii-> 

 house, Thomas de Harepam and Hugh of 

 Leicester, were ordained priests.'^ There seem 

 to have been two friars remaining in 1300 when 

 Edward I gave them alms.°' On the death of 

 these, their land was taken into the king's hand, 

 and granted by Edward II in 131 2 to Robert de 

 Roston at an annual rent of 8^.** 



103. THE TRINITARIAN FRIARS OF 

 KNARESBOROUGH 



Robert Flower, eldest son of Took or Tock- 

 lese Flower, called Mayor of York, in the reign 

 of Richard I, renounced his patrimony, and after 

 spending a few months in a Cistercian monas- 

 tery settled as a hermit on the banks of the Nidd 

 close to Knaresborough. The most interesting 

 traditions about him relate to his power over 

 animals and his kindness to the poor. His life 

 was not that of a solitary. ' He had four ser- 

 vants, two whereof he employed about tillage, 

 the third he kept for divers uses, and the fourth 

 he commonly retained about himself, to send 

 abroad into the country to collect the people's 

 alms for those poor brethren which he had taken 

 into his company.' Land is said to have been 

 granted to him by a certain noble matron named 

 Helena, and by William de Stuteville, lord of the 

 forest.^ King John visited him in February 

 1 215— 16 and gave him 'half a carucate of land 

 in the wood of Swinesco as near to his hermit- 

 age as possible.' ^ 



" Giffard's Reg. (Surt. Soc), 198. 



" Liber Quotid. 28 Edw. I (ed. Topham) 39. There 

 were three friars in 1299; Exch. Accts. bdle. 356, 

 no. 7. 



^ Close, 5 Edw. II, m. 13. 



' See his life copied from ' an ancient manuscript ' 

 by Drake, Eboracum, 372-4. A fragment of a 13th- 

 century life ascribed to Richard Stodley is in Harl. 

 MS. 3775, fol. 74-6. Another fragment, perhaps 

 the latter part of Stodley's work, is printed in Mem. 

 of Fountains Abbey (Surt. Soc), i, 166-7 1. The 

 Chron. de Lanercost, which contains a good account 

 of St. Robert (p. 25), calls him 'by surname Koke.' 

 J Metrical Life of St. Robert was printed by the 

 Roxburghe Club, 1824 ; it contains also prayers to 

 the saint, and an account of the Trinitarian Order, 

 and was evidently written by a friar of the house, 

 probably by a minister. See also Diet. Nat. Biog. 

 xlviii, 361 ; Leland, Itin. i, 96; Hardy, ' Itin. of 

 King John ' in Rot. Lit. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i. 



' Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i, 247. 



