A HISTORY OF YORKSHIRE 



the Prior and convent of Durham, because they 

 had no place in the south to keep their live-stock 

 safely, notwithstanding a previous grant to 

 Thomas Sees, Prior of Birstall. They were to 

 render 200 marks yearly at the exchequer, as the 

 said Thomas, and 5 marks in addition, besides 

 finding a competent maintenance of 10 marks 

 yearly for the proctor ; with power to remove 

 the remaining alien monks in Birstall Priory, and 

 replace them by as many English monks, or 

 secular chaplains from Durham Priory, and after 

 the death of the then proctor to replace him by 

 an English one. 



This, however, was cancelled, with the assent 

 of the Prior of Durham, and the king granted 

 on 18 May 1382 the custody of Birstall to the 

 Prior of Birstall, John de Harmesthorp, clerk, 

 and William de Holme. 



From this it appears that besides the 



prior 



there were several monks, some of whom had 

 already left, showing that the cell was of greater 

 size than other evidences indicate. The seizure 

 of what was the chief endowment of the abbey 

 so impoverished it that 'en 1393" I'abbaye de 

 Saint-Martin etait tellement ruin^e, qu' k peine 

 y pouvait-on celebrer I'office divin.' In 1395" 

 the abbey of Aumale sold its Holderness pro- 

 perty to Kirkstall, when the cell of Birstall came 

 to an end. The property in Lincolnshire and 

 Holderness was retained by Kirkstall till the 

 Dissolution. ^° 



Priors of Birstall 



Gilbert, occurs 1275*' 

 Ralph, occurs 1300,^* 1304^' 

 Richard de Borrence, appointed 1322 ^ 

 Thomas Sees, occurs 1379,'' 1381 ^' 



213. THE PRIORY OF ECCLESFIELD" 



According to Dodsworth,'^ the church of 

 Ecclesfield was given to the abbey of St. Wan- 

 drille " in Normandy, by Richard de Lovetot in 



" Fisquet, La France Pmtificale, Metropole de Rouen, 



453- 



" Dugdale, Man. Angl. vi, 1021, no. v ; with the 

 sum they received (10,000 livres tournois), Charles 

 \'I of France permitted them to buy other lands in 

 France (no. iv). 



" Burton, Mon. Ebor. 298-300. 



" Archbp. Giffard's Reg. (Surt. Soc), 254.. 



" York Archiepls. Reg. Corbridge, fol. 32^. 



" Ibid. sed. vac. fol. 36^. 



^ Ibid. Melton, fol. 289. 



" Cal. Fat. 1377-81, p. 618. 



" Ibid. 606. 



" Several deeds relating to the priory lands are 

 entered in Add. MS. 27581. 



" Hunter, HaUamshire, 258. 



" Otherwise known as the abbey of Fontenelle ; 

 see Fisquet, La France Pontificak, Metropole de Rouen, 

 386. 



the reign of Henry I." In Archbishop Melton's 

 register is a confirmation in 1323," which re- 

 cords that at a late visitation of the diocese the 

 archbishop found that the Abbot and convent of 

 St. Wandrille, O.S.B., in the diocese of Rouen, 

 held the church of Ecclesfield, and that the per- 

 petual vicar of the church, 'qui a quibusdam 

 vocatus prior de Eglesfeld,' had indicated ' that 

 Ecclesfield Church had been appropriated to the 

 abbey by Innocent II and Gregory [ ], for- 

 merly popes of Rome, that Roger {sic) de ' Love- 

 toftes,' the patron, and at that time lord of 

 HaUamshire, had given the church, and that 

 Henry I had confirmed the gift. Archbishop 

 Melton, at the instance of Hugh le Despenser, 

 confirmed Ecclesfield Church to the abbey. 



A few years earlier Archbishop Greenfield 

 had also dealt with Ecclesfield Church. He 

 cited on 24 July 1310^* the Abbot and convent 

 of St. Wandrille to appear before him on 

 4 November following, as he had found, when 

 recently holding a visitation of the diocese, that 

 the church of Ecclesfield had a large number of 

 parishioners, widely scattered, and that there was 

 no vicarage in the church, or any person charged 

 with cure of souls. The result was the ordina- 

 tion of a perpetual vicarage on 7 December," 

 presentable by the abbot and convent, and on 

 the following 20 April, brother Robert de Bosco, 

 prior, was instituted to the vicarage.^" He re- 

 signed in 1328," when he was described as lately 

 ' rector seu custos, ac prior vulgariter nun- 

 cupatus.' His successor John, dictus Fauvel, 

 monk O.S.B., was admitted ' ad ecclesiam, seu 

 prioratum de Ekelisfelt,' " and when he died in 

 1347, Archbishop Zouch admitted Robert 

 Gulielmus ' ad ecclesiam, vicariam, custodiam, 

 seu prioratum, beate Marie de Eglesfeld.' ^' 



Richard II in 1385" gave to the Carthu- 

 sian monastery of St. Anne near Coventry 

 the advowson of the church of Ecclesfield in 

 Yorkshire, lately belonging to the Abbot and 

 convent of St. Wandrille in Normandy, then in 

 the king's hands, by virtue of a recovery of the 

 same made in the court of the late King 

 Edward, grandfather of the king. The priory 

 of Ecclesfield seems to have had a shadowy exis- 

 tence. There was probably at no time a cell 



" Jeremy of Ecclesfield, clerk, vicar of Ecclesfield, 

 granted his rights in the church with its chapels of 

 ' SefFeld, Bradefeld, and Witstan ' to the abbot, who 

 confirmed the perpetual vicarage to him for life. 

 Add. MS. 27581. 



" York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, fol. 157^. 



^ Ibid. Greenfield, fol. 793. 



'' Ibid. fol. 85*. 



"Ibid. fol. lib. 



" Ibid. Melton, fol. 1753. 



" Ibid. 



'' Ibid. Zouch, fol. 373. 



" Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 17, no. vii, quoting from 

 the Patent Roll. 



388 



