RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



abbot should afterwards have restored Somer- 

 tone to Binham ; but the prior had powerful 

 supporters* and Hugh was not courageous." 

 The abbot's conduct towards the cells makes it 

 improbable that the villeins were treated justly 

 by him. Their attempt to throw off the abbey's 

 yoke just after the deposition of Edward II was 

 certainly characterized by bitter hostility. 

 They laid regular siege to the abbey, and tried 

 to reduce it by starving out the monks and by 

 a sudden nocturnal attack.* The negotiations 

 at St. Paul's resulted in a victory for them, 

 and the abbot had to cede to them freedom of 

 his warren and the right to raise hand-mills at 

 their will.* It was a crushing blow to Hugh, 

 who survived the humiliation only a few 

 months. He left debts of 5,000 marks and a 

 large burden of pensions and corrodies. More- 

 over, for immediate gain he had let property 

 very disadvantageously, and had recklessly 

 wasted wood.' Altogether from extraordinary 

 sources he raised overj^i8,ooo during his abbacy.' 

 It is not denied that some of the expense was 

 legitimate and even unavoidable. He was 

 heavily handicapped at the start with the debts 

 and heavy charges of the three preceding 

 abbots.* Wars diminished the value of the 

 abbey's possessions,' especially in the North"; 

 in 1315 there was a bad famine"; and the 

 collapse of buildings in 1323^^ made extensive 

 repairs " inevitable. The arrangement by which 

 the appropriation of Coniscliffe Church was at 

 last rendered effectual ^* was not made without 

 cost, and the same is true as to the acquisition 

 of Caldecote Manor ^^ and other property. Yet 

 when all is said, the abbot's actual needs and 



' Gesta Albat. ii, 141. 



' Ibid. 176. 



" Ibid. 158-9 ; 1 60-1. 



^ Ibid. 163-76. 



^ In March 1327 the king appointed commissioners 

 to inquire by whose negligence the abbey's revenues 

 had been dissipated (Cal. Pat. 1327-30, p. 84). 



' Gesta Abbot, ii, 178-81. 



8 Ibid. 181. 



9 Ibid. 



10 Ibid. 1 1 7-1 8. 



11 Trokelowe and Blaneforde, Chron. 89,92. When 

 the king came to the abbey in August that year there 

 could scarcely be found food for his household. 



1^ The northern wall behind the dormitory and 

 part of the south side of the church both fell. The 

 accident to one of the brothers and his man in the 

 hostrey shows that restoration was needed elsewhere 

 (Gesta Abbat. ii, 127-9). 



^' The abbot incurred great expense, and he and 

 the convent made some sacrifice to repair the damage 

 to the church (ibid. 125). 



" Ibid. 1 15-17 ; Reg. Palat. Dunelm. (Rolls Ser.), 

 ii, 1042-4; 1051-2; iv, 126 ; Cal.Pat. 1313-17, 

 p. 260. 



1' Add. Chart. 19959; Cal. Pat. 1317-21, 

 P- 563- 



38 



difficulties only make his profusion more in- 

 excusable. What can be thought of a man 

 who, while wringing money from the dependent 

 priories, bestowed a pension for life on a baby 

 merely to get a name for munificence ? " He 

 seems to have been equally shallow and selfish. 

 ReUgious in the sense that he was careful to 

 ordain his anniversary,^' he brought his reputa- 

 tion and profession into contempt by his fond- 

 ness for women's society .^^ 



He was followed by the most interesting of all 

 the Abbots of St. Albans. Richard de WalHng- 

 ford, the son of a blacksmith of Wallingford, lost 

 his parents when he was ten years old, and was 

 cared for and educated by the prior of his native 

 place, who sent him to Oxford." When twenty- 

 two years of age he became a monk at St. 

 Albans, but after three years there returned to 

 Oxford, where he spent the next nine years ^^ in 

 the study of theology, philosophy, and particu- 

 larly mathematics, for which he had a special 

 bent.21 



His hesitation at accepting office was believed 

 to be feigned,^ but the thought of undertaking 

 such responsibility might well make him pause. 

 Everything spoke of difficulty. The financial 

 problem was prominent at once, for all the 

 obedientiaries and most of the priors of cells 

 omitted to give the present usually made to a 

 new abbot.^ When Richard in the company of 

 Nicholas de Flamstead, who became his great 

 counsellor and friend, reached Avignon he found 

 that his election was not in form.^* To avoid 

 delay and expense he therefore asked the pope 

 to provide an abbot, and was himself appointed 

 by papal provision.*' From the first he struck 

 the note of retrenchment : in the interval 

 between election and the journey to the pope 

 he had lived in the humblest style,*^ and at the 

 feast of inauguration he dined in the frater 

 with the convent, not with the great people in 

 the abbot's chamber.*' At one time too he 

 certainly meant to live away from the abbey ** 



" Gesta Abbat. ii, 177. 



1' In February 131 3 (ibid. 126-7). The Bishop 

 of London in August 1312 had offered an indulgence 

 of forty days to those who prayed for the abbot's 

 good estate and for his soul after death {Reg. Palat. 

 Dunelm. i, 192-3). 



1* Gesta Abbat. ii, 177. 



" Ibid. 1 8 1-2. 



^^ He appears therefore to have been thirty-four 

 when he became abbot. 



^^ Gesta Abbat. ii, 182. He regretted afterwards 

 that he had not spent longer in the cloister, and that 

 he had devoted so much of his time to mathematics. 



22 Ibid. 185. 23 Ibid ,86-7. 2* Ibid. 187-9. 



25 Ibid. 190 ; Cal. Papal Letters, ii, 269. 



28 Gesta Abbat. ii, 186. 



2' Ibid. 194. 



2' Royal licence for this purpose was given 6 Feb. 

 1329 {Cal. Pat. 1327-30, p. 362). 



