A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



on penalty of disqualification for office during 

 three years ; on the other hand, persistent 

 refusal of office was to be punished by excom- 

 munication and imprisonment. 



The ordinances are an interesting revelation 

 of the abbot's character as well as the state 

 of the convent. The changes in the services 

 aimed at making reHgious exercises real instead 

 of mechanical ; obstacles to the profession of 

 suitable persons arising from matters un- 

 essential to reHgion ^ were removed ; at the 

 same time an effort was made to prevent the 

 entrance of those unfitted for monastic life. 



The abbot may have had good reason to 

 believe that the novitiate had not always been 

 a test of vocation. That he found it necessary 

 to forbid disputes and frivolous conversation at 

 his own table is sufficient comment on discipline 

 at St. Albans. He himself was exceedingly 

 particular about manners " as well as conduct, 

 and in the end both his monks and servants 

 became noted for the correctness of their 

 behaviour. But the result could not have been 

 attained without great steadfastness of purpose, 

 and the immediate consequence is probably to 

 be seen in the many monks who ' unable to 

 bear the rigour of religion ' apostatized in his 

 time. Some of them returned," and to avoid 

 the scandal caused by the frequency of pubhc 

 penance at the abbey for desertion it was 

 provided that if the monks had run away from 

 cells they should be punished at those places.^* 



There is an indication that after a few years 

 of rule the abbot became rather disheartened in 

 his wish to resign, communicated to King John 

 of France when he visited the abbey during his 

 captivity in England." On the king's return 

 to France he was reminded of his promise to use 

 his good offices with the pope in the matter, but 

 was dissuaded by the Black Prince, who was 

 convinced that the monastery would be ruined 

 if the abbot carried out his intentions. The 

 abbey chronicler regarded the projected resig- 

 nation as an attempt to shirk a solemn trust, for 

 which the abbot's subsequent trials were a 

 judgement. It could hardly be said, however, 

 that the abbot in actual deed failed in his duty. 

 His sense of responsibility can be seen in his 

 many contests on the abbey's behalf. These are 



^' The excessive number of stories of saints to be 

 learned by heart had proved a stumbling-block to 

 many {Gesta Abbat. ii, 395). 



1^ However occupied with business, want of 

 decorum never escaped his comment (ibid, iii, 410). 



1' Eight did not. One of these, Stephen Gomage, 

 may have been the brother Stephen whom the rectors 

 of St. Mary and St. Nicholas and a chaplain of 

 Hertford were accused of taking away from Redbourn 

 in 1354 against the abbot's will (Anct. Indict. K.B. 9, 

 file 38, m. 11). 



"- Gesta Abbot, ii, 415. 



1' Ibid. 408-9. 



sometimes cited, though unfairly, as a proof of 

 his htigiousness. It would have been impossible, 

 for example, to ignore the affront offered to the 

 house by Sir Philip Lymbury, who put John 

 de la Moot, the cellarer, in the pillory at Luton." 

 This matter was soon settled by Henry Duke 

 of Lancaster ; but the proceedings in John de 

 Chilterne's case lasted for years.*" 



Chilterne, one of the St. Albans tenants, 

 apparently disputed the abbey's right to a rent 

 and refused to pay. The abbot at last, by way 

 of distraint, seized fifty cattle which Chilterne 

 defiantly told him he could starve for all he 

 cared. Horrible to relate, this was done, the 

 abbot's advisers telling him he would prejudice 

 his cause if he fed them. Chilterne naturally 

 enough was furious, and it was probably then 

 that he accused the abbot of usurping the 

 king's overlordship of certain land. Verdicts 

 were given in the abbot's favour in 1364 and 

 1366, and Chilterne came to an agreement with 

 the abbot and promised to abstain from further 

 molestation. Resuming hostilities, he forfeited 

 the bonds he had entered into, was outlawed, 

 and fled to France, where he remained until the 

 Black Prince and other influential friends of 

 Abbot Thomas were dead. As soon as he 

 returned the abbot had him imprisoned by writ 

 of outlawry. Chilterne obtained his liberation 

 once by assuring the king that he could give 

 him information worth ^1,000 against the 

 abbey, but was immediately prosecuted again 

 by the abbot. While in prison he renewed the 

 matter of the overlordship, and, although the 

 abbot gained the day in the end, the affair 

 lasted until 1 390. 



In 1356 and 1368 the abbot brought a suit to 

 recover from the parson of Harpole (co. Nor- 

 thants) arrears of a rent of "jpsP which by an 

 agreement of 1348 was paid in lieu of tithes'* ; 

 in 1365 he took proceedings against Richard 

 Pecche for unlawful distress in a tenement 

 belonging to the abbey in London,^' and in 1367 

 against the nuns of Markyate for payment of a 

 rent which the prioress could not deny she owed.^ 



Nor can it be said that his firmness was 

 reserved for insignificant and comparatively 

 powerless opponents. He prosecuted his case 

 vigorously in the papal court in 1379 against 

 the Archbishop of York, who had fined him for 

 non-appearance at a synod to which he had not 

 been summoned, and had unjustly sequestrated 

 the issues of the church of Appleton in Rye- 

 dale (co. York) appropriated to the monastery.'* 



ni, 3-5. 



18 Gesta Abbat. 



" Ibid. 5-25. 



^ Ibid. 44-6, S4-5. 



" Lansd. MS. 375, fol. 108. 



'' Gesta Abbat. iii, 77-80. 



^ Ibid. 87-92. 



"^ Ibid. 278-9. 



392 



