RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



In October 1395 a papal indult was obtained 

 permitting the claustral prior in the abbot's 

 illness or absence to admit novices and absolve 

 and dispense the monks for irregularity.' 

 Tended devotedly by his monks, the abbot 

 lingered on, helpless and often in agony, but 

 careful to the end of the welfare of his house.* 

 He died at length on 16 September 1396, 

 aged eighty-seven, universally respected and 

 admired.' 



The convent's choice of the prior, John de 

 la Moote," to be abbot seems natural in the cir- 

 cumstances. During the last two years he had 

 had entire control over the house, and as he had 

 great experience in administration,"^ he would 

 appear best fitted to deal with a financial situa- 

 tion that called for able management. It was 

 said, however, by some that the new abbot had 

 been anything but loyal to his predecessor, that 

 he had used promises and threats freely to secure 

 his own election, and that he owed his success 

 largely to the archbishop and the king.^^ The 

 last charge is curious in the light of after events. 

 Thomas de la Mare not having attended Parha- 

 ment for some years before his death, his place, 

 the first amongst the abbots, had been taken by 

 others.^* On John de la Moote's appearance 

 in Parliament the Abbot of Westminster 

 attempted to take precedence of him. Moote, 

 in a dilemma because of the king's friendship 

 with his rival, decided to appeal to Richard 

 himself, but the king, after telling him that he 

 should have his rights, requested that the Abbot 

 of Westminster might sit above him every other 

 day until the matter was discussed further, and 

 Moote, from fear, gave way. Richard's favour 

 could be reUed on so httle that to preserve it 

 Moote is said to have given him altogether 

 ^126.1* The abbot conceivably owed him no 



' Cal. Papal Letters, iv, 400. 



* He delayed receiving extreme unction to prevent 

 usurpation of the goods of the monastery (fiesta 

 Abbat. iii, 420). 



' Ibid. 422-3. The author of the ' Annales Ric. II ' 

 speaks of him as the father and pattern of all religious, 

 and says he was deservedly called ' Monachorum 

 Patriarcha.' ^^ Gesta Abbat. iii, 432-3. 



^^ He was cellarer almost twenty years (Cott. 

 MS. Nero, D vii, fol. 49 d.), and had been prior 

 certainly sixteen (ibid. fol. 8 1 d.). 



12 Gesta Abbat. iii, 463-5. 



1' Harl. MS. 3775 printed in Amundesham, Annales 

 (Rolls Ser.), i, ^i^-lj, App. B. The general order 

 of precedence was perhaps not very definite (Hurry, 

 Reading Abbey, 66, n. 2) ; but as regards Parliament 

 it is worth noticing that among the triers of petitions 

 in 1363 and 1366 {Pari. R. ii, 275, 289) the Abbot 

 of St. Albans comes before the Abbot of Westminster, 

 while in the roll of the Parliament held Feb. 1 5 1 2 

 (Add. MS. 22306) Westminster is first and St. Albans 

 second, the same order being observed in the roll of 

 1534 (Z. and P. Hen. Fill, vii, 391). 



" Gesta Abbat. iii, 454. 



good will, but it is difficult to accept entirely 

 the story that the Duke of Gloucester's con- 

 spiracy against the king was set on foot at 

 St. Albans and that Moote was present at the 

 meeting at Arundel.^'* He could hardly have 

 played so prominent a part in the affair and 

 escaped all consequences. Still, there could 

 have been no doubt to which side Moote inclined, 

 for on the king's fall he was appointed to guard 

 the Bishop of Carlisle, Richard's partisan.!^ If 

 Moote engaged in political intrigue the departure 

 from Abbot de la Mare's neutral attitude " was 

 scarcely justified by results. The immediate 

 consequence of the accession of Henry IV was 

 to increase the power of his half-brother, the 

 Bishop of Lincoln, and so put the abbey at a 

 disadvantage. When the bishop was to per- 

 form the obsequies of John of Gaunt at St. 

 Albans in 1399, Moote obtained a royal writ to 

 Beaufort forbidding anything derogatory to 

 the abbey's privileges, and was able to exact 

 letters of indemnity from the bishop and refuse 

 to allow him and his mother to lodge in the 

 monastery.^* But after Richard's fall the abbot 

 permitted Beaufort to stay at the abbey and 

 exercise episcopal rights within the exempt area, 

 and only after propitiatory gifts secured from 

 him an acknowledgement of the immunities of 

 St. Albans.^' It is true that Henry IV was the 

 first to give to the abbot the array of the clergy 

 of the exempt jurisdiction,^'' and that shortly 

 afterwards he came to the abbey, and was 

 present at the services on Ascension Day 1400 

 in royal state, ^^ but when the relations of the 

 king and Abbot Thomas are considered these do 

 not seem extraordinary marks of favour. 



Moote is said to have been responsible for 

 some of Abbot Thomas's wisest measures, and 

 perhaps truly. He showed his sense in his 

 conciliation of the villeins at the beginning of his 

 rule ^^ and in the useful papal bulls he obtained. 



1^ VTstoire de la Traison et Mart du Roy Richart 

 Dengleterre (Engl. Hist. Soc), 121-6. 



1^ Ibid. 221 n. 



^' 'The chronicle of a monk of St. Albans' known 

 as ' the Scandalous Chronicle ' proves that strong 

 party feeling existed at the abbey, but it was evidently 

 not apparent to the outside world. John of Gaunt, 

 who is violently abused by the chronicler, was a good 

 friend to St. Albans. The benefactors and chapter 

 brothers of St. Albans were of all parties. Even Sir 

 Lewis Clifford and Richard Stury, reputed Lollards, 

 were admitted to the fraternity (Cott. MS. Nero, 

 D vii, fol. 129, 131). 



^* Gesta Abbat. iii, 438-40, 472. 



^' Ibid. 440, 474-;. Moote gave the bishop [^i,, 

 and exchanged for a sapphire ring one given by the 

 Duke of Gloucester to Abbot Thomas containing a 

 piece of the holy cross. 



^^ Ibid. 437 ; Close, I Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 19, 

 printed in Dugdale, Mon. ii, 241. 



^1 Trokelowe and Blaneforde, Chron. 332. 



"^ Gesta Abbat. iii, 435. 



.397 



