A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



and improve the altar.** From the regulations, 

 however, which he would have introduced in 

 1439,25 internal amendment seems to have been 

 what the house most needed. Sometimes there 

 were only two monks there, sometimes the place 

 was left empty. Wheathampstead ordered 

 that with the prior they must number at least 

 four, and they were to remain their appointed 

 time without interruption unless recalled by 

 their superior ; they were to go to the chapel 

 every day and say together the canonical 

 service ; at festivals mass and vespers were to 

 be sung, 2* and to help in the singing two clerks " 

 were to be added to the house, due provision 

 being made for the expense of the increased 

 convent ^^ ; St. Amphibalus was to be com- 

 memorated at Redbourn as at the abbey ; the 

 brothers were each to celebrate mass daily, and 

 that they might be the readier for their duty 

 they were to go to bed earlier ^^ and abstain 

 from late potations, superfluous repasts, from 

 roaming about and excessive recreation ; they 

 were to avoid doubtful places while on their 

 way to the priory and were to bring nobody 

 into the house from whom scandal might easily 

 arise. The abbot, moreover, exhorted them to 

 employ their leisure time there in reading, 

 learning, or other useful employment to prevent 

 idleness. These rules in essentials differed very 

 little from Richard de Wallingford's, yet they 

 were so strongly opposed by a section of the 

 convent at St. Albans as encroachments on their 

 liberty and novelties that the abbot had to let 

 the matter drop.^" 



Beyond the mention of the prior in 1492'^ 

 nothing more is heard of the house until 1535, 

 when apparently it was already abandoned.^^ 



^^ Amundesham, Annales, ii, 200. It was perhaps 

 the parochial, not the conventual, church, over the 

 nave of which a chamber was built at this time. 



2* Ibid. 203-1 1. 



^^ Abbot Thomas had had mass sung there on Sun- 

 days and the principal feasts (fiesta Abbat. ii, 401). 



^^ They were besides to serve the monks at table 

 and do anything they were asked in reason 

 (Amundesham, op. cit. ii, 206). 



^^ The sum of 9/. a week for food was allowed, 

 besides extra bread and ale from the refectory, the 

 money and the clerks' stipends being paid by the 

 master of the works out of the issues of the manors 

 of Radwell and Burston and messuages in Sleap and 

 Sandridge assigned to him for that purpose (ibid.). 



2^ The abbot in 1423 had ordered them not to sit 

 up too late, since from this cause they omitted to keep 

 the vigils they were bound to observe (ibid, i, 1 13). 



2" Ibid, ii, 211-12. ^^ Add. Chart. 34350. 



^^ It is described as a cell annexed to St. Albans 

 {Valor Eccl. [Rec. Com.], i, 451). The king's 

 commissioners in 1537 returned it as uninhabited 

 by religious persons (Transcript of Land Rev. Rec. 

 bdle. 66, no. 3. This document, owing to rearrange- 

 ment of the class to which it belongs, cannot now be 

 traced). 



418 



The priory received small gifts from time to 

 time from secular persons," but as far as can 

 be seen practically all its resources were derived 

 directly or indirectly from the abbey. The 

 tithes of Winslow, co. Bucks., of old belonging 

 to the almoner, were assigned by Abbot Thomas 

 de la Mare to Redbourn,** which appears to have 

 held also the manor of Beamonds.** The place 

 was said to be worth ^9 2s. a year in 1535," but 

 it is impossible to say what was then meant by 

 the priory. 



Priors of Redbourn 



Gilbert de Sisseverne*' 



Vincent, died January 1248-9^' 



Geoffrey de St. Albans, occurs November 



1290'* 

 Richard de Hatford, occurs January 1302, 



deposed soon afterwards *" 

 J. Woderove, occurs before 1383 ^^ 

 William de Flamstead, occurs 1380*^ 

 WilHam Wylum, occurs October 1396** and 



December 1401 ** 

 Hugh Legat, resigned 1427 *^ 

 William Bryth, appointed 1427 *' 

 Richard Myssendene, appointed 1 1 November 



1428 *' 



'^ The secular benefactors are given in Lansd. 

 MS. 260, fol. 302. Of the donations the chief 

 were 5 quarters of wheat from Sir John Bibbesworthe, 

 kt., 66s. id. from William Hemelhemstead, los. 

 each from Sir Adam Newenham and Alice Lightfoote, 

 and 20/. to the work of the kitchen, and 7/. for a 

 pittance bequeathed by Emma Imayne. 



^* Gesta Abbat. ii, 413. 



'^ The site of the house was granted in 1 540 with 

 the manors called ' the Priory ' of Redbourn and 

 Beamonds as if they were connected (L. and P. 

 Hen. Fill, XV, g. 611 [46]). 



'8 Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 451. 



'^ He was prior at the time of the dedication of 

 the church, which was performed by John Bishop of 

 Ardfert in the presence of Abbot William de 

 Trumpington, and therefore took place between 

 about 1 21 5, when John settled at St. Albans (Matt. 

 Paris, Chron. Maj. iv, 501), and 1235, the date of 

 William's death. 



38 Cott. MS. Nero, D vii, fol. 1 12 d. 



'' Gesta Abbat. ii, 6-7. 



« Ibid. 53-4. 



*^ No definite date can be assigned to the trans- 

 action in which his name appears, viz., the buying 

 of the new road through fear of the Flamstead men 

 (ibid, iii, 258). He seems to have been the man 

 made sub-prior of St. Albans in 1349 (ibid, ii, 

 381). 



*2 Cott. MS. D vii, fol. 8 1 d. 



*' Gesta Abbat. iii, 258. 



" Ibid. 480. 



*' ' Chron. Rer. Gest.' in Amundesham, Annalu, 

 i, 13. 



« Ibid. 



*^ Lansd. MS. 375, fol. 26 d. He had been 

 Prior of Beaulieu (Amundesham, op. cit. i, 30). 



