RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



John Dorchester, elected 1531,*° occurs 



14 October 1534" 

 John Atue or Yate, occurs 4 March 1537 ^ 



The oval 14th-century seal of this house ^ 



represents the Virgin crowned and standing 

 with the Child on her left arm in a niche, with a 

 pinnacled and crocketed canopy. The field is 

 powdered with sUpped roses. Legend : [s'] 



CAPITVLI BEA(te mar) IE DE WILMVNDE . . , 



HOUSE OF GILBERTINE CANONS 



12. NEW BIGGING PRIORY, HITCHIN 



The priory of St. Saviour, New Bigging, 

 Hitchin,*^ was founded by Sir Edward de 

 Kendale, let., at the end of 1361 or beginning 

 of 1 362 ' for three canons of the Gilbertine 

 order, of whom one was to be prior.^ 



Tanner and others have called this house a 

 nunnery, but as there had to be at least seven 

 canons in a double establishment * of the 

 Gilbertine order, there could have been no 

 women there at the foundation, and there is no 

 trace of any afterwards.^ 



Kendale received the royal hcence in February 

 1362-3 * to give to the prior and canons in 

 order that they might celebrate for the souls of 

 Robert and Margaret de Kendale, his father and 

 mother, and of King Edward II, the advowson 

 of the church of Orwell (co. Cambridge) and 

 some land there which Margaret had intended 

 to assign for this purpose to the warden and 

 chaplains of the chapel of St. Peter in the 

 church of Hitchin. The canons at the same 

 time had leave to appropriate Orwell Church to 

 their own uses. 



From William Rous, chaplain, the convent in 

 1372 obtained eight messuages, 63 acres of land 

 and p. rent in Willian and Hitchin in aid of 

 their maintenance.' The resources of the house, 

 no doubt still very small, were augmented 

 thirty years later by other means. On 22 Sep- 

 tember 1402 the pope empowered the canons 



^ Line. Epis. Reg. Longland, Inst. fol. 224 d. 



'' Defi. Keeper's Rep. vii, App. ii, 306. 



82 L. and P. Hen. VllI, xii (l), 571 (4). 



^ B.M. Seals, Ixiv, 74. 



' Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 349. 



2 The inquisition ad quod damnum preceding 

 Kendale's grant of land to the canons for their 

 buildings took place in November 1361 (Inq. a.q.d. 

 file 340, no. 4). ' Ibid. 



* Graham, Sa Gilbert of Sempringkam and the 

 Gilbertines, 33. 



' The lack of proof that New Bigging was a house 

 for both sexes has been noticed by Messrs. Pollard 

 and Gerish, ' The Religious Orders in Hitchin,' East 

 Herts. Arch. Soc. iii (i), 3. 



' Pat. 37 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 37. 



' Ibid. 46 Edw. Ill, pt. ii, m. 32. 



to choose eight priests, seculars and regulars, to 

 hear the confessions of and absolve penitents who 

 on the feast of the Annunciation between the 

 first and second vespers visited and gave alms 

 for the conservation of the priory church, and 

 granted to such penitents the same indulgence 

 as to persons visiting on 1-2 August the church 

 of St. Mary of the Portiuncula, Assisi.* 



The grant was perhaps made to meet a special 

 emergency, for the statement in 1400 that Sir 

 Robert Turk, kt., held a free chapel in Hitchin 

 called ' le Bygynge ' ® may mean that he had 

 a mortgage on the place. 



The house, the net annual value of which was 

 returned in 1535 as ^13 16s. j^" figured in 1536 

 among the smaller monasteries marked out for 

 suppression,^ and in that year Rauf Morice was 

 petitioning Cromwell for a farm of the priory.^^ 

 As, however, the first Ministers' Accounts ^' of 

 the place date from Michaelmas 1538, and the 

 prior was not granted a pension ^* until De- 

 cember of that year, the priory appears to have 

 escaped dissolution ^* until the surrender of the 

 parent-house of Sempringham in September 

 1538." 



JohnMounton, the last prior,^' is the only one 

 recorded. 



* Cal. of Papal Letters, iv, 349. The indulgence 

 in 1402 for the benefit of certain religious dwelling 

 by the vill of Hitchin is mentioned in ' Annales 

 Ric. II et Hen. IV,' see Trokelowe and Blaneforde, 

 Chron. et Ann. (Rolls Ser.), 348. 



' Chan. Inq. p.m. 2 Hen. IV, no. 36. 



" Valor EccL (Rec. Com.), iv, 276. 



" L. and P. Hen. VllI, ix, 1238. 



12 Ibid, xi, 1479- 



" Hen. VIII, no. 1617. 



1^ j^4 a year until he received an ecclesiastical 

 benefice of that amount (Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. 

 ccxxxiii, fol. 97). 



1* The commissioners who dissolved the small 

 houses made no report on New Bigging, but sent the 

 prior to the Chancellor of the Court of Augmenta- 

 tions (Land Rev. Rec. bdle. 66, no. 3). 



l« V.C.H. Lincoln, ii, 186. It is here pointed out 

 that the master of Sempringham used his influence 

 with Cromwell to save the small Gilbertine houses 

 from dissolution under the Act of 1536. 



17 L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiv (2), 1355. 



44? 



