RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



they held property in twelve counties outside 

 the dioceses of London and Winchester. 



The prior of Merton was summoned with 

 other prelates to the Parliament held in 1264 

 to consult with Simon de Montfort on the 

 affairs of the realm.' He was also summoned to 

 attend the Parliaments held in 1295 and 1299.'' 

 There was a large exodus of ecclesiastics from 

 England in 1274 to attend the Council of 

 Lyons, and early in that year Prior Gilbert of 

 Merton received letters of protection to last 

 until midsummer.' In 1285 the king, being 

 as he represented in urgent need of money, 

 borrowed jf 500 from a tenth * collected from 

 the clergy of the province of Canterbury in 

 aid of the Holy Land and deposited in Merton 

 Priory, promising by letters patent that the 

 loan should be repaid within a certain time, 

 and in the meantime to hold the convent 

 harmless against the pope and any nuncio. 

 The canons had to wait a considerable time 

 before the borrowed money was returned. A 

 petition, undated, addressed to the king by 

 the prior urgently requested that he would 

 restore the ;^500 in which he was bound by 

 letters obligatory ; two-thirds of the money 

 had been paid already, and he was bound to 

 furnish the remaining sum by Easter under 

 pain of interdict.^ On i March 1302-3 the 

 king, reciting the circumstances under which 

 the money was taken, confirmed his letters 

 patent of the previous October, assigning to 

 the prior and canons for eight years in return 

 for the money which they had been obliged 

 to find, the farm of ;^30 paid by the prior of 

 Banwell for the manor of Chesterton, and a 

 rent of assize of ;^32 iSs. lod. in the city 

 and suburbs of London forfeited by the 

 notorious Adam de Stratton. These grants 

 amounting tO;^503 10s. Sd., the king exacted 

 a return of Jos. Sd. at the end of the term.* 

 The prior of Merton received in common 

 with other religious houses frequent requests 

 for aid during the reign of Edward II. Thus 



1 Rymer, Fcedera (Rec. Com.), i- pt. i, 449- 



2 Pari. Writs (Rec. Com.), i. 737. 



3 Pat. 2 Edw. I. m. 20. 



< Ibid. 14 Edw. I. m. 17. 



6 Anct. Pet. 6318. 



« Pat. 31 Edvif. I. m. 33. The convent w^as not 

 even allov(red to retain this bare return of the loan 

 undisturbed. In June 1306 the king, having 

 assigned the farm of Chesterton to Margaret, 

 queen consort, for life from Easter 1 304, so that 

 the prior and convent had only received ^45; 

 granted them in lieu thereof ls° yearly, which 

 Henry de Cobham rendered at the Exchequer for 

 the farm of the city of Rochester and the castle 

 guard rents there until the loan should be cleared 

 off (Pat. 34 Edw. I. m. 16). 



H 



in December 1307 he was asked to furnish 

 two good carts and horses to be at West- 

 minster on St. Stephen's Day to carry part of 

 the royal equipment to Dover, the king pro- 

 mising to pay the expenses of the man leading 

 the carts and of the horses in going and re- 

 turning.'' In June 13 10 came a request for 

 victuals in aid of the Scotch war,* and a 

 demand in the following August for the sum 

 of twenty marks to be paid to the keeper of 

 the king's wardrobe, which sum the king had 

 previously requested the prior to pay, and his 

 excuses for not complying with the royal re- 

 quest were considered insufficient.* A certain 

 slackness at this time may have been due to 

 want of funds ; the Close Rolls of Edward II. 

 record the acknowledgment of large debts on 

 the part of the convent to citizens and mer- 

 chants of London, foreign lenders and others. 

 In 1309 the prior and canons obtained a 

 licence from the Crown for the appropriation 

 of the church of Cuddington of their own 

 advowson.*" The Bishop of Winchester in 

 confirming the appropriation refers to the 

 ' manifest poverty ' of the house occasioned by 

 no fault of the convent, but the result of the 

 care displayed in ministering to the poor 

 and the exercise of frequent hospitalities.*' In 

 1 3 1 7 the priory mortgaged to Philip de Bar- 

 thon, archdeacon of Surrey, all tithes of corn 

 and fruit and the great tithes of the church of 

 Effingham for a term of six years, thus secur- 

 ing a loan of £2(>}^ The charges on the 

 house by way of corrodies and pensions must 

 have been great, and the king seems to have 

 exercised to the full his prerogative in this 

 respect as patron. On 25 January 1 31 2-3 

 Lambert Clays, who had long served the king 

 and his father, was sent to the prior and con- 

 vent to receive maintenance in their house for 

 life.'' Similarly in June 1 3 1 7 Alan de Sancto 

 Botulpho,'* and in December 13 18 Geoffrey 

 de Thorpe '^ were bestowed there as royal life 

 pensioners. During the reign of Edward III. 

 Thomas Holbode, carrier {portitor), of the 

 king's wardrobe was sent in April 1 331 to 

 receive such maintenance in the house as John 



7 Close, I Edw. II. m. i2d. 



8 Ibid. 3 Edw. II. m. fd. 

 3 Ibid. 4 Edw. II. m. 4. 



i» Pat. 2 Edw. II. pt. ii, m. 4. 



11 Cott. MS. Cleop. C. vii. f. 146. 



12 Ibid. f. 184. This ecclesiastic figures in the 

 records of many of the religious houses in the dio- 

 cese, and he seems on many occasions to have 

 accommodated them in the way of loans; to 

 Chertsey he left a large bequest to found a chantry. 



13 Close, 6 Edw. II. m. 15. 

 " Ibid. 10 Edw. II. m. 5d. 

 15 Ibid. 12 Edw. II. m. I9d. 



97 



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