A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



In May 1389 Richard II requested the Arch- 

 bishop of York to inquire into certain dissensions 

 that had arisen between Geoffrey, Prior of Lenton 

 (who rendered a certain yearly farm to the king 

 for that alien priory), and certain of his monks 

 who had rebelled against him, to examine the 

 condition of the priory and inform himself as to 

 its rule and the rebellion, correcting 3efects and 

 removing monks refusing obedience to other 

 houses of the same rule. A further commission 

 to laymen about the same time shows that the 

 disturbance was a serious one, involving the 

 breaking open houses and chasts of the priory, 

 taking two horses valued at j^io as well as 

 other goods and moneys, and so threatening the 

 prior and his servants that neither could he 

 attend to divine service nor they to the culti- 

 vation of the land. Some of the monks seem 

 to have taken the side of the mob.'' 



It was under Prior Geoffrey that this much- 

 tried alien priory became nationalized or reputed 

 denizen, and no longer liable to be seized into 

 the king's hands. Richard II sealed this grant, 

 with the assent of the council, on 7 October 

 1392, a sum of 500 marks having been paid to 

 the Crown.*" 



In 1395 a commission was issued to the 

 Sheriff of the counties of Nottingham and Derby, 

 to the Mayor of Nottingham and others, to 

 arrest and bring before the king and council one 

 WiUiam de Repyngdon, a monk who had been 

 to the Roman court without licence and there 

 acquired divers bulls for obtaining certain offices 

 in the priory of Lenton, without the assent 

 either of the king or of the prior and convent of 

 that place.*^ 



The general control that the priory exercised 

 over the ecclesiastical affairs of Nottingham was 

 again illustrated in the year 1400, when the 

 foundation instrument of Plumtree's Hospital at 

 Nottingham Bridge provided that the presenta- 

 tion of the two chantry chaplains was to be in 

 the hands of the Prior and Convent of Lenton.'' 



Boniface IX, in 1402, permitted the Prior and 

 Convent of Lenton to let to farm to clerks or 

 laymen all fruits, tithes, and oblations of their 

 churches, chapels, portions, pensions, and other 

 possessions, without requiring licence of the 

 ordinaries.'' 



A visitation report sent to Cluni in 1405 

 gives the proper complement of the brethren as 

 thirty-two, although some maintained that there 

 was no fixed number. Six daily masses were 

 celebrated, of which three were conventual with 

 music and three low masses ; of the latter one 

 was of the Trinity and the two others for the 

 dead. The visitors found that monastic obliga- 



« Pat. 12 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 9, 16 d. 

 " Ibid. 16 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 19. 

 " Ibid. 19 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 21 d. 

 " Thoroton, ^otts. 494. 

 ^ Cal. of Papal Letters, v, 545. 



tions were all duly and strictly observed. Wil- 

 liam Peverel is named as the founder, and it is 

 added that he and his successors, as patrons, were 

 bound to transmit yearly to the church of Cluni 

 a mark of silver, a provision confirmed by the 

 king's letters patent. 



The same visitation records that the cell of 

 Roche, subordinate to Lenton Priory, consisted 

 of a prior and one monk."" 



On II June 1414 the temporalities of this 

 priory were made over by the Crown to a prior 

 of considerable celebrity in the world of letters. 

 Thomas Elmham was a monk of St. Augustine's, 

 Canterbury, but joined the Cluniac order in the 

 year of his appointment as Prior of Lenton. In 

 1416 he was appointed vicar-general to Ray- 

 mond, Abbot of Cluni, for England and Scotland. 

 Ten years later (1426) he was made commissary- 

 general for all vacant benefices belonging to the 

 Cluniac order in England, Scotland, and Ireland. 

 In the same year he resigned his priorship of 

 Lenton and was succeeded by John Elmham, 

 who was probably his younger brother. Elm- 

 ham was an historical author of no small repute. 

 His history of the monastery of St. Augustine, 

 Canterbury, was published in the ' Chronicles 

 and Memorials' series as early as 1858. He 

 was also the author of a prose life of Henry V."' 

 The 15th-century records of the borough 

 court of Nottingham contain various incidental 

 references to the priory. Thus in 1436 Prior 

 Elmham and John Dyghton his fellow monk 

 complained, through their attorney, of Robert 

 Selby, carpenter, in a plea of debt of 2s. 8d. ; it 

 was alleged that Selby on Sunday 8 May 1435 

 bought of Dyghton a cowl of black worsted, 

 promising to pay for it at the feast of St. John 

 Baptist, which promise he had failed to keep. 

 Another action by the same prior was also 

 against Selby, for a table and trestles which he 

 refused to deliver ; and a third was for a debt of 

 tithes of hay."^ 



In 1464 William Lord Hastings, then Lord 

 Chamberlain, was a guest at Lenton Priory ; the 

 corporation made him a present on Easter Day 

 of ' iij galons of rede wyne.' "' 



In the year 1504 the royal free chapel of 

 Tickhill, which had for some time belonged to 

 this priory, was transferred to the abbey of 

 Westminster."* 



A corrody was granted by Henry VIII within 



this monastery in 1 5 10, under privy seal, to 



Robert Penne, gentleman of the Chapel Royal."' 



The foundation deed of the Nottingham Free 



School, dated 22 November 1513, shows great 



"" Duckett, Fisit. oj Engl. Cluniac Houses, 38, 43. 

 " Godfrey, in his Hist. oJ Lenton (182-9), gives a 

 good summary of the life and writings of Elmham. 

 *■ }^ott. Bor. Rec. ii, 153-;. 

 ^ Ibid. 378. 

 " Dugdale, Men. v, 109. 

 "i. and P. Hen. Fill, i, 108 1. 



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