RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Priors of Beauvale 



William, occurs 1404*" 



B — , occurs 141 2 " 



Richard de Burton, occurs 1422, 1426''^ 



Thomas Metheley, occurs 1468 *' 



John Swift, occurs 1478 *'^ 

 Thomas Wydder, occurs 1482'"* 

 Nicholas Wartre, occurs i486 " 

 Robert Lawrence, executed 1535*' 

 Thomas Woodcock, surrendered 15 39*' 



HOUSES OF AUSTIN CANONS 



6. THE PRIORY OF FELLEY 



Ralph Britto of Annesley founded the priory of 

 Felley in the year 1156, giving to Austin Canons 

 the church and hermitage of Felley. Reginald 

 de Annesley, son of Ralph, confirmed his father's 

 gifts, and that of the church of Annesley, and 

 rents to sustain a lamp burning at all service 

 hours in that church. But in 1 15 1, according 

 to a Worksop register, Ralph and Reginald had 

 granted the church of Felley to the priory church 

 of Worksop. Hence the older priory claimed 

 the subjection of Prior Walter and the canons of 

 Felley ; Pope Alexander III by bull of 1 1 6 1 

 confirmed Felley to Worksop Priory. Con- 

 sequently it remained subject to Worksop until 

 the year 1260.^^ 



A chartulary of this priory, written early in 

 the 1 6th century, came into the possession of the 

 British Museum in 1903.' It consists of 141 

 vellum folios of 4to shape, carefully written with 

 rubricated initials. In the centre of the first folio 

 the title is given as ' The Booke of Felley Called 

 the Domesday.' 



The foundation charter of Ralph Britto of 

 Annesley (fol. 24^) was mutilated at an early 

 date ; only the opening clause remains, stating 

 that by this charter he confirms to God, the 

 Blessed Mary, and St. Helen, and to Brother 

 Robert the hermit and his successors, his place 

 of Felley with its appurtenances in pure and 

 perpetual alms. 



A bull of confirmation issued by Pope Celes- 

 tine III (11 9 1-8) gives various particulars as to 

 the early benefactions to the Austin Canons of St. 

 Mary of Felley, including the church of Annesley 

 by Ralph de Annesley ; Bradley with the site of 

 the mill ; lands in Nottinghamshire, by Serlo de 

 Plesley ; an acre of land and 15^. in rents at 

 Chesterfield, by William Britton ; and a variety 

 of parcels of lands at Newark, Colwick, South- 

 well, and other places in the county. This bull 



" Anct. D. (P.R.O.), B. 480. 

 *' Ibid. B. 219. 



" Eccl. Doc. K.R. bdle. 6, no. 47 ; Anct. D. 

 (P.R.O.), B. 355. 



" WoUey Chart, vii, 15. 



" Willis, Mitred Abbess, ii, 167. 



" Ibid. 



« Add. MS. 6060, last fol. 



" S.P. Spanish v, 45. 



*° Rymer, Foedera, xiv, 660. 



gave the priory the right to say mass in a low 

 voice during a general interdict, but with doors 

 shut and without sound of a bell ; and also 

 permission to bury those who might devoutly 

 desire sepulture there, unless they were excom- 

 municate.' 



This is followed in the chartulary by a bull of 

 Gregory IX (1227-41) making like confirma- 

 tions, and by other letters of the same pope in 

 the 6th, 7th, and loth years of his pontificate.^ 



The chartulary contains a transcript of a highly 

 interesting and exceptional document, which 

 makes mentions of a variety of the early grants 

 to the house. On 6 May 1 3 1 1 the prior and 

 canons of Felley appeared in the collegiate church 

 of Southwell before the official of the Archdeacon 

 of Nottingham, requesting that their ancient 

 evidences might be publicly recorded whilst they 

 were yet perfect. Thereupon the official cited 

 them to appear in the church of St. Mary's, 

 Nottingham, on the day after Ascension Day, 

 when there was produced a writing with a seal 

 of very old white wax dependent, the impression 

 of a woman holding her right hand on her right 

 side, and carrying a bird on her outstretched left 

 hand, with the marginal legend Siggillum Leonie de 

 Raines. The tenor of the writing was to the effect 

 that Leonia de Raines, and Henry de Stutivill 

 her son and heir, gave the church of Annesley 

 to God and the Blessed Mary of Felley, and the 

 canons there serving God, for the health of King 

 Henry and Robert de Stutivill, and her and 

 their ancestors ; for which they were to find a 

 canon to celebrate daily. A second writing pro- 

 duced had a seal of white wax, the impression 

 being a lion passant, and the legend Sigillum 

 Reynaldi de Annesley ; this was the grant made 

 by the latter, at the request of his father Ralph, 

 of all right of patronage in the church of Annes- 

 ley to the house of Felley. A third writing had 

 the seal in old green wax of a bishop in his 

 pontificals with pastoral staiF in left hand, and 



' Thoroton, Notts, ii, 266, 271 ; Dugdale, Mon. 

 vi, 125-6. 



' Add. MS. 36872. It was purchased at Sotheby's 

 on 24 Oct. This chartulary is not referred to by 

 Dugdale, but Tanner mentions it as in the posses- 

 sion of Gilbert Millington, whose name appears on a 

 fly-leaf at the end, with the date 1690. The site of 

 the priory was granted by James I in the first year of 

 his reign to Anthony Millington. 



' Ibid. fol. 4, 5. * Ibid. fol. 6-10. 



109 



