A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



like purpose at Tuxford and two more at New- 

 stead.'i* 



The clear annual value of this small college 

 or chantry was declared to be in 1534 

 £<) 2s. id. The three chantry priests of that 

 date were John Asheford, John Danson, and 

 John Segreaves."' 



When the commissioners of Henry VIII, 

 preparatory to confiscation, visited Nottingham- 

 shire in 1545, they declared the annual value to 

 be £g 2s. 2d., but found that the number of 

 priests had been reduced to two ; and that they 

 had already surrendered the property to the kin-, 

 each receiving a life pension of 6oi.^" 



HOSPITALS 



24. THE HOSPITAL OF BAWTRY 



The great parish of Blyth was one of those 

 few cases in which parochial boundaries extended 

 into two shires. The chape! ries of Bavrtry and 

 Austerfield were in the West Riding of York- 

 shire, but pertained to Blyth, and were given to 

 Blyth Priory in the reign of Henry II. On this 

 account the hospital of Bawtry is for the most 

 part described as a Yorkshire foundation. But 

 this is certainly not the case ; it was on various 

 occasions in mediaeval days treated as pertaining 

 to the county of Nottingham, and as a matter of 

 fact the county incidence is not in any way a 

 debatable question, for the site of the old 

 hospital usually known as Bawtry was in reality 

 in the Nottinghamshire parish of Harworth, and 

 merely contiguous to the adjacent Yorkshire 

 township of Bawtry. 



There is much uncertainty about this early 

 foundation dedicated to the honour of St. Mary 

 Magdalen; but when King John in 1200, in his 

 grant to the church of Rouen, included the 

 church of Harworth, with the chapels of Serlby 

 and Martin, it is highly probable that the chapel 

 of Martin, a township of Htrworth, within which 

 stood the hospital, was the hospital chapel.^ At 

 any rate the hospital with its chapel was of 

 Norman foundation.^ 



The hospital was for the sustenance of certain 

 poor persons, and was under the rule of a master 

 or warden. If it was ever in the patronage of 

 the church of Rouen, as might be supposed to 

 follow from the Blvth connexion,' that arrange- 

 ment came to an end at an early date, for the 

 Archbishops of York held the patronage at least 

 as early as the beginning of the reign of Edward I. 

 The earliest recorded entry of collation to this 

 mastership in the episcopal registers occurs in 

 1280.^ Thomas de Langtoft, priest, was col- 

 lated by Archbishop Romayne to the hospital 

 of Bawtry on 10 February 1289-90, and a 

 mandate was issued to the rural dean of Retford 



"* Pat. 25 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 17 ; 31 Edw. Ill, 

 pt. i, m. 25. 



"' FaJbr Eccl. (Rec Com.), v, 1 80. 



"« Coll. and Chant. Cert, xiii, 18. 



' Chart. R. 2 John, m. 23. 



' There are remains of Norman work still to be 

 traced in the hospital chapel. 



to induct him;' and on 27 September 1291 the 

 archbishop collated Roger le Porter of Beverley, 

 priest, to this foundation.^ 



There are two entries of collation of masters of 

 Bawtry Hospital in the register of Archbishop 

 Thoresby, both of them the result of exchanges. 

 In 1 36 1 Elyas de Thoreston of this hospital 

 exchanged with John de Grandle, chaplain of 

 the chapel of the Blessed Virgin and the Holy 

 Angels, York. Again in 1363 an exchange was 

 effected between Henry Barton and Roger de 

 Nassington, prebendary of Brickhill and Lin- 

 coln.' 



The foundation was extended in 1390 by 

 Robert Morton, a wealthy and charitable bene- 

 factor. Morton was esclieator of the county of 

 Nottingham and a knight of the shire from 

 1 36 1 to 1393. In 1390 he gave to the neigh- 

 bouring prior and convent of St. Oswald, i.e. 

 Nc-tell near Pontefract, the considerable sum of 

 ^240, for which they stipulated to pay 8 marks 

 yearly for ever to the chaplain of the hospital of 

 St. Alary Magdalen, near Bawtry [vocata Le 

 Spittle), in augmentation of this stipend, to 

 secure his prayers for the good estate of Robert 

 the donor and Joan his wife during life, and for 

 their souls after death, and for the souls of their 

 parents, ancestors, and benefactors. To secure 

 the due payment by St. Oswald's of the chaplain's 

 stipend, there was a proviso that if the rent was 

 a term in arrear, it should be lawful for the 

 chaplain to enter upon the prior and convent's 

 manors of Tickhill, Wilsill, Swinton, and Hol- 

 well, and distrain for arrears.* 



An indenture was entered into between 

 Thomas Arundel, Archbishop of York, and 

 Adam, Prior of St. Oswald, as to the due fulfil- 

 ment of this undertaking.' 



Robert Morton's will, made at Bawtry in 

 1396, provided numerous ecclesiastical bequests. 

 Among them he left 40J. to the Bawtry Hos- 

 pital of St. Mary Magdalen; also to William 

 Myrfyne, then master of the hospital and one 



' See above under Blyth Priory, p. 84. 



* Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 81. 



' York Epis. Reg. Romanus, fol. 75 d. 



« Ibid. fol. 78. 



' Harl. MS. 6969, fol. 50, 51. 



* Pat. 14 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 3. 

 ' Langtofft Cbron. ii, 395-7. 



162 



