RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



2. THE PRIORY OF LYTHAM 



The Benedictine priory of Lytham was founded 

 between 1189 and 1 1 94, during John count of 

 Mortain's tenure of the honour of Lancaster, by 

 his knight, Richard son of Roger, of Wood- 

 plumpton in Amounderness. Count John gave 

 his licence to alienate the vill of Lytham, assessed 

 at two plough-lands, to any religious he pleased 

 in free alms, undertaking to remit its thegnage 

 rent of 8s. i oi." Richard seems at first to have 

 contemplated the establishment of an indepen- 

 dent house with the help of one of the two great 

 abbeys which had interests in his neighbourhood, 

 Shrewsbury, the patrons of Kirkham church, 

 and Evesham, the owners of a cell at Penwor- 

 tham. Apparently he applied to each in turn, 

 for two documents are extant in one of which 

 Hugh, abbot of Shrewsbury, agrees to send his 

 monk Robert de Stafford, as head of the new 

 house, without founding thereon any claim to 

 subjection,*' while in the other Roger Norris, 

 abbot of Evesham (1191— 1213), accedes to a 

 request that his ' femiliaris ' William should 

 ' order {ordinare) the place called Lytham given 

 to religion ' and institute there Benedictine 

 brethren.** 



But the idea of an independent house was soon 

 abandoned in favour of the creation of a cell 

 dependent on the priory of Durham. A certain 

 religious connexion already existed between Ly- 

 tham and Durham. The ancestors of Richard 

 son of Roger, who built Lytham church, dedi- 

 cated it to St. Cuthbert, and it is the scene of 

 several of the twelfth-century miracles ascribed 

 to the saint by the hagiographer Reginald of 

 Coldingham." Richard himself, when apparently 

 sick unto death and carried into the church to 

 die, marvellously recovered, and the life of his 

 infant son was preserved in the same way. On 

 both occasions he is said to have gone to Durham 

 to return thanks, and Reginald professes to have 

 had the story from his own lips.*' Doubtless he 

 embellished it, but gratitude may have been 

 among the motives which finally determined 

 Richard to give the whole vill of Lytham with 

 its church to * God and St. Mary and St. Cuth- 

 bert and the monks of Durham ' for the founda- 

 tion of a cell whose priors and monks were to be 



" Original charter in Durham Cathedral Treasury, 

 2a, 4ae, Ebor. No. 20 ; Farrer, Lanes. Inq. i, 46. 



°* Lytham charters at Durham, 2a, 4ae, Ebor No. 1 1 . 



^ Ibid. 2a, 2ae, 4ae, No. 63. 



" Reginald of Durham, Libellus (Surtees See. i), 

 280-4. Richard's grandfather Ravenkil is said to have 

 pulled down the original wooden church and built a 

 new one of stone; ibid. 282. He may perhaps be the 

 Ravenkil son of Ragnald who witnessed the founda- 

 tion charter of Lancaster Priory {c. 1094) ; Lanes. 

 Pipe R. 290. 



^ Reginald, ut supra. The son, however, must have 

 died later, for Richard had only daughters surviving 

 when he founded the priory. 



appointed and removable by the prior and convent 

 of the mother house. 



His charter, granted between 1 191 and 1 194,*' 

 survives in two versions ; the shorter and 

 evidently the earlier form contains a very imper- 

 fect description of the boundaries of the town- 

 ship and no warranty clause. In the fuller 

 version these defects are remedied.™ Charters of 

 confirmation were obtained from the founder's 

 two married daughters, Maud and Avice, with 

 their husbands, Robert de Stockport and William 

 de Millom, and a similar confirmation was exe- 

 cuted jointly by his three unmarried daughters, 

 Margaret, Quenild, and Amuria.'^ 



Shortly after the accession of John, the founder 

 added half a plough-land in Carleton to his en- 

 dowment.'^ He died before 26 February, 1201, 

 when the king, at the instance of his son-in-law, 

 Robert de Stockport, confirmed his charter made 

 when count of Mortain.'^ Roger of St. Ed- 

 mund, archdeacon of Richmond, confirmed 

 Richard's foundation charter.'^ 



The founder's widow, Margaret Banaster, gave 

 the church of Appleby in Leicestershire to the 

 Lytham monks,'' but their right to the advowson 

 was frequently disputed by the Vernon and 

 Appleby families. In 1265-6, in 1288, and 

 again in 1325, the king's court decided in their 

 favour,'* yet forty years later a rector presented 

 by Sir Richard de Vernon was in possession." 

 Durham procured from Pope Innocent VI a bull 

 appropriating the rectory, the net profits being 

 estimated at ^^5, to their college at Oxford, and 



°' After Roger Norris became abbot of Evesham (see 

 above) and before the count of Mortain lost the 

 honour of Lancaster. 



™ The originals of both are among the fine collec- 

 tion of Lytham charters at Durham. The revised 

 version is classed 2a, 2ae, 4ae, Ebor. No. 57. It is 

 printed from an inspeximus of 9 Edw. Ill in the 

 Monasticon (iv, 282), and in Lanes. Pipe R. 346. The 

 shorter version, which has the same witnesses, is pre- 

 served in two originals classed 2a, 4ae, Ebor, No. 2, 

 and 2a, 2ae, 4ae, No. 58. They are identical in 

 wording except for the omission from the ' salute ' 

 clause in the latter of et uxoris mee. As these words 

 are also absent in the revised version, this was clearly 

 made from the second of the two. The Lytham 

 charters are being edited for the Chetham Society by 

 Mr. Farrer. 



" Lytham Charters, 2a, 2ae, 4ae, Ebor. 59-61. 



" Ibid. 2a, 4ae, Ebor. 3. 



" Chart. R. (Rec. Com.), iU. 



" Lytham Charters, 2 a, 4ae, Ebor. 8. No. 9 is 

 a grant to Durham of the church of Lytham ' in usus 

 proprios^ for the sustentation of their monks living there, 

 by Morgan, archdeacon of Richmond. No holder of 

 the office of this name is otherwise known. Can it be 

 an error of transcription for Honorius, the rival of Roger 

 of St. Edmund ? 



"Before 1226; Lytham Charters, 3 a, 4ae, Ebor. 

 I, z, 4-6. 



" Ibid. 2a, 4ae, Ebor. 51 ; 3a, 4ae, Ebor. 3. 



" Ibid. 26. 



107 



