RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



admonition armed men, who threatened to make 

 him eat it cum pixide.^^ On these grounds he 

 was deposed, the prior and convent formally dis- 

 claiming any intention of violating the writings 

 granted to the said William by the Holy See or 

 the crown.'* The papal privilege was in any 

 case personal to Partrik and did not, as Canon 

 Raines asserts," secure life-tenure to his successors. 

 With this exception the known history of the 

 priory during the fifteenth century and down to 

 the Dissolution was uneventful. It seems to have 

 felt to some extent the effects of the anarchy of 

 the reign of Henry VI. In 1425 certain persons 

 unknown were threatened with excommunication 

 for having destroyed and detained its property 

 and withheld the tithes and mortuaries due to the 

 church of Lytham.^*"* Twenty-three years later the 

 services of Thomas Harrington, son of Sir James 

 Harrington, had to be requisitioned to secure the 

 recovery of a number of Lytham charters from 

 one Christopher Bayne, into whose custody they 

 came during a vacancy of the priorship. Bayne 

 professed to have been offered by certain interested 

 persons 1 00 marks and a large pension, and Har- 

 rington tried to counteract the temptation by 

 promising him for life an annual suit {toga) of the 

 prior's livery, and a pension of half a mark along 

 with the favour of the priory for himself and a 

 living for one of his servants ; ^"^ with what result 

 is not recorded. 



The infection of disorder seems to have found 

 entrance into the priory itself. About the same 

 time a local justice of the peace requested the 

 prior of Durham to recall Dan George his monk, 

 who had been 



ryght mekill mysrewlet and mysgovernet and yet is in 

 special] in fightyng and strikyng of seculares and also 

 in schrowet countenance makyng to Dan Thomas and 

 to the priest of Lethum in drawyng of his knyves and 

 lyftyng up of staves likely for to sle or mayne and 

 hayme."' 



The priors did not always refrain from worldly 

 business. In 1472, Nicholas Bedall of Coventry, 

 chapman, appointed Prior Cuthbert his attorney, 

 to recover his debts in Lancashire.^"^ Litigation 

 arising out of the landed interests of the house 

 still played a part in its annals. In 1428 the 

 authority of Rome was invoked in a quarrel over 

 tithes with the Cistercian abbey of Vale Royal, 



" Dur. Chart. Loc. ix, 63. 



'' Ibid. 64. The archdeacon of Richmond ordered 

 an inquiry into the circumstances and temporarily 

 sequestrated the goods of the cell. Heley the new 

 prior was excommunicated for non-appearance, and 

 did not receive institution for nearly a year ; Raines' 

 Lanes. MSS. (Chetham Library), xxii, 374-5. 



"' Notitia Cestriensis (Chet. Soc), 575. 



™ Dur. Chart. Loc. ix, 15. 



'"' Lytham Charters, 2a, 2ae, 4ae, Ebor. 65. 



'"' Dur. Chart. Loc. xxv, 39. 



'™ Lytham Charters, za, zae, 4ae, Ebor. 71. 



which had secured an appropriation of Kirkham 

 church in the reign of Edward I.'"* 



Fresh disputes with the Cliftons as to the 

 boundaries of Westby and Lytham were settled 

 in 1507,^°' and in 15 18 and 1530 the priory 

 was again at law with the Butlers of Layton over 

 the old question of pasture rights at the north end 

 of Lytham.^"" On 9 May, 1530, the Layton 

 people pulled down a boundary cross bearing a 

 picture of St. Cuthbert and, according to the 

 prior, though some denied this, would have 

 destroyed the monastery, had not two monks 

 gone out to meet them with the sacrament. 



Between 1 535 and 1540 the prior and convent 

 of Durham withdrew the monks from Lytham 

 and let the property of the cell to Thomas Dan- 

 net for eighty years at a rent of ^^48 19J. dd}"'^ 

 If this was an attempt to avert confiscation, 

 it failed, for after the surrender of Durham 

 Dannet paid his rent to the crown until Queen 

 Mary on 23 July, 1554, gave the cell to that 

 devourer of monastic lands. Sir Thomas Hol- 

 croft, kt.io* 



The priory was dedicated to St. Cuthbert. 

 Endowed by the founder with two plough-lands 

 in Lytham and half a plough-land in Carleton it 

 had received from other local families, mainly in 

 the thirteenth century, numerous small parcels of 

 land in the adjoining townships.^"' Prominent 

 among these benefactors were the Butlers of 

 Warton. Its rent-roll in 1535 waSj^35 5^. 7^., 

 and the site of the cell with its demesne land, 

 estimated to be worth j^8 13X. a year, brought 

 up its temporalities to a total of ^^43 8i. 7^. 

 The tithes^*" and offerings of Lytham church 

 yielded ^^9 135. i xd. a year, and that of Appleby 

 paid a pension of 13^. \d. After deducting the 

 fees of the priory bailiffs and of its steward, the 

 earl of Derby, who received ^2 annually, a sum 

 of j^48 19^. 6i/. remained available for the up- 

 keep of the cell and any contribution to the 

 mother house which this might allow.^^^ The 

 priory, however, had a debt of ^^40.^^^ Two 

 centuries earlier the gross income had been rather 

 higher. In 1344 it reached £tb 8x. 11^^."' 

 The expenditure was ;^6i 8;. i^d. Among its 

 items were ^\ i>s. ()d. for the journey of the 

 prior and perhaps one or more of the monks to 



"» Ibid. 69. 



"' Dur. Misc. Chart. 5489. 



'™ Lytham Charters, 2a, 2ae, 430, Ebor. 78 ; Lanes. 

 Plead. (Rec. Soc), i, 206. 



'" Dugdale, Mm. iv, 283. ™ Ibid. 



"" Charters in the collection at Durham. 



"° Tithes of sea fish amounted to j^l. 



"' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 305. It will be noted 

 that as Dannet the farmer had to defray all charges 

 (though these were reduced by the recall of the monks) 

 and pay j^48 igj-. 6d. to Durham, he cannot have 

 made any profit without raising the income above the 

 figure of 153;. 



"' L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, 364. 



'" Compotus R. at Durham. 



109 



