A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



' God's penny.' They provided fifty-four men."^ 

 The customs of tenure were kept up by tradition 

 and proven by inquest. Old men in the days of 

 Elizabeth, when John Brograve, the attorney- 

 general of the duchy, sought (1582) to restore 

 the old provisions for which the commissioners 

 had substituted a small annual rent, could re- 

 member the picturesque days of their childhood. 

 However burdensome feudal obligations were in 

 neighbouring districts,"" the abbey repaid its 

 sustenance with many privileges. Robert Wayles 

 told how he used to visit a kinsman who was a 

 yeoman ^"^ of the convent kitchen, and saw 

 tenants come with twenty or thirty horses to 

 take away the weekly barrels of beer, sixty in 

 all, each containing ten gallons, and with each 

 barrel went a dozen loaves. He also saw thirty 

 or forty carts, called corops, which took away 

 dung to manure the tenants' fields in Newbarns 

 and Hawcoat ; and another witness could re- 

 member carting it to the fields of a certain 

 widow. Robert used to visit his father-in-law's 

 smithy at Kirkby, and remembered how clott 

 iron, called livery iron, was brought to be melted 

 for their ploughs by the tenants. It was asserted, 

 too, that every tenant having a plough could 

 send two persons to dine one day in every week 

 from Martinmas till Pentecost. Children and 

 labourers could go to the abbey for meat and 

 drink ; one witness had been in the abbey 

 school, which contained both a grammar and a 

 song school. The tenants could send their 

 children to this school, who were allowed to 

 come into the hall every day, either to dinner or 

 supper. Apt boys might be elected monks or to 

 some office within the monastery. Perhaps it 

 was from this school that the scholars, of whom 

 we hear, went up to Oxford.'"' When, again, 

 the dykes of VValney were broken by the sea, 

 the abbot took his carts and men to renew them ; 

 and any tenant could take wood for his necessi- 

 ties, and gather whins and brakes for baking his 

 oatmeal cakes. The abbey also had special 

 clients. Thirteen poor men were kept as alms- 

 men ; and every year bread and meat were 

 given at the gates. In Roger Pele's rental eight 

 widows appear, who have the food of eight 

 monks, amounting to ;{^I2 a year.'"* Sometimes 

 a bargain was struck. More than one grant was 



''* West, op. cit. 98. The commissioners give the 

 number of abbey tenants in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and 

 Cumberland, ready to serve the king, ' having harness 

 jack, coat of fence with long spears, bows and other 

 wcipons,' in readiness as i ,2 5 8, including 400 horsemen. 



"" The Gressoms are often referred to in the L. and 

 P. Hen. rill {see e.g. xi, 124.6; and xii (i), 4.78). 



"* West, op. cit. App. viii. 



'" Abbot Roger's rental accounts for ^10 for 

 Oxford scholars, and £^ ' pro contribucionibus collegii 

 nostri apud Oxforth.' (The college was St. Bernard's, 

 now St. John's.) See also Beck, op. cit. 279. 



"" Rentals and Surv. ptfo. 9, No. 73 ; cf. ya/or 

 Eccl V, 270. 



given in return for a robe in time of need.'"* 

 Alan, the son of the parson of Clapham, gave 

 two oxgangs of land to the abbey in return for a 

 promise to receive him as a monk if sickness or 

 old age were to drive him to this course. In 

 the meantime he was to be received at the abbey 

 or its granges, and provided with food and drink 

 for himself and his horse sicut unus eorum convenus. 

 While he was in the world he was to receive 

 twice a year at Winterburn a measure of corn. 

 In addition to all this, the abbey was to receive 

 one of his sons as servant, and if he desired it 

 and was worthy, as a lay brother."" In 1264 

 Adam of Merton made a similar bargain full of 

 curious details.'" 



During the fifteenth century the abbey took 

 no share in public affairs. It was still in the 

 days of Henry VII the most important place in 

 north Lancashire, and the Earl of Lincoln thought 

 its port a suitable landing-place in 1487. He 

 had little success, and it was probably at this 

 time that Innocent VIII's bull against insurrec- 

 tion was ordered to be read in the abbey."^ 

 As time went on, the prestige of the abbey seems 

 to decline. There are complaints of cruel and 

 malicious attacks, while on the other side are 

 suspicious acts of favouritism and intrigue, which 

 are the customary signs of weakness. The ten- 

 dency becomes marked in the abbacy of Alex- 

 ander Banke, who seems to have descended to 

 the shelter of legal expedients. The privileges 

 of the abbey did not escape question in the 

 larger world. In 1530 William Tunstall gave 

 information that the abbot had kept back ;^250 

 of a subsidy which he had collected, and also 

 spoiled the king of harbour dues and the rents of 

 the sherifTs tourn.'" Disputes arose with the 

 local gentry."^ Since the gentry were becoming 



"* e.g. Geoffrey de Boulton gets two cows and six 

 ells of russet cloth ' in mea maxima necessitate.' 

 (Coucher B. fol. 54). "» Ibid. fol. 1 14. 



'" Anct. D., L. 445. 'Abbas et conventus fumes 

 concesserunt Ade de Merton victum et vesticum in 

 hac forma, videlicet unam panem conventualem et 

 unam lagcnam bone cervisie per diem cum moram 

 fecerit in Abbatia, et si mittatur ad aliquam Grangiam 

 habebit eundcm cibum et potum que habent conversi 

 cum quibus commoratur. Dabunt etiam eidem unam 

 robam annuatim ad Natalc domini qualem dant pueris 

 de hospicio, et duo paria pannorum lineorum et tot- 

 idem paria caligarum et sufficientem calciaturam. Ad 

 hec invenient ei pannos ad lectum suum, scilicet duo 

 lintheamina et duos chalonesquo advixerit ; ita dum- 

 taxat quod quociens novos reciperit, reddat cellarario 

 veteres incontinenter.' 



'" Raine, Historians of York, iii, 337. In 1483 the 

 abbot lent Richard III ^(^loo, perhaps 'to meet, in 

 part, the expenses of Richard's second coronation at 

 York.' Beck, op. cit. 298. 



'" Lanes. Plead, i, 195 ; Beck, op. cit. 311. 



'" e.g. with Christopher Bardsey, the earl of Derby's 

 under-steward at Aldingham {Lanes. Plead, i, 93 sqq. 

 (1521-2)). Turbary dispute at Stalmine accom- 

 panied by violence (ibid, ii, 74). 

 22 



