RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



benefice for 54 years. A vicarage, however, 

 was to be endowed out of its revenues.*'*"" 



The rector could not apparently be induced 

 to resign and did not die until 20 January 

 1294-5.^*^ Even then fourteen months elapsed 

 before the monks were transferred to Whalley. 

 Certain formalities must be gone through and 

 preliminary arrangements made ; some difficulties 

 were raised. 



Between February and August the Earl of 

 Lincoln, the bishop of Lichfield, and the king 

 confirmed the appropriation and translation. ^^^ 

 But the bishop, the archdeacon of Chester, and 

 the chapters of Coventry and Lichfield had to 

 be compensated for the loss entailed by the 

 ■disappearance of secular rectors.**' The patron 

 •exacted from the monks a renunciation of the 

 rights of hunting in his forests hitherto enjoyed 

 by the parsons of Whalley and of all claims upon 

 the castle chapel at Clitheroe,*"* and his officers 

 took possession of some lands which belonged 

 to the benefice.*^ As early as March William, 

 lord of Altham, entered a claim to the advowson 

 of its church, which Stanlaw held to be one of 

 the chapels of Whalley, and obtained a writ for 

 an assize of darrein presentment. ^^^ Meanwhile 

 the bishop and archdeacon sequestered its tithes 

 and offerings and excommunicated the monks 

 when they tried to take possession. The abbot 

 appealed to the archbishop, whose official ordered 

 the ecclesiastical authorities in question to sus- 

 pend their action and appear before his court in 

 October.*8^ 



Some even questioned the validity of the 

 appropriation of Whalley itself.*** The claims 



'*"'' Cottcher, 182 ; Cal. Pap. Letters, i, 499, 501. 

 Nicholas fixed four as the number of monks to 

 remain at Stanlavy. The inq. p.m. of Abbot Eccles 

 {c. 1443) speaks of an obligation to maintain twelve 

 chaplains there to celebrate divine service ; Ormerod, 

 op. cit. ii, 399. 



"*' Coucher, 293. The chartulary of St. John's 

 Prioiy, Pontefract, gives 15 Dec. 1294 as the date of 

 death. 



-"' Coucher, 198, 196, 202. 



^ ^100 was ultimately paid to the bishop, though, 

 if we can trust a hostile writer, thrice that sum was 

 at first demanded and agreed to ; Dugdale, Mon. v, 

 642 ; Whitaker, Hist, of Whalley, i, 176. 



^ Ibid, i, 174, 258 ; Towneley MS. fol. 388. 



'^ Coucher, 280. They were restored by Thomas, 

 earl of Lancaster, in 13 13. 



'^ Ibid. 302. The abbot had tried to buy off 

 this claim ; Cal. of Close, 1288-96, p. 440. It had 

 been dismissed by a papal delegate in 1 249 on the 

 appeal of Peter of Chester ; Coucher, 298-300. 



'«' Ibid. 304. 



'^ The Cluniacs of St. John's Priory, Pontefract, 

 claimed to be the true patrons of Whalley in virtue 

 of a grant by Hugh de Laval during the temporary 

 dispossession of the Lacys in the reign of Henry I. 

 Their pretensions were antiquated, for those who 

 -asserted that they had presented Peter of Chester 

 ■could easily be refuted ; Coucher, 292. It is note- 



of Pontefract Priory could not, however, be 

 regarded very seriously, and on the monks of 

 Stanlaw presenting John of Whalley for in- 

 stitution as vicar. Bishop Roger on 6 December 

 ordered an inquiry into the value of the benefice 

 with a view to fixing the vicar's portion ; *'' but 

 Roger's death ten days later caused further delay. 

 The inquiry was begun on 20 April, 1296, by 

 the instructions of Archbishop Winchelsey.*"" 

 By that time the monks, no doubt anxious to 

 secure the advantage of actual possession, had 

 removed from Stanlaw to their new home. On 

 4 April, St. Ambrose Day, they made their 

 entrance into Whalley.*^^ The foundation stone 

 of the new monastery was laid by their patron 

 the earl on 12 June.*'* 



The monks who entered into residence in the 

 parsonage and temporary buildings under the 

 rule of their abbot, Gregory of Norbury, num- 

 bered twenty. Robert Haworth, who had 

 recently resigned the abbacy after holding it for 

 twenty-four years, remained with five other 

 monks at Stanlaw, which continued to be a 

 cell of Whalley down to the Dissolution. One 

 monk lived at the grange of Stanney, two each at 

 those of Staining and Marland, and another was 

 a student at Oxford.*^' 



The delays which the monks experienced 

 might have been prolonged had news reached 

 England earlier of a step taken by Pope Boniface 

 VIII, who was elected a month before the death 

 of Peter of Chester. One of his earliest acts was 

 to quash all provisions and reservations to take 

 effect on a future vacancy which Nicholas IV 



worthy that they retained the advowson of Slaidburn 

 although it was part of Hugh de Laval's gift, and in 

 1250 presented Peter of Chester (already rector of 

 Whalley) to that benefice as ' our clerk' ; Towneley 

 MS. fol. 267. There is no evidence that they actively 

 pressed their claim to Whalley at his death, but about 

 1357 they obtained a writ of ' quare impedit ' in the 

 Duchy court against Whalley Abbey. On 2 1 Sep- 

 tember in that year, however, they resigned all their 

 claims on the benefice ; ibid. 267—8. Their char- 

 tulary contains a rather malicious account of the 

 difficulties of Stanlaw in obtaining possession. The 

 bishop's action at Altham, for instance, is distorted 

 into a sequestration of Whalley ; Dugdale, Mon. 

 V, 642. 



'"' Coucher, 202. *» Ibid. 204. 



'" Whitaker, op. cit. i, 86. But the ' Status de 

 Blagbornshire ' gives 7 April as the date ; Coucher, 

 188. The unfriendly Pontefract writer says they 

 were greeted by a crowd crying, 'Woe to ye, 

 Simoniacs.' 



^'^ Dugdale, Mon. v, 639. 



'^^ Ormerod, op. cit. ii, 404, from Cott. MS. Cleop. 

 C. 3, ' with some additions from an obituary of the 

 convent.' Whitaker (op. cit. i, 88), following Cott. MS. 

 Titus, enumerates thirty-five monks. Most of them 

 bore Cheshire names, but five seem to have come 

 from places in Rochdale parish. The maximum 

 number at Stanlaw was forty, which was to be raised 

 to sixty at Whalley. 



133 



