A HISTORY OF LANCASHIRE 



reserved for the use of the parishioners, the cure 

 of souls being exercised by a hired secular priest 

 or by one of the canons in priest's orders, ap- 

 pointed and removed at the convent's sole 

 pleasure." 



The founder granted the compact fief of 

 Cartmel with all his seignorial privileges therein, 

 and John in confirming Marshal's charter on 

 becoming king (i August, 1199) specifies in 

 detail the extensive immunities conveyed — in- 

 cluding sac, soc, toll, team, infangenthef and 

 outfangenthef, fi-eedom from suit to hundred or 

 shire courts, exemption from pleas of murder, 

 theft, hamsoken and forestel, from scutage, geld, 

 danegeld, dona^ scots and aids, from toll, tallage, 

 lestage and pontage, from castle-work and bridge- 

 work, and from all other customs and secular 

 exactions.*' These privileges at first attached 

 only to the demesne lands of the priory, but six 

 weeks after granting Magna Carta John was 

 induced to extend them to their tenants. The 

 addition of the four words et omnes tenentes sui 

 cost the house 200 marks ; the king had ex- 

 torted this sum from them during the interdict, 

 and they now agreed to set off the debt against 

 his new concession.*" Later sovereigns several 

 times inspected and confirmed the priory charters.*' 

 In 1292 on the other hand it was called upon by 

 a writ Quo warranto to show evidence for its 

 immunities. Some rights it was said to claim 

 were not covered by the charters ; that of hold- 

 ing the sheriff's tourn the prior disclaimed ; in 

 regard to wreck of the sea and waif judgement 

 went against him and the crown reserved these 

 rights and granted them to Edmund, earl of 

 Lancaster. The assize of bread and beer was 

 allowed as appendant to the market William 

 Marshal had had at Cartmel.*' Confirmation 

 of their charters was also obtained from Rome. 

 Gregory IX, in 1233, took the priory and its 

 property under the papal protection and bestowed 

 a number of the privileges usually conferred on 

 monasteries, such as the right to celebrate divine 

 service during an interdict, and the right of 

 sepulture in their church, provided the parish 

 church of the defunct did not lose its dues.** 



To the founder's acquisition (by his marriage) 

 of the vast Clare estates in Leinster the priory 



" Cal. Pap. Letters, iv, 366. In 1208 we hear of 

 the ' rights of the prior of Cartmel and of the church 

 of St. Michael of Cartmel ' (Lanes. Final Cone, i, 

 39), though the priory was from the first dedicated to 

 St. Mary. 



" Rot. Chart. (Rec. Com.), 8. 



* Ibid. 215 (25 July, 1215) ; Lanes. Pipe R. 247. 



" Hen. Ill in 1270 (Duchy of Lane Roy. Chart. 

 No. 124) ; Edw. II in 1323 (Harl. Chart. 51, H. 2); 

 Henry lY in 1401 {Cal. of Pat. I 399-1401, p. 419); 

 Walter Marshal, earl of Pembroke (123 1-45), con- 

 firmed his father's grant (Harl. Chart. 83, B. 38). 



'' Plae. de Quo. Warr.; Pat. 21 Edw. I, pt. i, m. 6 ; 

 Rot. Chart. 23 Edw. I, m. 4. 



" Baines, Hist, of Lanes, (ei. Croston), v, 628. 



owed a connexion with Ireland which gave it .t 

 less purely local position than other Lancashire 

 houses save Furness. By a charter in which he 

 styled himself Earl of Pembroke, Marshal granted 

 to the canons the vill of Kilrush in Kildare 

 (with the advowson of its church) and the 

 church of Ballysax and chapel of Ballymaden in 

 the diocese of Kildare to be appropriated to their 

 own uses.'" The latter part of the gift involved 

 them and the donor in a quarrel with the 

 Augustinian canons of St. Thomas's Abbey, 

 Dublin, who claimed these two benefices. A 

 compromise was arranged by papal commissioners 

 in 1205, the Dublin house surrendering its claim 

 to the disputed churches, but being consoled by 

 a grant of lands in their vicinity.'^ These Irish 

 estates of Cartmel frequently required the pre- 

 sence of some of their body, an interesting 

 memorial of which is contained in an undated 

 charter of fraternity in which the prior and 

 convent of the cathedral church of Holy Trinity 

 at Dublin agree to entertain any canon of 

 Cartmel visiting Dublin as one of themselves, to 

 celebrate masses for the souls of all members of 

 that house and inscribe their names in the 

 ' Martyrology ' of Holy Trinity. During the 

 first half of the thirteenth century the prior of 

 Cartmel ' staying in England ' frequently had 

 letters nominating attorneys, one of whom was 

 usually a canon, to represent him in Ireland. 



The hospitality of the Dublin canons must 

 have mitigated the dangers of these absences 

 from the house, and the clause of the rule which 

 forbade a canon to go into the world unaccom- 

 panied by a fellow canon may not have been 

 wholly disregarded. Nevertheless their wander- 

 ings can hardly fail to have had an unsettling 

 effect, and it is perhaps significant that the priory 

 had been in existence barely half a century when 

 disorders within it called for papal intervention. 

 A number of the canons and conversi had been 

 excommunicated, some for using personal vio- 

 lence to each other, others for retaining property 

 and refusing obedience to the prior ; the excom- 

 municated canons took holy orders and celebrated 

 the divine ofKces while still unabsolved. Pope In- 

 nocent IV, in 1245, empowered the prior to give 

 the less heinous offenders, if penitent, absolution 

 and dispensation, and to suspend the recalcitrant 

 for two years. Those guilty of violence were 



" Dugdale, Mon. vi, 455 ; Cal. of Pat. 1343-5, p. 

 193. The priory also had land at Callan in Tippe- 

 rary ; Lanes. Chart. No. 2. Cf. Chart, of St. Mary's 

 Abbey, Dublin (Rolls Ser.), App. 401-3. 



" Reg. of the Abbey of St. Thomas (Rolls Ser.), 1 1 8, 

 337-8. Two years after the settlement of this Irish 

 dispute Cartmel was involved in litigation at home 

 virith Ralph de Beetham, lord of Arnside, over fishing 

 rights in the River Kent, which then as now was in 

 the habit of shifting its course in the estuary from the 

 Cartmel or Lancashire side to the Westmorland shore 

 and vice versa. An agreement was come to in Jan. 

 1 208 ; Lanes. Final Cone, i, 39. 



144 



