RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



possession of the site of the hospital together with 

 the pasture of Pilling." On 28 July, 1215, he 

 granted them two plough-lands of his own 

 demesne at Newbigging near Singleton in 

 Amounderness, and freed them and their tenants 

 from suit to shire and hundred courts, from pleas 

 of murder, theft, hamsoken and forestel, and 

 from every kind of tax, toll, and due." Three 

 weeks later he confirmed some important gifts 

 by Gilbert son of Roger FitzReinfred, the 

 husband of the founder's daughter Heloise de 

 Lancaster.^' These comprised Medlar in 

 Amounderness,^' and the advowson of the parish 

 church of Garstang.^^ William, who became 

 archdeacon of Richmond in 121 7, gave permis- 

 sion for its appropriation to the abbey, reserving 

 the power to ordain a perpetual vicarage.'' John 

 le Romain, archdeacon of Richmond, ordained a 

 vicarage^" apparently in 1245."^ In the bishop 

 of Norwich's Taxation (1254) the rectory was 

 assessedatj^22, the vicar's portion at j^5 6s. Sd."^ 

 Thurstan Banaster gave to the canons the valu- 

 able advowson of Wigan between 1213 and 

 1219, but his gift does not seem to have taken 

 effect.^^ The advowson of Claughton was 

 acquired in two moieties between 12 16 and 1255 

 by grant of Godith of Kellet and her niece's son 

 Roger of Croft, but though the abbey's right of 

 presentation was successfully maintained against 

 the widow of Roger's son in 1273,^* the advow- 

 son went back to the Crofts in the fourteenth 

 century.^^ 



The only advowson except Garstang which 

 the abbey held till the Dissolution was obtained 

 in the same period. Between 1206 and 1235 

 Robert son of Hugh, lord of Mitton, granted 

 the right of presentation to its church, which 

 stood on the Yorkshire side of the Ribble, part 

 of the parish, however, being in Lancashire.^* 

 In 1314 the abbey secured from Edward II at a 

 cost of ;^40 licence to appropriate the church 

 to their own uses.^' Permission to serve the 

 church by a secular or a regular priest, appointed 

 or removed at the abbot's pleasure after the death 

 or resignation of the existing vicar, was granted 

 by Pope Boniface IX in 1396.^' 



During the thirteenth century down to the 

 passing of the Mortmain Act in 1279, the 



" Ciartul. 44. " Ibid. 40-2. 



'« Ibid. 46. " Ibid. 168. ■' Ibid. 278. 



"Ibid. 281. Confirmed by the archbishop of 

 York and (in 123 1) Pope Gregory IX ; ibid. 25. 



'" Ibid. 282. " Ibid. 284. 



^^ Ibid. 286. Before 1254 the assessment of the 

 rectory had only been ^13 6s. %d. The figures of 

 1254 were raised in 1292 to {^zd \y. \d. and 

 /'13 6s. id. respectively, but reduced after the 

 Scottish ravages to X'o ^nd ^^5 ; Pope Nich. Tax. 

 307. 



=' Chartul. 67^. "' Ibid. 884, 892. 



'^ Notkia Cestr. ii, 480. 



*= Chartul. 520. "Ibid. 524. 



^^ Cal. Pap. Letters, v, 19. 



abbey received an unusually large number of 

 grants of land. It is calculated that on an aver- 

 age they amounted to forty or fifty a year, but 

 they were mostly small parcels. 



Cockersand was one of the forty-eight houses 

 whose abbots were summoned to the famous 

 parliament of Carlisle in January, 1307,^' but 

 this was probably a solitary summons and its head 

 did not become a mitred abbot. The abbey 

 suffered severely in the Scottish raid of 13 16. 

 Its assessment for tenths was reduced shortly after 

 by five-sixths.'" 



Robert of Hilton, canon of the house, received 

 a pardon in 1327 for the death of one of his 

 brethien.^' In 1347 Robert of Carlton, then 

 abbot, was accused of using violence to one John 

 de Catterall. Catterall alleged that the abbot 

 with four of the canons, a lay brother, and four- 

 teen other persons had assaulted and maimed him 

 at Lancaster, and a commission of oyer and 

 terminer was granted.'^ No record of its inquiry 

 seems, however, to have survived. 



Troubles of another kind assailed the abbey 

 from the middle of the fourteenth century. In 

 1363, owing to the ravages of the plague, a dis- 

 pensation had to be obtained for several of the 

 canons to be ordained priests in their twenty-first 

 year.^^ Half a century later (14 12) a permanent 

 dispensation to this eifect for all their canons was 

 granted in consideration of the remote situation 

 of the house, which at times made it difficult 

 to find men prepared to receive the regular 

 habit there.'* The sea continually wore away- 

 the walls which protected its buildings. In 137S 

 the abbot and convent begged Richard II to con- 

 firm their charters without fine, in view of their 

 poverty and the fact that * each day they are in 

 danger of being drowned and destroyed by the 

 sea.' '^ There is no evidence that their request 

 was acceded to, but Pope Boniface in 1372 

 granted a relaxation for twenty years of a year 

 and forty days of penance to all almsgivers to 

 Cockersand,^^ and in 1397 the kjng granted them 

 the farm of the alien priory of Lancaster during 

 the war with France at a rent of 100 marks a 

 year. With some difficulty and at an expense,, 

 as was afterwards alleged, of 500 marks they 

 obtained possession, only to be turned out on the 



''^ Rot. Pari, i, 189. The summons of so many 

 abbots may be accounted for by the fact that legisla- 

 tion against payment of tallages to foreign superiors 

 was intended. See below, p. 158. 



'" Pope Nich. Tax. 308. 



'■ Cal. of Pat. 1327-30, p. 54. 



''Ibid. 1345-8, p. 387. A similar, charge was, 

 brought against Carlton by William of Shirbourn in 

 1349; ibid. 1348-50, p. 387. 



^' Cal. Pap. Letters, iv, 32. 



^ Ibid, vi, 389. 



'' Rot. Pari, iii, 5 23. It was not until 1385 that 

 Richard granted a confirmation of their charters ;. 

 Dugdale, Mon. vi, 906. 



'^ Cal. Pap. Letters, iv, 1 79. 



