RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Abbot Poulton excuses himself to Cromwell 

 from preferring his nominee Sir James Layburn 

 to certain lands in the manor of Ashton on the 

 ground that the heirs of the late occupants 

 claimed to hold by tenant-right.'' 



Doctors Legh and Layton made a serious 

 charge against two of the canons,'* but this was 

 not corroborated by the royal commissioners 

 under the Act of Suppression, who visited the 

 abbey at the end of May, 1536." They re- 

 ported that the prior and twenty-one canons, all 

 ■of them priests, were of honest conversation and 

 desirous to continue in religion. Two of them 

 served chantries at Tunstall and Middleton, and 

 two others acted as proctors for the abbey at its 

 appropriate churches of Mitton and Garstang, 

 but all four could be recalled to the monastery. 

 No mention is made of the lay brothers {con- 

 versi) who occur at an earlier period, unless they 

 were the five ' poor aged and impotent men ' 

 whom the foundation required to be kept at the 

 abbey. 



Ten other poor men were provided with bed 

 and board daily for charity. The total cost was 

 ^22 Js. 4^. a year. There were two persons 

 living in the house by purchase of corrodies ; 

 one of these, bought in 1507 for ten marks, cost 

 the abbey half that sum yearly. Its staff of 

 servants numbered fifty-seven, of whom nineteen 

 were officers of the household, ten waiting ser- 

 vants, and eleven hinds of husbandry. The 

 wages bill for a year was ^^46 16^. 8d. The 

 income of the abbey as ascertained for the pur- 

 poses of the tenth in 1535 '^ was well under the 

 limit of ;^200 fixed by the Act of February, 

 1536, which empowered the crown to dissolve 

 the smaller monasteries. But the Commissioners 

 raised the valuation to not far short of ^^300, and 

 this, coupled with their report of the good state 

 of the house, doubtless induced the king to use 

 the discretion conferred upon him by the Act of 

 Suppression and allow Cockersand to continue.'' 



It was not until 29 January, 1539, that the 

 house was surrendered by Abbot Poulton and 

 his twenty-two canons.'^ Two months later the 

 site, with the demesne lands and the rectory of 

 Garstang, was leased for twenty-one years to 

 John Burnell and Robert Gardiner at a rent of 

 £j2 6s. 8i." John Kitchen of Hatfield, Hert- 

 fordshire, farmer of the monastery from 1539, 

 bought the site and demesne from the crown on 

 I September, 1543, fo"" £7°°-^ ^Y ^^^ ™^''" 



» L.andP. Hen. VIII, v, 1416. " Ibid, x, 364. 



" Their full report is preserved in Duchy of Lane. 

 Rentals and Surv. ptfo. 5, No. 4, a ' brief certificate ' 

 of it in No. 7. 



»« VakrEcd. v, 261. 



" L. and P. Hen. VIII, xi, 1417 (18). 



"* Def. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. ii, 16. There had 

 iieen an addition of one canon since 1536. 



'' Original lease at Thurnham Hall. 



™ Pat. 35 Hen. VIII, pt. 13, m. 20. 



riage of his eldest daughter Anne to Robert 

 Dalton of Thurnham Hall it passed to that 

 family, in whose possession it still remains."^ 



The abbey was dedicated to St. Mary. As 

 already stated its original endowment was largely 

 augmented during the thirteenth century by 

 numerous gifts of land and rents. A consider- 

 able portion of these were in Amounderness, but 

 extensive acquisitions were made in the other 

 Lancashire hundreds, and in the adjoining 

 counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Chester, 

 and York. The donations usually consisted of 

 small parcels, but there were some important 

 exceptions. In the early years of the abbey 

 Adam de Dutton gave it a moiety of the vill of 

 Warburton with other lands in Cheshire for the 

 foundation of a cell in connexion with the 

 church of St. Werburgh at Warburton.*^ Abbot 

 Roger, before 12 16, resigned to Geoffrey son of 

 Adam all but eight oxgangs of land in War- 

 burton, for confirmation in which latter he under- 

 took to find a chaplain to minister for Adam's 

 soul. There seem still to have been canons there 

 in the middle of the century, but in 1 27 1 the 

 abbey sold all its rights to the second Geoffrey 

 de Dutton for the sum of eighty marks.^' Among 

 its Westmorland grants was one of half the 

 township of Sedgewick by Ralph de Beetham 

 between 1 190 and 1208.^* In Amounderness 

 Gilbert son of Roger Fitz Reinfred granted the 

 vill of Medlar, one plough-land ; ^' Adam de Lee 

 before 121 2 gave a moiety of the vill of Forton ; 

 and the remaining moiety, with the lordship of 

 the whole, was acquired prior to 1272.°^ Wil- 

 liam de Lancaster III bestowed four oxgangs of 

 land in Garstang on his deathbed in 1246.°' 



South of the Ribble Elias son of Roger de 

 Hutton gave the whole township of Hutton, 

 comprising three plough-lands in the parish of 

 Penwortham, between 1 20 1 and 1220,°^ and 

 about the middle of the century Westhoughton 

 in Salford Hundred was conveyed to the abbey in 

 several portions.*' Sir Edmund de Nevill, kt., 

 gave a third of the manor of Middleton in 

 Lonsdale in 1337 to endow a chantry there, 



*' Documents at Thurnham Hall. The crowna 

 sold other Cockersand estates, e.g. the manor of 

 Hutton for j^56o to Lawrence Rawstorne of Old 

 Windsor ; Pat. 37 Hen. VIII, pt. 5, m. 8. 



«^ Ormerod, Hist. ofChes. i, 575. 



'' Ibid. Some parcels of land at AUerton and 

 Knowsley which had been given by others to War- 

 burton Priory were retained by Cockersand ; Chartul. 

 544, 559-61, 606-7. Cockersand may possibly 

 have furnished the canons whom Thomas son of Gos- 

 patric established about 1 1 90 at Preston (Patrick) in 

 Westmorland, for he was also a benefactor of the 

 abbey {Chartul. 999), but if so the Preston house 

 afterwards removed to Shap was quite independent. 



^ Ibid. 1038. ^ Ibid. 167. 



^ Ibid. 337 sqq. *' Ibid. 272, 280. 



^ Chartul. 407. 



"' Ibid. 677-9, 688. 



t57 



