RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



22. THE COLLEGE OF MANCHESTER 



The parish church of Manchester was incor- 

 porated in 1421 at the instance of Thomas la 

 Warre, its rector and last lord of the manor of his 

 name, who endowed the college with certain 

 lands and the advowson of the church. The 

 royal licence was given on 22 May in that 

 year." 



The college was to consist of nine chaplains : 

 a master or warden, and eight fellows with other 

 ministers " who were to celebrate for the health- 

 ful state of the king, Bishop Langley (head of the 

 founder's feoffees) and La Warre while they 

 lived and for their souls after death, as well as for 

 the souls of the parishioners and of all the faith- 

 ful departed. 



About the time of the outbreak of the Pil- 



grimage of Grace a correspondent of Lord 

 Darcy wrote that ' This week past, Manchester 

 College should have been pulled down and there 

 would have been a rising, but the Commissioners 

 recoiled."^ This must surely have been a false 

 alarm, for the commissioners had no power to 

 deal with the colleges. 



The college was, however, dissolved in 1547, 

 but refounded by Queen Mary. The ancient 

 common seal of the college, an impression of 

 which is appended to the foundation deed of 

 St. George's Gild in the collegiate church, 

 represented the Assumption of the Virgin ; at 

 the base the Grelley and La Warre shields. 

 Legend : 



SIGILLVM : COMMVNE : COLLEGH : BEATE : 

 MARIE : DE : MAMCESTR :" 



ALIEN HOUSE 



23. THE PRIORY OF LANCASTER 



The priory of Lancaster was founded by Roger 

 of Poitou, in the reign of William Rufus, as a 

 cell of the Benedictine Abbey of St. Martin at 

 S^es in Normandy. Sies formed part of the 

 inheritance of his mother, the notorious Countess 

 Mabel, and its abbey, refounded in 1060 by his 

 father, received liberal endowments in England 

 from the house of Montgomery. 



The chartulary of S^es recites three charters 

 of Roger granting Lancaster church and other 

 portions of his English possessions to the abbey ; 

 two of these are ascribed to 1094, the third is 

 undated.^ All three differ in some important 

 respects. That without a date was the definitive 

 charter of foundation, for it alone appears in the 

 register of the priory.' The others may have 

 been granted by Roger while in Normandy in 

 1 094,' but the names of its witnesses show that 



'" S. Hibbert-Ware, Hist, of the foundations of Man- 

 chester, iv, 145. Further details will be found in 

 the account of the church. 



"Ibid. 163. From the founder's letter present- 

 ing the first warden, we learn that the ' other minis- 

 ters ' were from the first four clerks and six choristers 

 (ibid. 173). In 1546 two of the priest fellows 

 served the parochial cure, the rest ' kept the choir ;' 

 Lanes. Chantries, 8. 



" L. and P. Hen. Fill, xi, 635. 



" Lanes. Chantries, 29. 



' They are numbered in the chartulary 258, 260, 

 and 266. These numbers do not agree with those 

 given in the transcript in the Archives of the Depart- 

 ment of the Orne at Alenfon used by Mr. Round ; 

 Cal. of Doc. France, 2^6— g. It should be noted, 

 too, that No. 665 of the calendar is only a truncated 

 fragment of No. 260 of the chartulary. For the 

 history of S^es see Neustria Pia, 577 ; Orderic 

 Vitalis, Hist. Eccl. (Soc. de I'Hist. de France), ii, 46-7. 



this was drawn up in the north of England, 

 probably at Lancaster. It cannot be much later 

 in date. 



The wide range of Roger's endowments 

 bespeaks the poverty of his northern lands. In- 

 cluded among them were part of the township 

 of Lancaster, the two adjoining manors {mamiones) 

 of AldclifFe and Newton,* the vill of Poulton- 

 le-Fylde, and the tithes of the parishes of Preston 

 and Bolton-le-Sands and of nineteen townships, 

 all with one exception within the bounds of the 

 later county of Lancaster and comprising practi- 

 cally the whole of Count Roger's demesne lands 

 in that district. A tenth of his hunting, pannage, 

 and fishing was added, together with every third 

 cast of the seine belonging to the church of 

 Lancaster. 



The church itself was granted ; also the 

 churches of Bolton-le-Sands, Heysham, Melling, 

 Poulton, Preston, Kirkham, Croston, Childwall, 

 and a moiety of Eccleston, and three in the 

 Midlands, Cotgrave, Cropwell (both in Notting- 



'B.M. Karl. MS. 3764, fol. la ; printed by 

 Farrer {Lanes. Pipe R. 289) and (with the rest of 

 the register) by W. O. Roper in Materials for the Hist, 

 of the Church of Lancaster (Chet. Soc), 8. The 

 documents connected with the priory in Add. MS. 

 32107, Nos. 818-86 and Exch. Aug. Off. Misc. 

 Bks. vols. 33—40 include some which are not in the 

 register. 



' He unsuccessfully defended Argentan near Sees 

 for King William against Duke Robert ; Ang].-Sax. 

 Chron. sub anno ; Hen. Huntingdon, Hist. Angl. (Rolls 

 Ser.), 217. Some of the witnesses of the 1094 

 charters are English tenants of Roger (e.g. Godfrey 

 the Sheriff and Albert Grelley), but others, Oliver de 

 Tremblet, for instance, are not known to have been. 



* Newton is described in later documents as a 

 hamlet in the township of Bulk ; Hist, of Lane. CA. 



495- 



167 



