RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Gressingham thenceforward became an isolated 

 chapelry of Lancaster. 



It was perhaps in 1232 that the advowson of 

 Childwall church passed to the Grelleys, in whose 

 barony of Manchester the manor had long been 

 included. Thomas Grelley in that year obtained 

 an assize of darrein presentment against the prior, 

 but this may have been a collusive suit.'^ The 

 annexation of the priory's church of Bolton-le- 

 Sands to the archdeaconry of Richmond in 1246 

 was part of an arrangement advantageous to the 

 house. ^^ Of the thirteen advowsons granted by 

 Roger of Poitou five only, Lancaster, Heysham, 

 Poulton, Croston, and Ecdeston, were now re- 

 tained ; but two of these churches, Lancaster 

 and Poulton, were appropriated to their own uses. 



The church of Lancaster had been from the 

 first so appropriated, and the priory held it integre 

 or plena jure, that is, without obligation to have a 

 perpetual vicar ordained in it with a fixed por- 

 tion of its revenues, inasmuch as the monks and 

 their chaplains ' served in the church and parish 

 day and night and laboured perpetually in the 

 cure of souls.' ^' Its chapels at Caton, Gressing- 

 ham, and Stalmine were held in appropriation by 

 grant confirmed by Pope Celestine III (i 191-8).^ 

 Celestine also confirmed an appropriation of a 

 moiety of the church of Poulton and of its chapel 

 at Bispham.^' The other moiety was secured in 

 1246 as part of the compensation awarded to 

 them for their surrender of the advowson of 

 BoIton-le-Sands to John le Romeyn (Romanus), 

 archdeacon of Richmond.^* It was not to fall 

 in, however, until the death or cession of its 

 rector, Alexander de Stanford, when a vicarage of 

 20 marks was to be appointed for the whole 

 church. They bought out Stanford in 1250,^'^ 

 but for some reason the vicar's portion was not 

 fixed until 1275.^* 



" Cal. of Pat. 1225—32, p. 512. The transference 

 has indeed been ascribed to Henry I ; Lanes. Pipe R. 

 293. But this is at variance with the above entry 

 and with one or two further pieces of evidence. To- 

 wards the end of the twelfth century papal delegates 

 settled a dispute between the monks and the rector of 

 Childwall, whom they ordered to pay a pension of 

 20/. to the priory as long as he held the benefice ; 

 Lanc.Ch. 119 ; cf. 114, 121. 



" See below. 



" Hist, of Lane. CA. 123, 139. The definite recog- 

 nition of this privilege formed part of the settlement 

 of outstanding questions between the priory and John 

 le Romeyn by papal delegates in 1 246. 



" Ibid. 117. Stalmine and Gressingham were iso- 

 lated chapelries cut out of the parishes of Poulton 

 and Melling. Cemeteries were consecrated in all three 

 in 1230, the lay lords in each case undertaking not to 

 claim the advowson ; ibid. 153, 164-5, 362. 



"Ibid. 117. ^«Ibid. 122. 



" Papal delegates adjudicated his share to Sees, 

 which was to pay him 20 marks a year for life at its 

 Lincolnshire priory of Wenghale ; Exch. Aug. Off. 

 Misc. Bks. vol. 40, No. 6. 



'' Hist, of Lane. Ch. 380. 



In the cases of Heysham, Croston, and Ec- 

 deston the monks had to remain content with 

 the advowson and an annual pension.^' Only a 

 moiety of Eccleston church belonged to them 

 until in the fifth decade of the thirteenth century 

 Roger Gernet, lord of half the vill, and his 

 under-tenant Warin de Walton resigned their 

 rights in the advowson to S6es and the monks of 

 Lancaster.™ 



The dependence of the priory upon the abbey 

 of S6es may have been closer at first than it was 

 afterwards. After the loss of Normandy the 

 crown asserted a control over the appointment 

 and removal of priors by S^es. In 1209 the 

 abbot proffered 200 marks and two palfreys to be 

 allowed on any vacancy to present two of his 

 monks to the king, for him to choose and admit 

 one, who was not to be recalled without his con- 

 sent.^' On the death of a prior in 1230 a local 

 jury of inquest reported that the priors were 

 appointed and removable by the abbot, subject to 

 the assent of the king, and that during a vacancy 

 the priory had always been taken into the hands 

 of the crown, not of the archbishop of York or 

 the archdeacon of Richmond.^^ But if the prior 

 had no perpetuity the right of the crown to 

 custody pending a new appointment could hardly 

 be upheld, and the king ordered the sheriff to 

 restore the priory to a representative of the 

 abbot.^' A looser conception of its relation to 

 the Norman house must have before long pre- 

 vailed, for in 1267 the king restored the tem- 

 poralities to a prior,'* and in 1290 John le Rey 

 not only received the lands from Edmund, earl 

 of Lancaster, but was canonically instituted and 

 installed by the archdeacon of Richmond on the 

 presentation of the abbot of Sies.'^ A prior so 

 instituted could not usually be removed except 

 upon grounds satisfactory to the diocesan. From 

 the early years of the thirteenth century at latest 

 the priory was conventual ; '* the prior and the 

 five monks forming a society which could enter 

 into legal engagements, though at that time 

 deeds were mostly drawn and law proceedings 

 conducted in the name of the abbot and convent 



" From Heysham 6s. id. {Hist, of Lane. Ch. 124), 

 from Croston 6 marks (ibid. 1 1 3), and 20/. from 

 Eccleston (ibid. 446). 



^^ Ibid. 22, 28. A few years earlier John de la 

 Mare renounced any claim in the advowson of Croston 

 and of a moiety of the chapel oiY.cc\&%lon ; ibid. 24. 

 Eccleston may have been originally a chapel of 

 Croston, but when the rector of Croston claimed 

 rights over it in 1 3 1 7 it was decided to be a parish 

 church ; ibid. 441. 



" Lanes. Pipe R. 231. 



'^ Hist, of Lane. Ch. 150. 



" Cal. of Close, 1 2 1 7-31, p. 460. 



'* Hist, of Lane. Ch. 474. " Ibid. 475-6. 



^ Ibid. 309 ; expressly so-called in 1400 ; Foedera, 

 viii, 105. Nichols {Alien Priories, i, iv, ed. 1789) 

 is mistaken in assuming that conventual priories always 

 chose their own priors. 

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