RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Twelve years later a quarrel broke out 

 between the priory and Sir Adam Banaster, 

 who sought to exclude its servants and tithe- 

 collectors from his lands in the parish of Poulton. 

 Prior Courait was forcibly carried off from 

 Poulton and kept in durance at Thornton ; his 

 servants were beaten, wounded, and imprisoned.'^ 

 Early in 1331, however, Sir Adam and the 

 prior came to an understanding/' 



During the French wars the house was taken 

 into the hands of the crown with the other 

 alien priories. These little groups of Frenchmen 

 could not be permitted to send over considerable 

 sums of money and perhaps information to the 

 king's enemies. But at Lancaster as elsewhere 

 the prior was often allowed to farm the priory 

 from the crown." 



Under Edward III the prior of Lancaster 

 paid 100 marks (;^66 1 35. ^.d.) a year.*' This 

 was double the amount of the pension 

 paid by the priory to S^es when the 

 two countries were at peace. '^ In February, 

 1397, Richard II granted the custody of the 

 house at the same rent to Cockersand Abbey, 

 which seems to have had considerable difHculty 

 in getting possession." Henry IV, however, 

 having his attention drawn to the disastrous 

 effects upon this and other alien priories of the 

 heavy rents exacted and the intrusion of external 

 farmers, restored them in the first year of his 

 reign to their priors ; merely stipulating that so 

 long as the war with France continued they 

 should pay to the crown the pensions they were 

 wont to render to their chief houses abroad 

 in time of peace.'* The king's financial 

 embarrassments led in a few years to the reversal 

 of this considerate policy *' and Lancaster Priory 

 was again farmed out at a rent of ;^ioo, being 

 an increase of fifty per cent, on that paid before 

 1400. Henry V in granting its custody to 

 Prior Louvel and Sir Richard Hoghton (21 

 October, 141 3) put on another ;^I0.°'' Next 

 year Parliament gave the crown permanent 

 possession of the alien priories, and Henry 



" Hisi. of Lane. Ch. 468. " Ibid. 471. 



" From Oct. 1324,10 March, 1325, the priory 

 had been in the king's hands and not farmed out ; 

 Duchy of Lane. Mins. Accts. bdle. 1 125, No. 21. 

 The prior was paid y. a week, each of the five monks 

 and the two parochial chaplains who ministered to 

 the parishioners I %d. a week. Each monk received 

 a clothes and shoe allowance of 10/. for the term of 

 the Nativity. Half a quarter of peas and barley were 

 distributed weekly among ten poor people ' of 

 ancient alms.' 



'* Cal. Close, 1337-9, P- 335 5 ^''^- ^'^*- i3+o-3> 

 p. 388. The crown reserved the ecclesiastical patron- 

 age of the priory ; Cal. Close, 1343—6, pp. 435> 4^3- 



^ See above. 



'' Cal. Pat. 1399-1401, pp. 49, 71, 150. 



" Foedera, viii, loi sqq. 



'' Wylie, Hisl. of Hen. IV, iii, 142 sqq. 



»'' Add. MS. 32107, No. 824. 



vested the rent from that of Lancaster in 

 trustees as part of the endowment of the 

 Bridgettine nunnery of Syon which he founded 

 at Isleworth in that year. After the death of 

 Prior Louvel, the farmer, the priory itself was to 

 become the property of the nuns.°^ Louvel died 

 before September, 1428, but Henry Bowet, 

 archdeacon of Richmond, put in a claim to its 

 revenues and tithes ratione vacationis.^'^ It had 

 been decided in the thirteenth century that the 

 archdeacon had no such right.*' Bowet, how- 

 ever, seems to have taken up the position that 

 the gift of the priory to Syon amounted to a 

 fresh appropriation of the churches of Lancaster 

 and Poulton. Archbishop Kemp was appointed 

 arbitrator and apparently decided in his favour, 

 for the abbess and convent agreed to indemnify 

 him and his successors by the heavy annual 

 payment of £/^o 6s. S^/.*'" In 1430 the arch- 

 deacon ordained a perpetual vicarage in the 

 church of Lancaster,"* and in the following year 

 the trustees appointed by Henry V conveyed 

 the priory to Sion.*' On the accession of 

 Edward IV it was thought prudent to secure a 

 regrant.** 



The priory buildings had been assigned in 

 1430 to the use of the vicar of Lancaster, but 

 the abbess and convent retained an honest 

 chamber and stable as a lodging for their officers 

 visiting Lancaster."^ In 1462 they leased 

 the whole priory, with the exception of the 

 advowsons, for nine years to John Gardiner of 

 Ellel, at a rent of £1$^ T-V- 4'^-*' The 

 advowson of Eccleston had perhaps never been 

 granted to them, and at any rate was parted with 

 before 1464 to the Stanleys.*' Sir Edward 

 Stanley in 1488 claimed the advowson of 

 Heysham as lord of the manor in spite of a legal 



*' Rot. Pari. (Rec. Com.), iv, 243 ; Dugdale, Mon. 

 vi, 997. The rule adopted for the house was the 

 Augustinian as reformed by St. Bridget, a Swedish 

 lady related to the royal house (d. 1373.) According 

 to the usual practice the advowsons of the priory were 

 not included in Louvel's farm, and in 141 8 Pope 

 Martin V, at the king's desire, sanctioned the 

 appropriation of Croston church to Sion ; Foedera, 

 ix, 617. For the advowsons of Eccleston and 

 Heysham see below. 



*^ Madox, Formulare Anglkanum, 100. 



*^ See above, p. 169. 



^^ Madox, loc. cit. ; Duchy of Lane. Rentals and 

 Surv. R. 378. 



" Ibid. ; Notitia Cestriensis, 429-31. The vicarage 

 was worth /80 a year in 1527 (Rentals and Surv. 

 ptfo. 5, No. 15.) 



°' Madox, op. cit. 270. 



*° Rot. Pari, v, 552. 



*' Duchy of Lane. Rentals and Surv. R. 378. 



^ Exch. Aug. Off. Misc. Bks. vol. 33, No. 20 ; 

 Baines, Hist, of Lanes, (ed. Croston), v, 467. 



^'Pal. of Lane. Plea R. 26, m. 16. Thomas Stanley, 

 kt., recovered the patronage against Abbess Elizabeth 

 on the ground that he and his father had twice 

 presented before she made her claim. 



171 



