20 The Fall of the Friar* Houses and Alien Priories in Wilts. 



— which no doubt existed — the friaries were almost bound to get 

 into financial difficulties during the last years of their existence. 

 As a consequence very few of these houses yielded any substantial 

 sum to the Court of Augmentations ; yet still their plate and the 

 lead from the roof would yield something, while the actual sites, 

 from their position in or near great towns, were often eagerly 

 sought after by courtiers, speculators, and others, who wished to 

 erect town houses for themselves, or sell the sites again at a profit. 



There are a certain number of minor religious foundations in the 

 county which may be enumerated for the sake of completeness. 

 Some of them perished with their companions, others appear to 

 exist, though probably under altered statutes, to the present time. 



There was at Ansty a j^receptory of the Knights Hospitalers of 

 St. John of Jerusalem. The manor was given by Walter de 

 Turberville in the 12th year of King John, and in the Valor 

 Ecclesiasticus is returned as worth £81 8s. ocL At the dissolution 

 the site was granted to John Zouch, 38 Henry VIII. 



At Temple Roekley was a hide of land, given in the second year 

 of Hen. II. to the order of the Knights Templars. At the sup- 

 pression of this order it was transferred to the order of St. John, 

 and annexed to their preceptory of Saundon, Oxon. At the dis- 

 solution Sir Edward Bainton obtained the site. (32 Hen. VIII.) 



An interesting memorial of a very critical period in the history 

 of the University of Oxford is to be found in the College of De 

 Vaujc, in Salisbury. When the Pope in 1238 laid the University 

 under an interdict, numbers of the scholars retired from the place 

 and congregated at Abingdon or elsewhere, Salisbury among the 

 rest. Here, in 1260, Bishop Giles de Bridport founded the College 

 de Valle Scolarum, or de Vaux. This was suppressed and the site 

 granted, 35 Hen. VIII., to Sir Michael Lister. " The college was 

 just outside the Close, on the Harnham side. There is a view of the 

 building, which is now entirely destroyed, 1 in Hall's " Picturesque 



1 I quote from the " Diocesan History of Salisbury," p. Ill, but there is a 

 difference of opinion on the point. Mr. C. H. Talbot, of Lacoek Abbey, writes: 

 " I believe there are some remains of it in the house called De Vaux House, 

 where there are some buttresses of the fifteenth century." 



