THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF LINCOLNSHIRE
INTRODUCTION
THERE are clear records of the existence of monasteries in Lincolnshire, many of them famous in their day, from the first years of the conversion of the North of England to Christianity. The greater number of these earlier foundations, known or unknown, perished in the period of Danish invasion. Bardney and Crowland rose again from their ruins,[1] but Ikanho, Barrow, and Partney were never rebuilt.
Besides these ancient monasteries Dugdale names four others as having a traditional existence.[2] Leland says 'where the Deane of Lyncolne's howse is in the Minstar Close of Lyncolne and thereabout was a Monasterye of Nunes afore the time that Remigius began the new Mynstar of Lyncolne: and of this Howse yet remayne certayne tokens of it.'[3]
A monastery at Kyrketon is said to be mentioned in Pipe Roll, 5 John, m. 9a, but no such membrane now exists.
Rooksby is said to have been mentioned in Cott. MS. Tib. E 5, which was burnt in the Cotton fire; it is certainly not mentioned in Pat. 19 Ric. II, pt. 1, m. 20, which is the other reference given.
St. Bartholomew's Priory, if not the same as the hospital of St. Bartholomew without Lincoln, cannot at present be traced.
Whatever may be said of these particular cases, it may very well be that several other monasteries did exist in Lincolnshire, as elsewhere, before the Danish invasion, though their names and number have not been preserved.[4]
With the revival of monasticism at the Conquest, however, the county was again filled with religious houses, every one of the great orders except the Cluniacs being represented here. There were ten monasteries for Benedictine monks, three of them—Bardney, Crowland, and Spalding—being of considerable size and importance, with one small priory at Stainfield for Benedictine nuns.
William of Newburgh states that during the reign of Stephen more were built than in all the previous hundred years.[5] The twelfth
- ↑ The name of St. Leonard's, Stamford, might have been added; but the records of its existence before the Conquest are too uncertain to be relied upon.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1621.
- ↑ Leland, Itin. viii, 4.
- ↑ St. Higbald was abbot of a monastery in Lindsey, according to Bede; and the same author speaks of a nunnery not far from Bardney, over which the abbess Ethelhild ruled in his own day. Bede, Eccles. Hist. iii, c. 11, p. 148.
- ↑ Chron. of the reign of Stephen, &c. (Rolls Ser.), i, 53. Mr. Howlett in his preface to the above work (iii, xiii, xiv), adds that estimating the rough total of the houses founded in England at 968, 247 were built before the reign of Stephen, 115 during the nineteen years of his reign, 113 during the 55 years of Henry's reign, and 223 in later times. While reducing the analysis and counties he shows that during the period now under review Lincoln just escapes heading the list with nineteen religious foundations.
