vilege of exemption, and to explain that he and his convent did this of their own free will.[1] In 1276 the same abbot was involved in a suit with his tenants of the manor of Boycott on the subject of feudal customs. [2] In 1280 he had to complain of trespasses and injuries done to him in his house in London, [3] and at about the same time he was distrained for scutage for his property in Maryland, but it was finally proved that none was really due.[4] In 1302 the abbey was taken under the king's protection, and as it was greatly burdened with debt, John of Tingewick, rector of Wappen- ham, was appointed custodian of the house, to aid the monks by his counsel, and to super- intend the administration of its revenues.[5] It seems however that John took base advan- tage of his position, for in 1308 [6] a suit was brought by the abbot and convent against him and many others, for breaking down their enclosures in Syresham and depasturing the corn that grew there. In 1325 Abbot Roger de Gotham acknowledged a debt of 200, which however he contrived afterwards to pay off. [7] In 1392 the house seems to have re- covered its prosperity a little ; for the abbot and convent were in a position to take over the cell of Weedon Pinkeney from the Abbot of St. Lucien near Beauvais in France, at a pension of 12 marks a year, afterwards commuted for a payment of 300 marks in full quittance. [8] The purchase of Weedon Pinkeney however in- volved the monks of Biddlesden in a long dis- pute with the rectors of Wappenham, in whose parish part of the property of the late priory lay. Two or three attempts were made to settle the question of tithes, but it was not finally arranged until 1406. In this year the rector agreed not to molest the monks in future in respect of any property that had belonged to St. Lucien ; and received in com- pensation two acres of cornland, with two lambs and two cheeses yearly. The final agreement was ratified by Bishop Repingdon and the Archbishop of Canterbury.[9] Of the internal history of the house nothing whatever is known until just before the dis- solution. An abbot was deposed in 1192,[10] but his offence is not recorded. The house was exempt from episcopal visitation, like all Cistercian monasteries, so that the Lincoln registers throw no light upon its condition from its foundation to its surrender. As its yearly income was under 200, it would natu- rally have been dissolved with the smaller monasteries in 1536. In this year the local commissioners reported that there were eleven monks in the house, of whom nine were priests, and none guilty of any immorality. There was a former abbot living in the house, with a pension of £13 6s. 4d. for his maintenance, and there were as many as fifty-one servants attached to the monastery, of whom twenty- four were ' hinds ' or farm labourers, thirteen did the work of the house, nine were children (possibly servers at mass), and four were women who came in by the day.[11] The com- missioners stated further that only one of the monks desired a capacity to depart to another house of religion, but this does not seem very consistent with the fact that they petitioned for the monastery to be continued, and actu- ally paid as much as £133 6s. 4d. for this pri- vilege. [12] The house was not surrendered till 25 September, 1538. The form of the sur- render is not of the ordinary type, and is in English. As it has been more than once printed in full, there is no need to reproduce it here verbatim. [13] It has received the more attention because it is not, like so many others, a merely formal declaration that the surren- der is quite voluntary and that there are many excellent but unnamed reasons why it should be made ; but it contains a certain amount of vague self-accusation. Summed up, it is a confession that the ' manner and trade of living ' of the monks of Biddlesden and others of their ' pretensed religion ' for many years past did most principally consist in ' dumb ceremonies ' : that they had been exempt from their own ordinaries and diocesans and subject to ' forinsecal potentates ' such as the bishops of Rome and abbots of Citeaux, ' which never came here to reform such dis- cord of living and abuses as now have been found to have reigned amongst us ' : and that they had never been taught in the true know- ledge of God's laws, but now had happily discovered by the study of the gospel that it was most expedient for them to be ruled by their Supreme Head the king. Even if this document had been composed by the monks themselves and not merely handed to them
- ↑ Harl. MS. 4714, f. 1 33d. There was a similar dispute about tithes in Syresham in 1382. Ibid. 156-161.
- ↑ Abbrev. Plac. (Rec. Com.), 192.
- ↑ Pat. 8 Edw. I. m. 18.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. v. 366.
- ↑ Pat. 30 Edw. I. m. 26.
- ↑ Ibid. 2 Edw. II. m. 26d.
- ↑ Close, 19 Edw. II. m. 243.
- ↑ Harl. MS. 4714, f. 250d.
- ↑ Ibid. ff. 22ld-242.
- ↑ 10 Ann. Man. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 251.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. v. 365 ; from Browne Willis.
- ↑ L. and P. Henry VIII. xiii. (2) 422 and 457.
- ↑ Deed of Surrender (P.R.O.) 22 : and see L. and. P. Henry VIII. xiii. (2), 421.
