to the canons of this abbey, that they might adopt the Use of Sarum for the recitation of the divine office, that of St. Augustine having become ' too burdensome ' for them.[1] The discipline of the order seems however to have been in full force in this house towards the end of the fifteenth century ; for in 1471 Henry Honor of Missenden asked permission to send the disobedient among his own canons to Nutley to be punished, ' for the preserva- tion of order.'[2] A visitation of Bishop At- water in 1519 reveals no laxity and very few causes of complaint. It was alleged that the abbot did not pay the accustomed annuities, nor consult the senior canons as he ought to do ; and a proper infirmary was not provided for the sick.[3] No visitation of Bishop Long- land is preserved. The abbot in 1525 was accused of having falsified a lease of the par- sonage of Hillesden ; but the accusation was made in the course of a family quarrel, and may have been without foundation.[4] There is every reason to suppose that the house had an honourable reputation during its last years. The election of 1528 was made under the approval of Cardinal Wolsey[5]; and the king himself stayed at Nutley in 1529 while he was making progress through the Midlands.[6] Dr. London accused the canons of nothing worse than superstition, and that only by inference : he tells us how the chaplain of Caversham fled home to Nutley with the only ' relic ' he had been able to save from destruction ' an aungell with oon wyng that browght to Caversham the spere hedde that percyd our Saviour is syde upon the crosse ' and adds, ' butt I sent my servant purposely for ytt.' The surrender of the house followed in a few days.[7]
The original endowment of Nutley Abbey included the demesne land called Crendon Park, the churches of Long Crendon, with the chapels of Lower Winchendon and Chearsley, Princes Risborough, Hillesden, Ashendon, Chilton with the chapel of Dorton ; the church and chapel of Caversham, and Stokelyle in Oxfordshire ; Sherringham and Choseley in Norfolk, Bottesham in Cam- bridgeshire, Bradley in Wiltshire.[8] To these were added at a later date the churches of Netherswell in Gloucestershire, Coleshill and Blakeborough in Norfolk,[9] Lillingstone (Dayrell) in Buckinghamshire [10] ; and in 1461 the lands of the priory of Chetwode, with the churches of Chetwode and Barton Hartshorn, and the chapel of Brill.[11] In the time of Bishop Lexington (1254-8) the whole value of the abbey in spiritualities and temporalities was stated as £80 7s.[12] ; in 1291 its temporali- ties amounted to £48 16s. 6½d.,[13] but the value of its churches cannot be exactly given, as they are not all mentioned in the Taxatio.
In 1284 the abbot held one third of a knight's fee in Hillesden [14] ; in 1302 the same, with the whole manor of Lower Winchen- don [15] ; in 1346 both of these, with the addi- tion of a portion of a fee in Long Crendon. [16]
In the Valor Ecclesiasticus the clear value of the house was given as £437 6s. 8½d.[17] ; the Ministers' Accounts amount only to £402 19s. 4½d., including the churches of Long Crendon, Chilton, Chearsley, Caver- sham, Princes Risborough, Ashendon, Hilles- den, Lower Winchendon, Chetwode, Barton Hartshorn, Stokelyle, Sherringham, Maiden Bradley, Netherswell ; and the manors of Long Crendon, Chilton, Lower Winchendon, Chearsley, Canonend, Chetwode in Bucb ; and Stragglethorpe, Lincs.[18]
Abbots of Nutley
Osbert, [19] occurs under Henry II.
Robert, [20] occurs 1189
Edward, [21] occurs 1203 and 1221
John, [22] occurs 1223, deposed 1236
Henry of St. Faith, [23] elected 1236
John of Crendon, [24] elected 1252, died 1268
John of Gloucester,[25] elected 1268, died 1269
Richard of Dorchester, [26] elected 1269, re-
signed 1272
- ↑ Cal. of Pap. Letters, iv. 396.
- ↑ Sloane MS. 747, f. 53.
- ↑ Visitations of Atwater (Lincoln).
- ↑ L. and P. Henry nil. xiii. (2), 246.
- ↑ Ibid. iv. 4187.
- ↑ Ibid. 5965.
- ↑ Wright, Suppression of Monasteries, 225. Dr. London had been at Nutley in 1528 to examine the election of Robert Brice. Line. Epis. Reg. Inst. Longland, 193d.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. vi. 279. The same gifts are rehearsed in the charter of Pope Alexander IV., 1258, quoted and confirmed in Cal. of Pap. Letters, v. 508-9.
- ↑ Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.).
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Inst. Bokyngham, i. 412.
- ↑ Pat. I Edward IV. pt. iv. m. 23.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg. Rolls of Lexington.
- ↑ Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.).
- ↑ Feud. Aids, i. 77.
- ↑ Ibid. 96, 107.
- ↑ Ibid. 120, 121, 124.
- ↑ Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iv. 234.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. vi. 280.
- ↑ Bracton's Note Book (ed. Maitland), iii. 416.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. iv. 278.
- ↑ Feet of F. (Rec. Com.), 229.
- ↑ Dugdale, Mon. iv. 278, and Feet of F. 18 Hen. III. no. 4.
- ↑ Linc. Epis. Reg Rolls of Grosstete.
- ↑ Ibid.
- ↑ Ibid. Rolls of Gravesend.
- ↑ Ibid He entered the Cistercian order in 1272
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