RELIGIOUS HOUSES Essex, and in London,*" Acton," Kentish Town, and Islington,*^ co. Middlesex, in which last place the priory had a holding in 1253.*' The priory must have been popular in the City: in 1291 it had holdings in forty-eight London parishes,** and it is reasonable to suppose that much of this property was derived from London citizens, seeing that in the fourteenth century bequests from them were so numerous.*' The standing of the house is probably shown by the frequent choice of the prior as collector of the clerical tenth.** The archbishop of Canterbury visited the priory in 1303, and made certain ordinances :*' the rule of silence is to be better observed by the canons ; money is not to be assigned them for their clothes, but garments are to be allotted as needed, and the officer charged with this duty is never to give them before the old ones are handed up to him ; the canons who are ill in the infir- mary are to be provided with suitable food according to the means of the monastery ; the • doors of the cloister and the houses in it are to be kept more strictly and closed at proper hours, so that the brothers may not be disturbed at ser- vice by the concourse of people. There was evidently little fault to be found with the monas- tery, and corroboration as to its satisfactory state is furnished by the fact that in 1306 the bishop of London, after deposing the prior of St. Mary's, Bishopsgate, put the sub-prior of St. Bartholo- mew's in his place,** and in 1308 sent to St. Bar- tholomew's a canon of St. Osyth's to be disciplined for his wrongdoing.*' The injunction ordering that no liveries are to be sold without the per- mission of the bishop or archbishop, and that the powers granted are not to be exceeded,'" seems to indicate that money was needed just
- " Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, i, 234, 278, 301, 451, 683.
- ' Cal. of Pat. 1327-30, p. 184.
" Ibid. 1334-8, p. 2.
- ' Cart. Antiq. R. L. 14.
" Harl. MS. 60, fol. 627.
- ' Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, , 234, 24;, 249, 278, 301,
329, 350, 427, 451, 494, 508, 531, 578, 683 ; ii, 166, 208, &c. " He occurs in this capacity in 1328, Cal. of Close, '327-30. P- 3'2 ; i° 1337, ibid. 1337-9. P- 33 ; in I 339, ibid. I 339-41, p. 502 ; and in 1362, Epis. Reg. Sudbury, fol. 88. The prior was the collector of 5a'. in the mark of ecclesiastical goods in 1322. Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. viii, App. i, 633. In i 341 he, with the other collectors of wool, was rebuked by the king for his neg- ligence, and empowered to appoint a deputy if unable to act. B. M. Chart. L. F. C. xiv, 28. In I 331 and I 340 he was appointed collector of the taxes imposed on the order by the general chapter. Cott. MSS. Vesp. D. I, fol. 44^, 47^. It may also be remarked that it was at this priory that the earls and barons assembled to hear the result of their negotiations with the citizens of London in I 32 1. Chron.of Edw.l and Edw. II (Rolls Ser.), 296.
- ' Lond, Epis. Reg.,Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 6.
- ^ Ibid. fol. 6. " Ibid. fol. 1 6. «> Ibid. fol. 6.
then, possibly for building, as additions were certainly made to the church soon afterwards.'^ It seems probable that disputes between the priory and the hospital arose at an early date, for King John in 1 203 '^ declared that the hos- pital was at the disposition of the prior and canons, and that whoever would separate it from that church should come into the royal right ; and Eustace bishop of London made an arrangement between them a few years later." At length serious discord between the two houses made a settlement imperative, and this was accomplished by Simon bishop of London in '373-" The authority of the priory over the hospital was maintained in a general way, viz. the brothers had to ask leave of the prior to elect a master and obtain his confirmation of their choice, and new brothers and sisters had to swear fealty to the prior. If the prior was practically excluded from interference with the internal affairs of the hospital, he was freed from all responsibility for its maintenance. The advantages of the arrangement doubtless became more apparent to the priory at the beginning of the next century, when it experi- enced great difficulty in raising sufficient money for its own needs. In 1409 the monastery was in debt through the rebuilding of the cloister, bell-tower, and chapter-house, and further neces-- sary work was prevented by lack of funds. Meanwhile its income had fallen off : inroads of the sea had seriously affected its property in the neighbourhood of Yarmouth ; tenements in London, from which ten years ago an income of 100 marks had been derived, now did not yield half that sum ; and through the malice of a powerful enemy the endowment of a chantry had been lost, while the obligation of maintain- ing two priests for celebrating masses still re- mained." The prior John de Watford, who was present at the Council of Pisa," made use of his opportunity to plead the cause of his house, and Pope Alexander, the day after his election to the papacy," granted a special indul- gence to penitents who during a period of ten years visited the priory on the three days before Easter and on the Festival of the Assumption, " A bequest for the maintenance of the work of the church is made in a will enrolled in 1 3 14. Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, I, 249. In 1321 the king pardoned the alienation of land in the parish of St. Sepulchre to the prior and convent of St. Bartholomew for the building and maintenance of the said church. Cal. of Pat. 1 3 17-21, p. 597. St. Mary's Chapel which is mentioned in 1322 (Sharpe, CaL of Wills, i, 301) appears to have been recently built (ibid, i, 427). " Chart. R. (Rec. Com.), i, 115. " Lond. Epis. Reg. Bray brook, fol. 285. Eustace was bishop of London 1221-29. '* Ibid. fol. 285-7. " Cal. Pap. Letters, vi, 151. " Wylie, Hist, of Engl under Hen. IF, iii, 369. " Capgrave, Chron. of Engl. (Rolls Sen), 297. 477
