RELIGIOUS HOUSES exactions were to be made by the prior and convent ; after profession the sisters were to be obedient to the prior, and were not to go beyond the bounds of the house except with the prior's leave and for the benefit of the house. The houses occupied by the sisters and by the sick were in need of repairs, which were to be done as quickly as the priory was able. When Richard Cressall became prior, in 1484, he found that the property of the priory in London, the main source of the income of the house, had been allowed to fall into ruin,- and it was no doubt a strain to provide for the necessary repairs and at the same time to keep up the charitable work of the hospital. More revenue was needed, and in April, 1509, King Henry VII, for ^^400,*' granted to the prior and convent in mortmain the priory of Bicknacre, where, at the death of the last prior, Edmund Godyng, only one canon was left.** Its posses- sions included the manor of Bicknacre and thirty- one messuages and land in Wood ham Ferrers, Danbury, Norton, Steeple, Chelmsford, May- land, Stow, East and West Hanningfield, Purleigh, Burnham, and Downham, and were estimated to be worth £^0 los. per annum.** Daily celebrations for the souls of the founder, benefactors, and King Henry VII were, by the bishop's orders, performed at Bicknacre by one of the canons of the New Hospital.*^ The house in 1 5 14 further obtained licence to acquire in mortmain lands to the annual value of jTiOO.*' There is no record of the light in which the religious changes of the time were regarded here, but the royal supremacy was acknowledged on 23 June, 1534, by the prior and eleven others,** and it is unlikely that the king had any difficulty with the house, judging from the pensions granted at its suppression in 1538. The prior, William Major, received £2iO a ycar,*^ and payment seems to have been made with re- gularity*" ; the president, an official of whom there is no other mention,*^ had j^8 per annum ; three other priests, ^6 131. i.d. each ; and two others £"] os. and ^ respectively; the two sisters 40J. each.*^ The small number of brothers " Lend. Epis. Reg. Fitz James, fol. 161-3.
- ' Arch, xi, 265.
- ' Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitz James, fol. 1 6 1-3.
" Jnh. xi, 265.
- ' Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitz James, fol. 165. The
bishop's confirmation was given 9 Nov. 1509. " L. and P. Hen. Fill, i, 5534.
- ' Ibid, vii, 921.
- ° Ibid, xiv (2), 433.
"Aug. Off. Misc. Bk. 249, fols. 14-5, U ; Bk. 250, fols. 19, 24, 30^. " It may be another name for the sub-prior who is not referred to on this occasion. " L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiv (2), 433. In 1556 two sisters were receiving 40/. each and twelve men sums varying from 20/. to £6 I y. ^d. Add. MS. 8102, fol. 6. and sisters, and the state of the church, the roof of which fell before the end of the year,*' indicate either that the dissolution had been for some time foreseen ** or that much of the spirit of monasticism had departed. Whatever view is taken of the prior and canons there can be no doubt that good work was done in a hospital of 180 well-furnished beds," and Sir Richard Gresham, the mayor, in a letter to the king, begged that it might continue under the rule of the mayor and aldermen.*" It would, indeed, have been no more than just, for the hospital had not only been founded, but to a great extent endowed, by London citizens." The king, nevertheless, beyond allowing the sick already there to remain,** turned a deaf ear to Gresham's request, and in April, 1540, a grant was made to Richard Moryson *' of the infirm- ary, the dormitory, the waste ground leading from the churchyard to the infirmary, the prior's garden and the convent garden within the inclosure, the stable in the prior's garden with some waste land adjoining, and the other tenements of the priory which extended into Shoreditch. The income of the priory, estimated in 131 8 at over 300 marks,"" amounted in 1535 to ^^562 14^. 6^d. gross, and ^^504 12s. il^d. net."^ Of this the sum of^ ^£277 13J. ^.d. was derived from tenements in London and the suburbs, where the house had holdings in 1 31 8 in thirty-seven parishes."^ It held, besides the property of Bicknacre Priory, in CO. Middlesex the manor of Hickmans and lands and tenements called ' Burganes lands,' "' " At the end of July, 1538. L.and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (2), I 3. '* The members of the convent seem to have tried to propitiate those in power, as the pensions given by them show. Ibid, ix, 478 ; xvi, 745, fol. 3, 5, 6, 7, 9. " Stow, op. cit. ii, 97.
- = L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (2), 492.
" See patents of 1 1 Edw. II in Cott. MS. Nero C. iii, fol. 219-25 ; and Sharpe, Cal. of Wills, i, 4> 8, 47, 67, 141, 276, 342, 385, 568; ii, 313, 315- '* L. and P. Hen. Fill, xvi, i 500, p. 724. A lease was made in Dec. 1 541 of the priory, except the buildings in which the infirm there lie for the term of their lives. " Ibid, xv, 613 (3). ™ It was reckoned at that amount in 1303 (Lond. Epis. Reg. B.ildock and Gravesend, fol. 5), and between 1303 and 13 18 one or two grants had been made. " Falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, 401-2. Ac- cording to Stow, Surv. of Lond. ii, 99, its income was ^+78. "^ Cott. MS. Nero C. iii. For the parishes where the tenements of the priory lay in 1535, see Z,. and P. Hen. Fill, xv, xvi, xvii, xviii, xix. " L. and P. Hen. Fill, xix (2), 166 (38). Here these lands are described as in Hackney, Shoreditch, and Stepney. 533
