A HISTORY OF LONDON The hermitage of Cripplegate appears to have been an earlier and more important foun- dation. It was in existence in the reign of John, ■ who ordered an inquiry about a house which had belonged to Warin the hermit of Crip- pleaate." The advowson in the thirteenth century belonged to the king,^^ so that the her- mitage may have been founded by the crown, but if this is not the case, at any rate it owed much to royal grants and protection. A lane and an area near the City wall had been given by the king at some time previous to 1272 for the enlargement of the chapel of St. James " which formed part of the hermitage, and Edward I on several occasions appointed wardens to keep the goods of this chapel from spoliation on the death of the hermit." In 1300 the king granted the custody to William de Rogate, one of Prince Edward's clerks,^^ on condition that he found a chaplain to celebrate in the chapel for the king, and that he increased the income of the place by two marks a year. Possibly the resources of the chapel were not very large even then, for a cer- tain Thomas de Wyreford, the chaplain of a hermitage by Cripplegate, was accused, and found guilty before the bishop of London in i3ii,of encroaching on the rights of St. Olave's Silver Street : he had heard confessions and administered sacraments without sufficient authority, and had proclaimed an indulgence to those visiting his hermitage." The practice of casting the responsibility of the chapel on a keeper was continued by Edward II," apparently with unsatisfactory results, since in 1330 it was said that through the negligence of these keepers the chapel with its ornaments and the houses belonging to the hermitage had not been properly maintained,'* and at last the king in 1 341 made over his rights to the abbot of Garendon." A second chaplain was added in 1347 when Mary de St. Pol, countess of Pem- broke, founded in St. James' a chantry for the soul of her late husband, Aymer de Valence, endowing it with a tenement in Fleet Street and another in Sherbourne Lane.^ " Rot. Lit. Clous. (Rec. Com.), i, 60. " Cal.ofPat. 1274-81, p. 99. " Edward I in 1 290 speaks of the grant as made by his predecessors. Ibid. 1281-92, p. 401. " The mayor of London was made keeper in 1275, ibid. 1272-81, p. 99, the constables of the Tower in 1 28 1, ibid. 450, and the treasurer and the custos of London in 1286, ibid. 1281-92, p. 226. ^'- Cal. of Pat. I 292-1 301, p. 532. '^ Lend. Epis. Reg. Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 29. " Grants of the custody were made in I 326 and 1330. Cat. ofPat. 1324-7, p. 251 and 1330-4, p. 14. " Ibid. 1330-4, p. 59. '" Ibid. 1340-3, p. 145.
- " Sharpe, Cal. of Letter Bk. F, 1 80. The founda-
tion may have been earlier, for the abbey had had licence to acquire two messuages in the City and suburbs from the countess in 1 343. Ca/. of Pat. 1 343-5, P- '33- The history of the chapel from the time it be- came a cell of Garendon is uneventful. On the suppression of the abbey in 1536 it came into the king's hands again ^^ and was sold by him in 1543 to William Lambe, who left it in 1580 to the Clothworkers' Company with sufficient property to pay a minister to officiate tli-.re.25 Hermits of Cripplegate Warin, died 1205 " Robert de St. Laurence, appointed by Henry III, occurs 1275^' and 1289,** died 1291 ^' William de Wynterburn, appointed 1291,** resigned 1296^' John de Bello, appointed 1296** Thomas de Wyreford, occurs 13 II '^ Alan Chauns, appointed 1332 (.')5' John de Flytewyk, appointed and resigned 1341 33 The fifteenth-century seal '* is a pointed oval. St. James is here represented standing in a canopied niche, with a sprig of foliage on each side ; in his right hand he holds a book, in his left an escallop. In the base, under a round- headed arch, an ecclesiastic kneels in prayer. Legend : — s' SCI lACOBI APOSTOLI INFRA CREPULGAT.' mite ' disposed of property in the parish of St. Clement Danes in 1265-6'* and 1268-9,'* " Henry appointed two persons to serve the chapel in January 1537 {L. and P. Hen. VIII, xii (i), 311 (28)), at least this is presumably what is meant by the grant of the chapel to William Melton, chaplain, and William Draper, Miteratus,' since it was granted to them again for life in i 548 five months after the sale to Lambe. Ibid, xviii (l), p. 547. ^ Ibid, xviii (1), 346 (66). Stow in his Survey, iii, 128, says that Lambe obtained it from Edward VI, a mistake noticed by Newcourt, Repert. Eccl. Lond. i, 369. *' Newcourt, op. cit. i, 369. " Rot. Lit. Claus. (Rec. Com.), i, 60. " Cal. of Pat. 1272-81, p. 99. ^ Sharpe, Cal. of Letter Bk. A, 118. " Cal. of Pat. 1 2 8 1 -92, p. 464. " Ibid. " Ibid. I 292-1 301, p. 185. '" Ibid. " Lond. Epis. Reg. Baldock and Gravesend, fol. 29. " Cal. of Pat. 1330-4, p. 233. He is one of four to whom the custody of the chapel was granted, but as he is designated ' heremyt ' it seems probable that he would serve the place. ^^ Cal. of Pap. Letters, ii, 554. He had been a Benedictine and had left the order and been sent by the abbot of Garendon to the hermitage. He appears to have soon tired of this and returned to the Bene- dictines. " B.M. Seals, bcviii, i. ^ Hardy and Page, Cal. of Lond. and Midd. Fines, 43. The messuage is described as in * Denscheman- parosch ' which sounds like ' Danish men's parish.' >= Ibid. 45. 586
