A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 1 00 ft. by 60 ft., and there were other extensions about the same date.' In 1364 the friars were permitted to add five tenements to their site, the gift of Thomas Drewe and others." The bishop of Norwich, in 1383, granted the friars a plot of land in Gaywood, 24 ft. by 16 ft., of the yearly value of id., for making a subterranean conduit from a spring in that plot through the bishop's demesnes to their house.' There were further extensions of their premises in the reigns of Henry IV * and V.* In 1535, when Thomas Potter was prior, this house had three tenements in Lynn of the annual value of lbs. 8d.^ The surrender of the house, dated 30 Sep- tember, 1538, was signed by William Wilson, prior, and ten others."^ 52. THE FRIARS OF THE SACK, LYNN The Friars of the Sack, or De Penitentia, had a house at Lynn in the thirteenth century. This order, which never attained to much pros- perity, was suppressed in France in 1293, ^^^ members being obliged to join the Austin Friars in consequence of the smallness of their numbers. In England they came to an end in 131 7, when the members were obliged to join one or other of the four chief orders of the mendicants. At the time of their suppression Robert Flegg, the prior of the house at Lynn, was superior of the whole order in England.* There is a reference in the Norfolk Fines of 1277 to the right of the prior ' de Penitentia Jesu Christi in Lenn ' to certain messuages.' 53. THE DOMINICAN FRIARS NORWICH OF The Friars Preachers first took up their abode in the city of Norwich in the year 1226. The Norwich house was the third founded in England after their arrival on our shores in 1221, and ranked as one of the most important of the Dominican priories.'" The old parish church of ' St. John Baptist over-the- Water ' was assigned to them at an early date by Sir Thomas Gelham. It stood on ' Pat. 12 Edw. Ill, pt. iii, m. 15. ' Ibid. 38 EJw. Ill, pt. i, m. 16. ' Ibid. 6 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 23. ' Ibid. 7 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 31. ' Ibid. I Hen. V, pt. i, m. 17. ' Fa/or Eccl. (Rec. Com.), iii, 398. • L. and P. Hen. Vlll. xiii (2) 182.
- MS. Coll. Wren, fol. 125, cited in Tinner's
l^otitia. ' Tanner, Notitin, Norf. xli, 10. '" The late Father Palmer devoted three of his learned articles on the Dominican houses to the Nor- ^vich priory. They appeared in the RePiquary. the north side of Black Boy Street, and by its side they created their first dwellings." Their rule prohibited them from accepting any parochial charge, so that the parish of St. John Bapti'^t must have been united to that of St. George before the gift was made. After another Dominican house had been founded within the diocese at Dunwich, it be- came necessary to assign limits for their ministra- tions. Accordingly on 10 January, 1259, two representatives of each house, elected by their respective convents, met at the house of the Austin Canons at Herringfleet and appointed an arbitrator. His decision was in favour of the river that divided Norfolk from Suffolk being the boundary between the two houses, save that the friars of Dunwich should have a right to visit the parishes of Mundham and Rushford (r), which lay in both counties. When Henry III was at Norwich in October, 1272, he ordered the sheriff to bestow 10 marks on the Dominicans." Edward I, at a isit in September, 1 289, gave them 40.!. for three days' food, and two years later, the executors of Queen Eleanor of Castile gave looj. to this house.'* In 1280 they enclosed their site within a pre- cinct wall, and between that date and the end of the century, several extensions were granted them for enlarging their plot.'^ Meanwhile a new but short-lived order of friars appeared in the city. The Friars of Penance of Jesus Christ, commonly known from their rough brown habit as the Friars of the Sack, or Sackites, had their origin at Marseilles in 1251, and first appeared in London in 1257. In the next year a party of them arrived in Norwich, and a site was secured in the parish of St. Peter of Hun- gate. Notwithstanding various small benefactions enlarging their site, and such occasional windfalls as the td, bequeathed them in 1272 by Thomas son of Peter of Aldburgh," these Friars of the Sack never flourished, and at last there was only left the prior, William de Hoo, ' broken with old age and nearly blind.' In 1307 the end came, for Clement V suppressed the whole order.'* The site of the Dominicans had become too confined for their increasing numbers, and the approach was very narrow and subject to overflow of the waters. Accordingly they negotiated with success to acquire the abandoned plot of the Sackites, licence being granted by Edward II in October, 1307, to the Friars Preachers of Norwich to hold that plot of land in the city which the Friars ' de Penitentia ' formerly held in chief by " Kirkpatrick, ReRg. Ord. o/Nottv. 17. " Cited bv Kirkpatrick (7, 8) from the original in the Guildh.iil. " Libente R. 56 Hen. Ill, m. 2. '* Rot. Elem. Reg. 1 7 & 1 8 Edw. I. '" Liberate R. pro regina, 19 & 20 Edw. I. " Re/if uary (new ser.), vol. iii, 164. " Anct. D. A I 1569. " Kirkpatrick, Re/ig. Ord. o/Noixi 96-104. 428
