January
1131-1540 A.D. Dunstable
Priory—Augustinian Priory; Norman
Architecture; Declaration of Nullity of
Henry VIII’s Marriage—in Lady Chapel of Conventual by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer
& Bishops, 23 May 1533; Prior
Surrenders to Henry VIII for Annual Pension of £60
Wiki-offerings below, but appears to be taken directly from: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=40038. British
History Online. N.d. Accessed 23 Oct
2014.
Dunstable Priory
From Wikipedia,
the free encyclopedia
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The
Priory Church, Dunstable
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The
Priory Church of St. Peter, Dunstable
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United Kingdom
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Website
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History
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Founder(s)
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King Henry I
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Architecture
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Bruce Deacon
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Administration
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Dunstable
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Clergy
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Revd Richard Andrew
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The Priory Church of St Peter with its monastery (Dunstable Priory) was
founded in 1132 by Henry I for Augustinian Canons in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England.[1] St Peter’s today is a large and impressive
building, but this is only the nave of what remains of an originally much
larger Augustinian priory church. The monastic buildings consisted of a
dormitory for the monks, an infirmary, stables, workshops, bakehouse, brewhouse
and buttery. There was also a hostel for pilgrims and travellers, the remains
of which is known today as Priory House. Opposite the Priory was one of the
royal palaces belonging to Henry I, known as Kingsbury.
The present church and Deanery
form part of the Archdeaconry
of Bedford, located within the Diocese of St
Albans. It became a Grade I listed building on 25 October 1951.[2]
Contents
Architecture
Dunstable Priory Church in winter
St Peter's is one of the best
examples of Norman
architecture in England. It was built in the form of a cross with a great tower at the
crossing and with two smaller towers at the west end. It took 70 to 80 years
before the church was complete. Ten years later a storm destroyed much of the
front of the church. The damaged part was rebuilt in Early English style. The west front has a huge entrance
consisting of four arches (1170–90) above a later 15th century doorway. The
entrance is decorated with diaper pattern and stiff-leaf moulding providing
relief for a profusion of small arches. To the south west of the church is the
15th century gateway, a reminder of the long vanished priory. The old west
doors still show the marks of shots fired during the English Civil War.
Inside the church, the
highlight is the intricate 14th century screen, with five open bays. The roof
is a sympathetic restoration dating from 1871 of the Perpendicular original. There are several funerary monuments and
floor brasses. Among the possessions of the church is the Fayrey Pall, a
15th-century embroidered cloth.[3]
History
The Augustinian priory of
Dunstable was founded by Henry I about the year 1132, and endowed by him at the same
time with the lordship of the manor and town in which it stood. Tradition says
that the same king was also founder of the town, and had caused the forest to
be cleared away from the point where Watling and Icknield Streets crossed each other, on account of the robbers who
infested the highway. However this may be, he certainly granted to the priory
all such liberties and rights in the town of Dunstable as he held in his own
demesne lands. His charter was confirmed by Henry II, who also granted to the prior and convent the
lordship of Houghton Regis; and before the reign of Richard I a great many of the churches of the neighbourhood
had been granted to the priory by different benefactors, as many as thirteen,
besides the chapel of Ruxox, in the county of Bedford, with Cublington, North Marston and half Chesham, Buckinghamshire, and Higham Ferrers with half Pattishall, Northamptonshire. Several of these gifts were disputed before the century
was out, but most of them were retained by the priory throughout its existence.[4]
Bernard, the first prior of
the house, was closely associated with the introduction of Austin Canons into England, for he had accompanied his brother
Norman (afterwards prior ofSt.
Botolph's, Colchester, and then of Holy Trinity, London) to Chartres and Beauvais, in Anselm's time, to learn the rule of St.
Augustine, with a view to introduce it into England.[4]
13th century
At the beginning of the 13th
century, in the year 1202, Richard de Morins, a canon of Merton, became prior of Dunstable, and
with his election the priory entered upon the most interesting period of its
history.[4] From 1210 he took over as Dunstable's chronicler.[5] He was evidently a man of very varied interests,
and considerable capacity for affairs. Before he had been prior a year he was
dispatched on the king's business to Rome; and it was probably owing to his
influence that the lordship of Houghton Regis, with other gifts, were confirmed
to the priory in 1203. So far as we know, he only went abroad once again, when
he attended the Lateran
council of 1215, and
remained afterwards in Paris for a year to study at the University; but the annals show that he maintained all
through his life a keen interest in the affairs of Europe and the East. In 1206
he was made a visitorfor all the religious houses of the diocese of
Lincoln (except those of the exempt orders), by the authority of the papal legate; in 1212 he was appointed by the pope to preach
the cross in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire, and in the same year was commissioned to make an
estimate of the losses suffered by the clergy and the religious in the diocese
through the exactions of King John. In 1223 and 1228 he was made visitor to his
own order, first in the province of York, and afterwards in the dioceses of
Lincoln and Coventry; and last of all, in 1239, when he must have been quite an
old man, he helped to draw up and submit to the pope an account of the
difficulties between theArchbishop of
Canterbury and his suffragans on the subject of visitation. During his term of office,
in the year 1219, he secured the right of holding a court at Dunstable for all
pleas of the Crown, and of sitting beside the justices itinerant at their
visits to the town: a privilege which brought him into less happy relations
with the townsmen, and may have helped to hasten their revolt against his
authority in 1228. He also successfully established the right of his house to
Harlington church in 1223. The priory was twice visited byHenry III. during the time of Richard de Morins: once after
the siege of Bedford Castle, and again in the midst of the troubles connected
with the burgesses, whom he attempted to pacify, at the prior's earnest
request.[4]
In spite of the losses under
King John and the difficulties with the burgesses, the priory seems to have
enjoyed greater prosperity at this time than at any later period of which we
have a clear account. In 1213 the conventual church was dedicated by Bishop Hugh of Wells, a great concourse of earls and barons, abbots and
priors, assisting at the ceremony. The lordship of Houghton Regis, though lost
for a while in 1212, was recovered in 1226; and the gift of the church of
Bradbourne in the Peak, with its chapels and lands, provided a maintenance for
three canons, and formed a kind of cell to the priory, besides increasing its
income. The death of Richard de Morins in 1242 was followed immediately by
heavy losses. In 1243, 800 of the sheep belonging to the priory in the Peak
district died, and a succession of bad seasons led to great scarcity; Henry de
Bilenda, the cellarer, upon whom so much depended, was incapable or
untrustworthy, and in 1249 fled to the Cistercians at Merivale, rather than render an account of his
stewardship. By 1255 the canons not only had no corn to sell, but not enough for
themselves; they had to buy all their food at great expense, for two years
after this; so that the Friars Preachers, when they arrived in 1259, were even less welcome
than they would have been at any ordinary time. When Simon of Eaton became
prior in 1262, he found the house 400 marks in debt, and all the wool of the
year already sold.[4]
But in spite of the pressure
of debt and poverty, which was not diminished during his term of office, the
prior was as much interested as his predecessors had been in the course of
public events. Like most of the clergy and religious of the period, he was in
sympathy with Simon de Montfort, whom he looked upon as the champion of the
Church; and in 1263, when the earl visited Dunstable, the prior went out to
meet him, and admitted him to the fraternity of the house. In 1265 a council
was held at Dunstable to consider the possibility of peace with the defeated
barons, and the king and queen visited the house in the course of the year; but
though Simon de Montfort had been there quite recently, and the sympathy of the
prior with his cause could not have been altogether a secret one, no fine was
imposed upon the priory on that account.[4]
In 1274 a long and expensive
suit was begun between the prior and convent of Dunstable and Eudo la Zouche,
who had become lord of Houghton and Eaton Bray by his marriage with Millicent
de Cantelow. Eudo refused to recognise the rights of the prior (established not
only by charter, but by long custom) to a gallows and prison in Houghton; he
released one of his men from the prison and overthrew the gallows. Under the
next prior, William le Breton, the gallows was restored; but Eudo still refused
to recognise the prison as the prior's right, and presently erected a gallows
of his own. The dispute went on for some years, and, after the death of Eudo,
was continued by his wife Millicent until the year 1289, when it was finally
decided in favour of the prior. The poverty and difficulties of the house went
on increasing, although great efforts were made, after the deposition of
William le Breton and other officers of the monastery in 1279, to curtail
expenses and get in ready money for the payment of debts. Corrodies and chantries were granted to several persons, manors and
churches were let out to farm, and in the year 1294 the usual allowance for one
canon was made to serve for two. It was just at this time that the king was
asking for subsidies for his Welsh war. By an accumulation of misfortune, in
the same winter the outer walls of the priory had collapsed in the wet weather,
and their hayricks had been destroyed by fire; and the tithes due to the Hospitallers from North Marston church were in such long arrears
that a new arrangement had to be made to pay them off. In 1295 the house at
Bradbourne was so poor that all the wool produced there had to be granted to
the support of the three brethren who served the church and chapels. The later
pages of the annals are a long story of poverty and struggle to get clear of
debt; and the continuous narrative ends dismally enough with the account of the
expenses of the installation of John of Cheddington, which amounted (with the
addition of the debts of the previous prior) to £242 8s. 4d.[4]
14th to 16th century
Of the fourteenth century
there are only a few scanty notices, the only events told at any length being
those connected with the Peasants' Revolt in 1381, when the prior, Thomas Marshall, appears
by his courage and moderation to have saved his own house from serious loss,
and his burghers from punishment. In 1349 an attempt was made by Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, and marshal of the kingdom, to prove that the prior held his lands by barony;
but the jury which was summoned at that time declared upon oath that the lands
had always been held in pure and perpetual alms. Henry VI visited Dunstable in 1459, but there is no record
of his relations with the priory; its history during the fifteenth century is
not recorded in any way. But in the sixteenth century it was again connected
with an important historical event, when on 23 May 1533, in the Lady Chapel of
the conventual church at Dunstable, Archbishop Cranmer together with and the bishops of Winchester, London, Bath and Lincoln pronounced the marriage between Henry VIII and Catherine of
Aragon to be null and void. The location arose as Catherine was then residing
at nearby Ampthill, some 12 miles to the north. In 1535 the prior, Gervase Markham, with
twelve canons, signed the acknowledgement of the Royal Supremacy, and on 20 January
1540-1, he surrendered his house to the king and received a pension of £60.[4]
The smaller English religious
houses had been dissolved by Act of Parliament in 1536, and the church and
priory at Dunstable were closed down in January 1540. The prior and the twelve
canons were granted pensions and given dispensations to serve as secular
priests. The great church and the buildings of the priory were initially kept standing
intact, since it was intended to create a see at Dunstable, with the priory church as its
cathedral. However, the scheme for the creation of new bishoprics fell through
after a few years and the beautiful church (with the exception of the parochial
nave) shared the fate of the monastic buildings, being plundered of all that
was valuable and left in ruin.
There were only thirteen at
this time besides the prior at the time of the dissolution; eleven canons and
two lay brothers; in the early days there were probably more, though never a
very large number. Between the years 1223 and 1275 only twenty-five admissions
to the novitiate are recorded, and thirteen deaths; but the entries
were perhaps not always made with equal care, and the entrance of lay brothers
was not noticed at all. Besides the religious there were a number of other
inmates of the priory; a 'new house for the carpenters and wheelwrights within
the court' was built in 1250; there was accommodation also for the chaplains of
the monastery, and for boarders who had bought corrodies, as well as pensioners
in the almonry. The porter of the great gate was sometimes a secular, unlike
the custom of Benedictine houses.[4]
Visitations
There can be no doubt of the
good order of the house during the time of Richard de Morins; he would scarcely
have been chosen twice to visit other houses unless he had ruled his own with
care and diligence. During his forty years of office canons of Dunstable were
at least five times elected priors to other monasteries of the order—at Caldwell, St.
Frideswide's, Ashby and Coldnorton. Bishop
Grosseteste visited the house once in 1236, not so much to inquire into the daily life
of the priory as to investigate its title to several appropriate churches; but
he exacted an oath on this occasion from all the canons individually, and one
of them fled to Woburn rather than submit to it. The bishop came again in
1248, while Geoffrey of Barton was prior; when the cellarer, accused by many,
fled before his coming to Merivale; but he does not seem to have found fault
with the convent in general, and his next visit in 1250 was for purposes of his
own. Archbishop
Boniface came in 1253, but made no complaint. In 1274 Bishop
Gravesend sent a canon of Lincoln to visit Dunstable, who left his corrections in
writing; and in Advent of the same year he made a personal visitation. In November 1279 Bishop Sutton came and discharged his office 'strictly and without
respect of persons.' The sub-prior and certain others were removed from their
charge, and forbidden to hold office in future, and certain 'less useful
members' of the household expelled; in May of the following year he deposed the
prior, William le Breton, from all pastoral care. It seems most likely that
these depositions were on account of mismanagement rather than for any personal
failings; the great necessity and heavy debts of the house called for stringent
measures, and William le Breton had shown himself (like Abbot Richard of Woburn
in a similar case) unable to meet the difficulty. There is no sign of any other
grave faults having been committed, nor of anything like luxurious living. The
new prior, according to the bishop's advice, set himself to limit the expenses
of the whole house and assigned a fixed income to the kitchen for the future;
the deposed prior had a proper maintenance assigned to him at Ruxox. The canons
seem to have borne no ill-will to Bishop Sutton for his corrections, and were
ready on his next visit to their church (which was made not officially but only
in passing) to praise him for his excellent sermon. Other visitations of his
are mentioned in 1284, 1287, 1288, and 1293; the last was only to confer
orders. Archbishop
Peckham came in 1284, but found all well ('as the bishop had been there quite
lately,' the chronicler naively remarks); and Archbishop Winchelsea in 1293. The only serious charge that could be laid
to the door of the canons all through the thirteenth century was their
inability to keep clear of debt; and the record shows that this was often quite
as much their misfortune as their fault. There are many incidental remarks of
the chroniclers which serve to show that the tone of the house was thoroughly
religious, and that the canons were faithful in keeping their rule. It will
suffice to instance, early in the century, the generous treatment of the two
young canons (one only a novice), who escaped by night through a window and
went to join the Friars Minor at Oxford. They were indeed solemnly excommunicated and
compelled to return; but after they had done their penance in the chapter house
and had been absolved, they were allowed a year to consider the matter, and if
after that time they preferred the stricter order, they were granted permission
to depart; if not, they might remain at Dunstable. A good deal later than this,
in 1283, the apologetic way in which the chronicler relates how the prior went
out to dinner with John Durant is sufficient to show that the ordinary rules
and customs of the order were not commonly broken.[4]
During the fourteenth century
there were several visitations. There is no notice of any by Bishop Dalderby; but he commissioned the prior of Dunstable in
1315 to visit the nuns of St. Giles-in-the-Wood in his name. Bishop Burghersh in 1322 wrote to order the prior and convent to
take back a brother who had been on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and asserted that he did so with the permission of his superior; and a
little later the prior was cited for refusing to obey this injunction. In 1359 Bishop Gynwell, passing by the priory, noticed 'certain
insolences and unlawful wanderings' of the canons, and wrote to reinforce the
rule that none should go beyond the precincts of the monastery without
reasonable cause, nor without the permission of the prior; and ordered further
that such permission should not be too frequently given. He also reminded them
of the rule that none should eat or drink outside the monastery, or talk with
seculars without permission.[4]
In 1379 Bishop Buckingham confirmed an important ordinance of Thomas
Marshall, setting apart certain funds for the education of one of the canons at
Oxford. The prior alludes to the poverty of his house, which was so great that
were it not for the help of friends they would not be able to live decently and
honestly, and religion would be diminished. Hitherto there had not been enough
canons nor enough money to set apart one for special study; but the prior now
wished to do so (partly out of the profits of a chantry established by his own
family), 'seeing the advantage of learning and the necessity of preaching, the
priory being a populous place where a great number of people come together.'
All this certainly points to a satisfactory state of the priory under Thomas
Marshall, and accords well with what we know of his character from other
sources.[4]
Bishop Grey's injunctions are the only notice that we have of the
internal history of the priory during the fifteenth century; they do not
indicate any special laxity, and only repeat the usual orders as to silence,
singing of the divine office, the unlawfulness of eating and drinking after compline, going to Dunstable or having visitors without permission. And so again at
the very end, just before the dissolution, the silence of Bishop Longland, and the king's choice of the priory for the
solemn announcement of his divorce from Catherine of Aragon, constitute an
indirect evidence in favour of the house. On the whole the priory of Dunstable
shows a very good record in the matter of discipline and order, with only a few
lapses.[4]
Endowments
The original endowment of the
priory was, as already stated, the lordship of the manor and town of Dunstable;
to which was added under Henry II. the lordship of Houghton Regis, (fn. 84) and
under John, the king's house and gardens at Dunstable. The manors of Stoke and
Catesby, and of Ballidon in the Peak, are mentioned in the annals as the
property of the priory during the thirteenth century. In 1291 the tithes of St.
Peter and St. Cuthbert, Bedford, Dunstable, Studham, Totternhoe, Chalgrave,
Husborne Crawley, Segenhoe, Flitwick, Pulloxhill, Steppingley, Harlington,
Higham Ferrers, Newbottle, Cublington, a moiety of Great Brickhill, Pattishall
and Bradbourne belonged to Dunstable Priory, with pensions in other churches.
The temporalities at this time were only valued at a little more than £50; the
annals of the house state the total income in 1273 as £107. The knight's fees
attributed to Dunstable in 1316 were half a fee in Husborne Crawley and
Flitwick, and another half in Pulloxhill, with some small fractions besides;
they are practically the same in 1346 and 1428.[4]
The valuation of the whole
property of the priory in 1535 amounted to £344 13s. 4d., the first report of
the Crown bailiff to £266 17s. 6¾d., including the manors of Studham, Wadlow,
Stokehammond, Gledley, Grimscote, Catesby and Shortgrave, and the rectories of Studham,
Totternhoe, Pulloxhill, Harlington, Husborne Crawley, Flitwick, Segenhoe,
Bradbourne, Newbottle, Pattishall and Weedon.[4]
Priors of Dunstable[edit]
Priors of Dunstable were:[4]
- Bernard.
- Cuthbert.
- Thomas, occurs 1185, resigned 1202
- Richard de Morins, elected 1202, died 1242
- Geoffrey of Barton, elected 1242, resigned 1262
- Simon of Eaton, elected 1262, died 1274
- William le Breton, elected 1274, deposed 1280
- William de Wederhore, elected 1280, resigned 1302
- John of Cheddington, elected 1302, died 1341
- John of London, elected 1341, resigned 1348
- Roger of Gravenhurst, elected 1348, died 1351
- Thomas Marshall, elected 1351, died 1413
- John Roxton, elected 1413, resigned 1473
- Thomas Gylys, elected 1473, resigned 1482
- Richard Charnock, elected 1482, resigned 1500
- John Wastell, elected 1500, died 1525
- Gervase Markham, elected 1525, surr. 1540
Common seal
The seal of the priory used in
the fifteenth century (round and large) represents St. Peter seated, holding
the keys in the left hand, and the right raised in benediction. Legend:
SIGILLUM ECCLIE SC . . PET . . LE.[4]
The seal of Prior William de
Wederhore (affixed to a document dated 1286) is the same as above; the
counter-seal has a king and a saint (very indistinct), each standing under a
crocketted canopy, the prior kneeling in prayer below. Legend: . . . . ILLUM
WILLELMI PRIORIS DE . . .[4]
See also
References
1.
Jump up^ http://www.galaxy.bedfordshire.gov.uk/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.digitised_resources/dunstable_digitisation_az_topic_priorychurch.htm
3.
Jump up^ Jones, Lawrence E. (1965) A Guide to Some Interesting Old English
Churches. London: Historic Churches Preservation Trust; p. 9
4.
^ Jump up
to:a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Page, William; Doubleday, Herbert Arthur,
eds. Houses of Austin canons: The priory of Dunstable in The Victoria History of the County
of Bedford: Volume 1, 1904, pp. 371–377
Notes
- This article incorporates text from The Priory of Dunstable, in The Victoria History of the County of Bedford: Volume 1, 1904.
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