Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub
[graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small]

APGRAVE (Vit. S. Alban, ff. 8. 6.) and Hospinian (de Origine Monochatus, 1. 4, c. 3.) attribute the introduction of Monachism into Britain to Pelagius the heresiarch, circiter 1000.-DR. SAYERS, p. 217.

Monasteries.

THE tenants paid to the Abbot of Furness certain wheat, barley, oats, lambs and sterke, for the rent of their tenements.

Certain bread, ale, and beer was delivered and allowed weekly out of the said monastery, unto certain of the tenants that paid provisions: and certain iron was delivered and allowed yearly by the said late abbot unto the same tenants,-and the same bread, beer, ale and iron was in part of recompence of the said provisions, so by the said tenants paid,-by force of some composition and agreement, and not of benevolence nor devotion.

The beer or ale was in barrels or firkins containing ten or twelve gallons apiece, or thereabouts, and worth about ten pence or twelve pence a barrel or firkin at that time, -i. e. just before the dissolution. Some

had better beer or ale, and some worse, as their duty was, and some was worth a penny a gallon, and some worse.

With each barrel a dozen of loaves of bread was delivered, every dozen worth at that time six pence.

They were supplied with manure also,worth two pence the load, or fudder.1

The iron was for the maintenance of their ploughs and husbandry. The abbey distributed yearly among its tenants eleven or twelve bands of the said livery-iron, every band weighing fourteen stone, every stone fourteen pound, and at that time worth eight pence a stone.

The tenants which paid provisions, paid only when they were admitted tenants, one penny, called a God's penny, and no other fine.

And thereupon they were sworn to be true to the king and to the monastery.

The children of the said tenants and their servants have come from the plough or other work to the abbey, where they had dinner or supper, and so went to their work again. They were suffered to come to school and learning within the monastery.

1 In the North this means "the load of a two horse cart." It is a pure Anglo-Saxon word, and is used by Chaucer. Commonly it is only applied to lead.-J W. W.

The tenants had wood and timber in the woods thereabouts, for the sufficient reparation of their houses, and other necessaries, which was allowed and livered to them, at the sight of the officers or sworn men appointed for that purpose.

One witness deposed that the tenants, their families, and children, did weekly have and receive at and out of the said monastery, of charity and devotion, over and besides the relief and commodity afore rehearsed, to the value of forty shillings weekly.

They had also hedge boote, hay boote, plowe boote, and other necessaries, and liberty to get whins and brakes (fern) to their own use. (Ferns are much used in baking oatmeal cakes, and heating the ovens. The smoke of dry fern is no way offensive, and does not stain the bread, "therefore it continues to be in great request in Furness.")

The children had meat and drink for one meal a day, at the monastery, whenever they came to school.

The sustentation, relief, and commodity which the tenants received for their children weekly "of charity and devotion" from the monastery, was estimated as worth thirty or forty shillings a week at least.

At the dissolution the domestical provisions were rated and set down to a certain yearly rent, and the king, and his heirs and successors, were discharged of all sustentation, reliefs, and commodities that the tenants before that time received and enjoyed.

They paid also after the dissolution, for every fine on admission, double their rent.

This appears from the Interrogatories on the cause between John Boograve, Esq. Attorney Gen. for the Duchy of Lancaster, and the tenants of Low Furness, 25 Eliz. 1582.-WEST'S Antiq. of Furness. Appendix, No. viii.

"HAD the Monasteries been dissolved in Henry V.'s reign, when the Bill was brought

This

into Parliament for that purpose, it would have been more regularly and justly conducted than in an after reign; that by this would all have reverted to the parish churches, and the clergy would have gained as much by it as the government. appears from the sequel, that when the king, instead of the English monasteries, had only the alien priories given him, he seized on no part of the tythes, but on the lands and tenements that were before of lay fee, and might justly return into lay hands. These too he intended to have employed for breeding up a more learned clergy, declaring it was his design to found a college of divines and artists, and to settle upon the said college the lands of the alien priories dissolved, if he had not been prevented by death."-KENNET's Case of Impropriations, p. 109.

"In the first act of dissolution there was a saving to the interest of strangers, travellers, and poor, by binding the new possessors of any site or precinct of the religious houses, to keep or cause to be kept, an honest continual house and household in the same site or precinct."-Ibid. p. 123.

"IN a preamble written by the king's own hands to another act, it was declared to be an intent that the endowments of monasteries might be turned to better use, God's word better set forth, children brought up in learning, clerks nourished in the Universities, and exhibition for ministers of the Church. Divers of the visitors themselves did petition the king to leave some of the religious houses for the benefit of the country, and Latimer moved that two or three might be left in every shire for pious uses. I have seen an original letter from Latimer to the Lord Cromwell (Cleopatra, E. IV. fol. 264), to intercede with the king that Malvern Abbey might be left standing, for the better performance of the duties of preaching, praying, and keeping hospitality."-Ibid. p. 126.

"Los Summos Pontifices en los Motus | kingdom,-but their easy leases reduced Proprios que tratan de la clausura de las this to one tenth in value. Monjas, mandan dispensar con ellas en uno de tres casas, que son guerra, fuego y epidemia, entendiendo por epidemia, la perniciosa, qui es la peste. Yo ansi lo entendi siempre, y ansi respondi a algunas personas que preterdian salir de sus monasterios para se curar de enfermedades que no eran peste."-DR. AMBROSIO NUNEZ, ff. 3.

[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

"THE monks well knew how impossible it was to preserve peace betwixt two bodies of ecclesiastics having property contiguous to each other, and therefore wisely provided in most of their grants that neither their feoffees nor tenants should lease, or alienate, to Jews, nor to any religious house save their own."-SURTEES' Durham, vol. 1, p. 42.

1429. "SIR ROBERT UMFREVILL, Knt. of the Garter, founded the Chantry of Farnacres, near Ravensworth, where two chaplains were regularly to officiate' according to the use of Sarum,' and perform service for the souls of the founder and all his

kith, kin, and kindred, and all the knights of the Garter, and all former owners of the manor of Farnacres. The chaplains to have bed and board constantly under the roof of the chantry, and to renew their apparel, consisting of a sad and sober vest, sweeping to their heels (veste talari), once in two years. No female to be admitted, either as a servant or otherwise, within the chantry, and the chaplains not to exercise the office of bailiff, or any other secular employment; quia frequenter dum colitur Martha, expellitur Maria. But each chaplain had two months' leave of absence annually." --Ibid. vol. 2, p. 243.

THE chantry was the favourite offspring of a childless old age, "Dierum meorum relliquias recolligere, et deficientes ætatis fragmenta reponere, ac terrena in cœlestia transitoria in æterna, felici communio desiderans commutare-vespertinum offero sacrificium, non matutinum.”—Ibid.

"I FORGET where," says SURTEES, "is to be found a very picturesque account of a little monastery (Woolsthorpe ?) in Lin

ACCORDING to Harmer (Dodwell?) the|colnshire, of which the Superior and his six monasteries held about one fifth of the monastics maintained themselves in a very

primitive way by husbandry, assisted their | royaumes, que le pays, ne le peuple ne s'en

[blocks in formation]

York and Lancaster Age.

OUR civil wars were carried on with more courage and less cruelty than those of our neighbours. 1" Or selon mon advis," says COMINES (Coll. Mem. t. 11, p. 481) "entre toutes les Seigneuries du monde dont j'ay connoissance, ou la chose publique est mieux traitée, et ou regne moins de violence sur le peuple, et ou il n'y a nuls edifices abbatus, ny démolis pour guerre, c'est Angleterre, et tombe le sort et le malheur sur ceux qui font la guerre."

And again, p. 498, "Cette grace a ce royaume d'Angleterre, par dessus les autres

Macaulay uses the same illustration. See Hist. of England, vol. i. p 36.-J. W. W.

destruict point, ny ne bruslent, ny ne demolissent les edifices, et tombe la fortune sur les gens de guerre, et par especial sur les nobles, contre les quels ils sont trop envieux: ainsi rien n'est parfait en ce monde."

LOUIS XI. pensioned all Edward IV.'s great officers, and was proud of having their receipts to show that such persons were in his pay. Hastings, however, would sign no receipt, though he took the money. See COMINES, Coll. Mem. vol. 12, pp. 8-11.

50,000 crowns a year were spent among these persons in bribes.—Ibid. p. 12.

"LORENZO DI MEDICI's factors. "Leurs serviteurs et facteurs ont en tant

de credit sous couleur de ce nom Medicis, que ce seroit merveilles a croire a ce que j'en ay veu en Flandres et en Angleterre. J'en ay veu un appellé Guerard Quanvese presque estre occasion de soustenir le Roy Edouard le quart en son estat estant en grant guerre en son Royaume d'Angleterre, et fournir, par fois audit Roy plus de six vingts mille escus, ou il fit peu de profit pour son maistre, toutesfois il recouvra ses pieces a le longue. Un autre ay veu, nommé et appellé Thomas Portunay, estre pleige entre ledit Roy Edouard, et le Duc Charles de Bourgoyne, pour cinquants mille escus, et une autre fois en un lien, pour quatre vingts mille."-Ibid. t. 12, p. 171.

TURNER, I think, attributes too much to

religious differences in this period. It is very likely that the struggle between the two houses prevented a religious war; but I can perceive no indication that religious opinions were in any degree connected with the struggle, except in the dethronement of Richard II.

"QUAND Italie sera sans poison, France sans trahison,

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

There was policy in naming his son Arthur, as gratifying the feelings and even the superstition of the Welsh. The remark of the old chroniclers which Turner ridicules (113), shows this.

His mother a most excellent woman. 113. 4 N.

On Lambert Simnel's appearance Henry had the bull in his favour read again in the churches, and all his enemies excommunicated.-116.

The Duchess Margaret of Burgundy was called his Juno.

134. The Pope complains of his applying the strong hand of law to the clergy.

135. Necessity of reforming their man

ners.

In Formâ pauperis-the poor allowed to plead.

Game laws originate in this reign.-Statute, 581.

Unlawful hunting.-Ibid. 505.
Unlawful games.-Ibid. 569.

169. Butchery forbidden within walled towns.-Ibid. 528.

Depopulation.

Attempt to regulate the prices of labour -it failed.

Heads of the law exempt from military service.

Qualifications of Jurors diminished to 108.-Statute, 590.

Jurors to be prosecuted by writs of attaint for untrue verdicts, where the value exceeded £40.

Actions on the case.-Statutes, 584, 588. 171. Navigation laws. Ibid. 2, 502.

For the reasons.-535.

Statute, 506. A law of Edward IV. this. 172. Silk manufacturers and fishermen encouraged by prohibitions.

Standard weights and measures, according to Magna Charta.-Statutes, 551, 570. Itinerant pewterers and braziers forbidden, to prevent thieving.-Ibid. 651.

HALL.

451. Benevolences-designed to favour the people-who in fact were feared. Evils arising from maintenance, i. e. the

136. Bull in 1489 granted for reform- protection which great men afforded to ing the monasteries.

159-60. His feelings respecting church promotion, which if duly acted upon would alone have wrought a real reformation.

165. Blackstone wrongly characterises his laws.

166. Star Chamber intended for summary justice.

Murders the people (as now in Italy, &c.) would not arrest the murderers.-Statute, 511.

their dependants-one cause for the Star Chamber.-Statutes, 2, 509.

Abduction made felony.-Ibid. 512. Maximum of woollen cloth. No one to retail a broad yard of woollen cloth of the finest making scarlet, grayned what colour soever it be, above the price of 16 shillings a broad yard; any other colour out of grayne, or any maner of russet of the finest, not above 11s.-Ibid. 533.

Ely named among the principal towns

167. Vagabonds-police. - Ibid. 569. for business.-Ibid. 518. Note the prelude.-656.

168. Alienation of estates facilitated.

Price of hats and caps. "Hatmakers and Kapmakers doth sell their hats and

« НазадПродовжити »