Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/280

 272 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April the prior caught four monks at dead of night sealing blank parchments with the abbey seal, which they had secured with the connivance of the abbot. Even after this he was not deposed ; the bishop was content to re- quire that the blank parchments should be surrendered, and the names of any on whose behalf fraudulent deeds had been executed be given up. Bardney is the only abbey where the politics of the day cause disturbance. It is complained that a Taylboys, a young layman who lives with the abbot, uses violent language to the younger monks and threatens them with his knife, whilst the monk who has chief influence with the abbot is accused of prophesying that Lord Treasurer Cromwell will ' sweep the ground and be shortened by the head '. Taylboys of Kyme was a chief opponent of the treasurer and a supporter of the Suffolk faction. His fortress and the treasurer's new castle at Tattershall are about six miles apart across the fen, and each is twelve miles or so from Bardney. It looks as though the main body of the monks, in opposition to their heads, were incipient Yorkists. One of the suggestions made to the bishop for the restoration of Bardney was that its business affairs should be put into lay hands. This course had been taken at the Austin house of Dorchester. It was heavily in debt, and with the consent of the convent a layman, William Marmion, had undertaken the management. All expenses had been cut down, and for many purposes a fixed-allowance was made. But Marmion was a strange steward for a religious community. He lived in the house, in which, and at its expense, he maintained sixteen greyhounds and five horses. His lay associates had free access to the place, to the destruction of discipline. Whether the capital of the debt diminished does not appear ; pawning of the plate went on, and corrodies were granted to Marmion among others. The canons lived like laymen, neglecting their services and abandoning their common life. Their morals were what might be expected of bachelor sportsmen under no religious influence. The bishop's injunctions show that he believed the allegations. But his sentences were wonderfully mild. The abbot, who was no better than the rest, was not deposed ; one canon, defamed with a woman and in the bishop's judgement guilty, was to be confined to cloister and to silence for a week, and on the eves of the Blessed Virgin for the next six months was not to wear his shirt. Four years later, in 1445, the number of canons had fallen from eleven to eight. The state of the house had not improved ; the abbot and Marmion were retained in office. Other abbeys were in no better order. At Humberstone there were five apostates, one of whom had become a mendicant. There were charges of disorderly life and neglect of rule, and secrets revealed in tavern talk. The brawling in chapter was so loud that it could i)e heard by the public outside. The financial state was bad. Rents had been anticipated. Seven corrodies had recently been granted. Here and elsewhere ten years' purchase or less seems to have been the rate of these annuities, most of which were payments to non-residents. With all allowance for the short- ness of medieval life, this seems an improvident bargain. Canons' Ashby was another house which had thus injured its future. Daventry also was demoraUzed. The prior was among those defamed for his life, and had