Page:The Victoria History of the County of Lincoln Volume 2.pdf/113

Rh century witnessed the capture of this county by the Cistercian order; the rule of Bishop Alexander saw the rise of five Cistercian abbeys: Kirkstead and Louth Park in 1139; Revesby founded in 1142 by William de Romara, earl of Lincoln; Vallis Dei, or Vaudey, in 1147; and Swineshead in 1148 while Cistercian nuns found a home at Stixwould, in the early years of the same century. Houses of Austin Canons were founded at Grimsby or Wellow in Henry I; at Thornton in 1139; and at Nocton and Thornholm during the reign of Stephen. This order had in all in Lincolnshire eight houses for men and a priory of nuns at Grimsby. The Arrouasian reform of the order was represented at Bourne.

The first English house of Premonstratensian Canons was founded at Newhouse about 1143, Barlings Abbey following in 1154; ultimately they had in this county five abbeys for men and a priory of nuns at Orford.

The Gilbertine order, the only order of English origin, was founded at Sempringham by St. Gilbert of Sempringham in 1139, under the favour and patronage of Bishop Alexander. Of the twenty-six houses of this order existent in England, eleven were situated in Lincolnshire, and eight of these were founded in the reign of Stephen. Sempringham, the original house, was followed by Haverholme and Bullington, Alvingham, Sixhills, Cattley, and Nun Ormsby. St. Catherine's Priory without Lincoln was an early foundation of Bishop Robert de Chesney; Tunstall was founded before 1164, and Newstead and Holland Brigg followed later.

The Carthusians had a priory in the isle of Axholme. Templars and Hospitallers both had preceptories, and all the orders of friars were found in the county. The number of hospitals existing in the thirteenth century was probably very large, though the names of only twenty-two can as yet be recovered. Three collegiate churches were founded in the fourteenth or fifteenth century.

It has been said that the solitary life was specially congenial to the inhabitants of the North of England. We are not surprised therefore to find frequent mention, in the episcopal registers and elsewhere, of hermits and recluses in Lincolnshire. St. Guthlac and St. Pega had numerous followers of humbler rank as long as the religious life was honoured in England. We hear of hermits at Thimbleby Moor, Asfordby, Saltfleethaven, Freiston, and Burreth during the thirteenth century; of John, the son of Geoffrey of Knaresborough, who was a recluse by the church of Carlton in Moorland in 1346; of Emma of Stapleford, a recluse by the chapel of St. Peter at Grantham in 1339; of Parnel de Wotton, a recluse by Thornton Abbey Church in 1367, of Beatrice Frank, a nun of Stainfield, who became an anchoress in a cell by Winterton church in 1435, and of Emmota Tonge, similarly enclosed by the church of St. Paul, Stamford, in the same year. These are but a few instances out of many that a more diligent search might discover.