Page:VCH Bedfordshire 1.djvu/459

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES The countess was herself buried at Chick- sand ; and the wife of Geoffrey Fitz Piers, the heiress of the Mandevilles, was at first laid in the same church, though she was afterwards carried to Shouldham Priory. 1 Simon de Beauchamp and his son William confirmed the gifts of Payn and Roais. 2 The priory was well endowed, and able at first to support a large number of canons, nuns and lay brothers — perhaps as many as a hundred ; but after a succession of bad seasons (which were felt with almost equal severity at Dunstable and other religious houses of the neighbourhood) its resources were so much diminished that in 1257 ^^)' of the nuns and ten lay brothers had to be dispersed among other houses of the order. 3 The priory of Chicksand did not recover its prosperity for a very long time. In 1307 4 the nuns received a grant of forty acres of land in the neighbourhood, and the whole manor of Chicksand was confirmed to them ten years later ; 6 but they were neverthe- less in very heavy debt at the time and con- tinued to be so for a good while after. In 1309 6 the prior of Chicksand, William de Hugate, borrowed 100 marks from the prior of Newnham, but this was only a small item. Another prior, John, in 1324 7 acknowledged a debt of 400 marks to a merchant of Florence ; and not long after he owned himself to be under a bond for 3,300 gold florins, for which he was obliged to demise to his creditor for life the manor in Meppershall called 'the chapel of St. Thomas,' with the grange of Haynes, for £200 a year ; besides selling two sand. Whereupon she gathered a band of armed retainers in great haste and came up with the train, and ordered it to proceed at once to Chicksand. But early the next morning the servants of the earl turned the bier the other woods, and granting the fruits of the church of Haynes for seven years. 8 Simon his pre- decessor had demised to the same creditor, a merchant of Genoa, the manor of Wolver- ton, Bucks. 9 An agreement was made by which the alienation of the property in Haynes and Meppershall was to be averted by the payment of £1,200 I0 in instalments; and it seems that this sum was finally paid, 11 for the grange of Haynes and manor of Meppershall were still a part of the property of the priory at the dissolution. But the whole convent was in sore straits for many years. Four times 12 between 1340 and 1347 the prior was obliged to sue for a remission of the tenths due to the king ; on the first of these occasions he pleaded that all his lands, manors and churches were in the hands of creditors, and that his brethren and sisters knew not how to live, although many of them had been sent away already to other houses of the order ; and the second pardon was granted on the ground that the religious were so poor that they were unable to give alms or carry on any of their ordinary works of charity. In the midst of this distress came the great pestilence ; its effects on this par- ticular priory are not known, but it must in one way or other have made matters worse, and it is probable that the number of canons and nuns at Chicksand was never again so large as in the early part of the thirteenth century. During the last hundred years of the priory's existence its material prosperity seems to have been restored in some measure ; but the deed of surrender gives the names of only eight canons and eighteen nuns. 13 Of the internal history of the convent from 1 150 to 1535 scarcely a trace remains. In 1324, the time of their great poverty, the king placed one of his wards under the charge of the nuns of Chicksand ; 14 from which we way, and drove it triumphantly to Walden before may. gather that they, like other religious of she could prevent it. As soon as the body was safely laid before the altar in his church, the abbot sent word to Roais, and kindly invited her to the funeral ! This is on the authority of the Walden Chronicle, but the dates of the death of the two Geoffreys are taken from Round — Geoffrey de Mandeville. The energetic character and strong personality of this lady may account for the tra- dition which made her foundress also of Newnham Priory, especially as the real founder, her son Simon, was very young at the time when he trans- lated there the canons of St. Paul's. 1 Leland, /ft'w. i. 116, and Dugdale, Mon. vi. 975. 2 Dugdale, Mon. vi. 950. 3 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iii. 205. 4 Inq. ad q. d. I Edw. II. n. 95. 6 Pat. 10 Edw. II. pt. ii. m. 29. 8 Harl. 3656, f. 77. 7 Close, 17 Edw. II. m. 22d. strict enclosure, took boarders from time time for the support of the house. At the s Ibid. 18 Edw. II. m. 4. ° Ibid. 1° Ibid. " An instalment of £300 was paid at the time of the agreement. 12 Close, 4 Edw. III. m. 24 ; ibid. 5 Edw. III. pt. 1, m. 1 ; Pat. 9 Edw. III. pt. I, m. 14; Pat. 11 Edw.III.pt. 3, m. 28. " Deed of Surrender (P.R.O.), No. 56. 1* Close, 17 Edw. II. m. 15. Three daughters of the Mortimer family were placed in three different Gilbertine monasteries, with an allowance accord- ing to their ages. For the youngest, Isabel, the prior of Chicksand was to receive lid. weekly, and a mark yearly at Michaelmas. 391