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 A HISTORY OF LONDON and gave alms ; and he empowered the prior to choose six priests to hear confessions on these occasions.^* The priory, however, seems to have plunged deeper and deeper into debt. When the bishop of London visited the house in 1433," he found its affairs seriously embarrassed through extrava- gance and bad management : its income was about ;^500, and it owed much more than this sum, annual pensions and corrodies alone amount- ing to £iOJ. Decided measures were necessary if the priory was ever to be freed from its obli- gations, and the bishop, at the request of the convent, took the financial administration for the time being entirely out of the hands of the prior and convent, and appointed his commissary to receive all the revenues, rendering an account twice a year to the convent in the presence of Walter Shuryngton, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster. To the prior was assigned a sum of j^20 for his maintenance, to each canon lOO^., and to each cleric 48^. 4^., while small amounts were also allotted for pittances and as provision in case of sickness. Beyond these expenses and an allowance of ;^40 for repairs to property, the whole income of the house was to be devoted to the payment of debts. At the end of the fifteenth century there was some ill-feeling between the priory and the City, and in consequence the drapers and tailors of London determined not to take booths in the precinct at the time of the fair.*"' William Bolton, who became prior about 1506, made extensive improvements to both priory and church.^^ He had evidently great talent as a builder, and was appointed master of the king's works by Henry VIIL'^ At the chapter of the order in 1 5 1 8 the excuse made and accepted for his absence was the royal busi- ness ; the same reason might possibly have been offered for his neglect to fulfil the office of visitor in the diocese of London, but in this case he was fined j{^ 10.*^' Apparently his capacity lay all in the one direction, as when Wolsey tried to secure the see of St. Asaph for him in 15 18, the king refused on the ground that though masters of the works had been promoted before, it had been not for their skill in building, but for other qualifications, ^ Cal. Pap. Letters, vi, 151. " Doc. of the D. .ind C. of St. Paul's, A. box 25, No. 645. ^ Rec. of the Corp. of Lond. Repert. i, fol. 38. " Stow, Surv. of Lond. (ed. Strype), iii, 225. In I 517 the priory was exempted from the payment of the two-tenths to the crown, owing to the great expense of rebuilding the conventual church. Lond. Epis. Reg. Fitz James, fol. 121. '' He held the post in April, 1 5 18, L.and P. Hen. VIII, ii, 4083 ; and payments to him occur from Feb. I 5 19, ibid, iii, p. 1534. <" Cott. MS. Vesp. D. i, fol. 68. such as profound learning.** For some years before he died in 1532 he was very infirm,** and his death was expected in 1527 when the friends of William Fynch, the cellarer, offered to con- tribute £2)^0 to Wolsey's college at Oxford if the cardinal would help Fynch to obtain the post. It is evident that outside influence was of great importance in elections at this time, for in 1529 another candidate was soliciting Cromwell's support,*' and Robert Fuller, abbot of Waltham, who finally obtained the priory in commendam^ promised Cromwell to recompense him largely for his favour.*' The orthodoxy and the conduct of the canons must have been considered unexceptionable, or otherwise the judges of John Tewkesbury, on con- demning him for heresy in 1531, would not have sent him to this monastery to remain there until released by the bishop of London.™ It is certain, however, that Prior Robert was always prepared to adapt his views to those of the king in re- ligious matters, for the compliance of the prior and canons can be read in the terms they secured when the priory was surrendered in October, 1539 : '^ Fuller received a life grant of most of the property of the priory ; " to the sub-prior was assigned an annual pension of ^^ 1 5 ; to each of ten canons one of ^^6 13J. d. ; and to two others one of ^^5 each. The pensions also seem to have been paid with great regularity.* The number of inmates shows a great decrease from that of earlier times: in 1 1 74 there had been thirty-five canons in the priory,'' and there were twenty in 1381,'* thirty years after the depopulation caused by the Black Death. The officers of the house included sub-prior, cellarer, sacristan, infirmarer, refector, and chamberlain." The income of the house in 1291 appears to have been about ^^152,'* of which more than half was derived from property in London." At " L. and P. Hen. VIll, ii, 40S3. " Ibid, xiii (l), 260. °° Ibid, iv, 3334. ^' Ibid, iv, 54:0. ^ Ibid. V, 1207 (24). *' Ibid, v, 1044. '"Ibid, v, 589. " Ibid, xiv (2), 391. " Ibid, xvi, p. 715. The manors in Essex, Hert- fordshire, and Middlesex, the fair, and the buildings in London except the chief messuage of the priory, which was in the tenure of Sir Richard Riche. ^ Ibid, xiv (2), 391 (2). "Aug. Off. Misc. Bk. 249, fol. 16, b, 20, 20^, 23, 231J ; ibid. 250, fol. zxb, 22, 23, 23^, 24, 24^, 28^, zb, 32, 324 34^, 353. " Cott. MS. Vesp. B. ix, fol. ^^b. '^ Lond. Epis. Reg. Braybrook, fol. 264. " Cal. of Chart, and R. in. Bod/. Lib. 163. " The reckoning h.is been made from the Taxatio for the diocese of London in Harl. MS. 60, fol. 6, 17, 26, 28, 39> 42, 59' 67. 73. 78, 81, 82, 86, 87, with the addition of property in other dioceses given in Po/>e Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.). " Spiritualities, ^^8 8/. id. and temporalities, £jo os. 8d. 478