Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/368

 A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 5, THE PRIORY OF YARMOUTH ^ Bishop Herbert, the founder of the great church of St. Nicholas, Yarmouth, associated with it a small priory of Benedictine monks, which he made a cell of the cathedral priory at Norwich. The parish service was performed by three chaplains and a deacon, who were nominated by the prior. This priory was so entirely dependent on Norwich, its accounts being included in those of that cathedral priory, that the references to it are scanty. The taxation of 1 29 1 mentioned that the prior of Yarmouth held lands, rents, and a marsh at Thornton of the annual value of 9;. In the Valor of 1535 the spiritualities of the Norwich Priory at Yarmouth are returned at ^31 lOJ. ^d. In 1349 Simon de Halle, of Great Yarmouth, left by will 2s. to each monk of the Yarmouth Priory ; in the same year Thomas de Drayton left a like sum to the prior and is. 6d. to each of the three parish chaplains.^ The dean and chapter of Norwich held the priory and its possessions at the dissolution, as the successors of the cathedral priory; in 1 55 I they leased the priory and parsonage of Yarmouth to Robert Sowel for the term of eighty years. There are various points of interest in the account rolls of the Yarmouth cell preserved in the treasury of Norwich Cathedral. The first one, for 1355—6, gives the sum of the receipts as jTzia 2s. lid. One of the largest items was j^33 51. 6d. as the offerings in the popular chapel of St. Mary on the west side of the churchyard. The offerings at the image of St. Nicholas and others in the great church amounted to 93J. ^d. The customary altar oblations brought in the large sum of ;^62 6s. ^d. The expenses of the year, however, considerably exceeded the receipts, being ;^235 5/. The roll of 1442 shows ^^15 iix. as the oblations at the four- principal feasts, together with Easter dues. Oblations and masses for the dead produced ;^i I os. lo^d. ; marriage offer- ings, 60s. lid.; and purification offerings, 47^. id. In 1451 the sum of 8j. iid. occurs among the expenses as the charges incurred for the castigation and reforming in the church of Yarmouth of those who fought against the citation of the lord bishop. At the visitation of Norwich Priory in 15 14, Henry Langrake, prior of Yarmouth, was examined by the bishop as to the state of his cell ; he said it was in good repair and not in debt, and that he annually produced his account before the prior and auditors.^ John de Hoo occurs as prior about 1400.* ' Blomefield, op. cit. xi, 365 ; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 465 ; Taylor, Index Monastkus, 10, II. ' Swinden, Hist, of Tarmouth, 818. ' Jessopp, Norw. Visit. 72. 6. THE ABBEY OF ST. BENET OF HOLM In a solitary spot among the marshes, at the junction of the Rivers Bure and Thurne, a little company of Saxon monks or recluses, under the government of one Suneman, as early as the year 800, erected a church or chapel, dedicated in honour of their patron St. Benedict ; but in the general devastation of this district by the Danes in 870, the fraternity were scattered and their buildings destroyed. In the following century a holy man named Wolfric, with seven companions, reoccupied the site, and rebuilt the church with houses for their accommodation.* They had lived here for some sixty years, when the attention of Cnut was drawn to them by alleged miraculous interven- tion. The king took the recluses under his patronage, and in the year 1019^ founded here an abbey of black monks of the rule of St. Benedict, bestowing on them the manors of Horning, Ludham and Neatishead.' In the first of these three manors, about thirteen miles from Norwich, was the site of the abbey. The king's example of munificence was followed by many Saxon nobles and men of wealth, amongst whom we find Ralf, ' the Staller ' and Edric, the king's steersman, whose names are familiar from the pages of Domesday, and the still more famous Edith ' Swanneshals.' The privileges and possessions of the abbey were considerably extended by Edward the Confessor in 1046. Among the possessions enumerated in the Con- fessor's charter were the twenty-eight churches of Horning, Tunstead, Neatishead, Belaugh, Hove- ton, Wittistede, Horning, Thurgarton, Thwaite, Calthorpe, Erpingham, Antingham, North Walsham, Swanton, Scottow, Lamas, Lud- ham, Beeston, Stalham, Somerton, Winterton, Waxham, Thurne, Ashby, Caister, Bastwick, Ranworth, and St. Martin, Shotesham. From the enumeration of the extensive abbey property, which lay entirely in Norfolk, as given in the Domesday Survey, it appears that the money value of the different estates had materi- ally increased between the time of the Confessor and the date of the survey, though, owing to the prominent part taken by its abbot in resisting the ' Dugd.ile, Mot. i, 282 3, 'from Brompton MS. in Bibl. Cotton, fol. 7 d.' ^ Certain chroniclers have dated Cnut's founda- tion after his return from Rome in 1 031, but this is impossible from the known dates of the witnesses. The year 10 1 9 is the date given in the Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes (Rolls Ser. 19), himself a monk of Holm, and this date exactly tallies with the wit- nesses. ' Cott. MS. Galba E, ii, fol. l. A full analysis of the contents of this fine chartulary is given in Dug- dale, Mon. iii, 66-79. Where no other references are given the statements in this sketch are taken from this chartulary. 330
 * Exch. Eccl. Docs. 3, 27.