Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/403

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES furnishing a full statement of accounts. The number of the brethren was twenty-two.* The Cluniac visitors of 1275-6 were at Thetford on the third Wednesday in Lent. They found twenty-four brethren all living with sufficient regularity save Ralph the cellarer, whom they found guilty of incontinency. The visitors expelled him and sent him to do penance at a distant convent. They also removed another brother for injuring a college servant. The liabilities of the house were 804 marks, and there was also a debt under the chapter's seal of 400 marks to the convent's patron, the Earl Marshal.2 In September, 1279, the priory was visited by the French prior of Mont-Didier and the English prior of Lenton. They reported that Prior Vincent, who found thirteen monks there on his appointment, had increased the number to twenty-two. They all led commendable lives, and the divine offices were regularly and devoutly conducted. The buildings were in good repair, and the church and cloister exceptional for beauty and workmanship. There was a sufficiency of goods until the next harvest. The debt of the house was 500 marks when the prior took it over, although his predecessor, Prior Thomas, affirmed that the liabilities did not ■exceed 400 marks. The prior had taken in hand the repair of the conventual buildings and the erection of new granges, on which ^Tioo had been already spent. The visitors expressed themselves in warm terms of the worthy character of the prior, whose praise was in everyone's mouth. The house was, however, much embarrassed and crippled by the residence there of the advocate (a^vocatus), brother of the Earl Marshal, who cost the house more than the whole convent and prior.' This advocate, or avou(§, was John the brother of Roger Bigod, fifth earl of Norfolk, the patron of the house, who succeeded to his honours in 1270. In May, 1281, Vincent, prior of Thetford, and the sub-prior of Lewes, were appointed to act as vicegerents for John, prior of Lewes, during his absence beyond the seas.* On 6 September of the same year the prior of Thetford obtained protection for his own absence across the seas until a fortnight after Easter.' Vincent, prior of Thetford, on 16 March, 1287, nominated Henry de Henham his fellow- monk, and Guy de Holbeach to act as his attorneys until Michaelmas, as he was going be- yond the seas.' The same prior on 22 January, ' Duckett, dart, and Rec. of Cluni, ii, 122-3. ' Ibid. 127. ^ Ibid. 142-3. 'Advocate' is sometimes used in monastic records as an interchangeable term for •* patron.' ' Pat. 9 Edw. I, m. 7. ' Ibid. 15 Edw. I,m. 12. 1291, obtained protection during a year's absence across the seas,^ and on 4 March of the following year the prior again obtained leave of absence until Michaelmas, appointing attorneys.* On the death of Prior Vincent about the beginning of the fourteenth century, considerable dispute arose as to his successor, which resulted in an appeal to Rome. In April, 1301, the pope directed the prior of Holy Trinity, York, in conjunction with two continental ecclesiastics, to hold an inquiry into the cause relative to the priory of Thetford, subject to the abbot and convent of Cluni, by whom their prior had hitherto been appointed. The convent of Thet- ford, wishing to withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of Cluni, elected by the procurement of the Earl of Norfolk one of their own monks, Reginald de Montargi, or de Eye, as prior, and his election was confirmed by the bishop of Norwich. Reginald resisted the abbot of Cluni, and went so far as to imprison and ill-treat certain monks sent by the abbot to publish the process against the prior and convent of Thetford, relying on the power of the bishop, John Bigod, clerk, and Roger his brother. Earl Marshal, patron of Thetford, to defend his position. The abbot's proctor on this occasion was Thomas de Mountargys, a monk of Lewes, who came to Norwich to lay his case before the bishop, apparently before he confirmed the election of Reginald. While Thomas was sitting in the cemetery of Norwich Priory reading over his instruments, Roger Bigod, earl of Norfolk, and a number of his friends came and seized him, carried him out of the cemetery against his will, and set some thirty men to guard the gate and prevent his re-entering. The monk then tried to seek refuge in the cemetery of St. George's church, but two of the earl's men came up and beat him and cut off part of his hood and assaulted a bystander who remonstrated with them, so that the monk fled in fear to the church of the Friars of the Sack, and his pursuers came in after him and shut him up in a room within the friars' house and kept him there till late the next afternoon, after the time fixed by the bishop for hearing his case had passed.' Cluni then petitioned Boniface VIII in the matter, and the pope ordered his com- missioners, if the above allegations were true, to upset the bishop's action, to deprive the intended prior, to release the imprisoned monks, and to warn John Bigod and the Earl Marshal to desist from interference. If this order was disobeyed all parties were to be cited before the pope.'" The result of this appeal could not have been favourable to Prior Reginald, for in 1302 Ralf de Frezenfeld was appointed prior by the abbot of Cluni.** » Ibid. 20 Edw. I, m. 18. " Cal.PapalReg:,-s'^-l. " Martin, Hut. of ThetforJ, 158. ' Ibid. 19 Edw. I, m. 20 ' Assize R. 1234, m. 39. 3^5
 * Cal. of Pat. 9 Edvv. I, m. 1 9.