Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/407

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES There are two impressions as well as casts of and a flower in the right hand ; the background the fine thirteenth-century seal (3^ in. X 2 in.) is diapered. Legend : — of this priory in the British Museum. The seated Virgin, with nimbus, holds the. Holy sigillum ; prioris ; et conventus : mona- Child, with cruciform nimbus, on the left knee, Chorum thetfordie.' HOUSE OF CISTERCIAN NUNS 20. THE ABBEY OF MARHAM A papal mandate was granted in May, 1290, This abbey of Cistercian nuns was founded °" ^^^ petition of Queen Eleanor, to the abbot by Isabel, widow of Hugh de Albini, earl of (b'sliop) of Norwich to appropriate to the prioress It was dedicated to the honour of the Arundel Blessed Virgin, St. Barbara, and St. Edmund, on 27 January, 1249, by Richard, bishop of Chichester. The original endowment was the lands of the foundress at Marham, together with the manor and all its services ; they were granted for the good of the souls of William Earl Warenne and Surrey her father, of Maud her mother, daughter of William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, of Hugh her husband, and of all her ancestors and successors. On St. Bartholomew's Day, 1252, this nunnery, with the sanction of the pope and the bishop of Norwich, was formally incorporated into the abbey of Waverley, the firrt and mother-house and convent of Marham the church of Stow Bedon, with the consent of the bishop and dean and chapter.^ In March, 1 291, a further mandate was received by the abbot to at once proceed in this appropriation, notwithstanding that in former letters the word ' prioress ' had been written in error for that of ' abbess ' and ' dean and chapter ' for ' prior and chapter ' in the clause requiring their consent to the said appropriation.' In consequence of the smallness of its endow- ments, the abbey was excused payment of tenths at the time of the taxation of 1291. In November, 1302, licence was granted for the alienation in mortmain by John de Warenne, of the Cistercian order in England ; the nunnery ^^""^ °^ Surrey, to the abbess and nuns of Marham, making an offering to Waverley of four marks °^ the advowson of the church of Dudlington," and a cask of wine.' On 3 September of the same year the gifts of the foundress were con- firmed by Henry III, and they received further confirmation at the hands of Isabel's brother, John, Earl Warenne.^ Walter, bishop of Norwich, in 1^51, with the consent of the prior and con- vent of West Acre, and of Nicholas, vicar of the churches of the Holy Trinity and St. Andrew in Marham, licensed this house to have free sepul- ture in their own church by their own priests, and right to say mass and perform divine service there, on condition that none of the parishioners of the two churches were admitted to any sacra- ment or were buried in the conventual church. There was also a special reservation of the rights of the parochial churches in case of strangers desiring burial in the abbey church. The prior and convent of West Acre were rectors of the two parish churches. The advowson of the church of Carleton St. Peter was given to the convent by the foundress, with an acre of land there ; the rectory was appropriated and a vicarage ordained in 1274. ' Annaks de IVaverleia (Rolls Ser.), ii, 34-5. scribed and the charters transcribed in a chartulary or register of the abbey, references to which are given in Blomefield, vii, 384-93. This chartulary, of seventy-four folios, is preserved at Stow Hall, Norfolk; a short analysis of it is given in Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iii, 251. The subsequent information in this sketch is taken from the chartulary, where no other reference is given. 2 369 and the abbess and convent obtained leave m 1327 to appropriate the church of Hackford, which was already in their patronage through the gift of Sir Andrew Hengham. The church was valued at {^ 6j. %d'' The advowson of the church of Rockland St. Peter was confirmed to the abbey in 1 346 by Sir Constantine Mortimer, and leave obtained by the bishop for its appro- priation three years later. In the following year they also received the appropriation of the church of Rockland All Saints.* In 1385 the abbess and nuns received grants from Richard Holdyche and John Clenche- warton of the manor of ' Beleter,' in Marham, and of 160 acres of land, forty of meadow, and lOJ. in rent, of the yearly value of ten marks.^ The Valor of 1535 returned the gross annual value of this small abbey as ^^42 45. ']d. and the clear value ^^39 o;. d. A papal indult was granted in 1354 toEgidia Howard, nun of St. Mary's, Marham, to choose a confessor who should give her, being penitent, plenary remission at the hour of death.'" The chartulary contains a mortuary list from 14OI to 1453, with sixteen names of lay persons ' Add. Ch. 26785 ; Cott. Ch. xxi, 40 ; B.M. xix, 47. ' Pat. 31 Edw. I, m. 46. ' Ibid. I Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 16. ' Ibid. 21 Edw III, pt. I, m. 32. ' Cal. of Pat. 9 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 20. '" Cal. Papal Reg. iii, 533. ', 530. 47
 * The found.ition and incorporation, &c., are de-
 * Cal. Papal Reg., ii. Mbid.