Page:VCH Norfolk 2.djvu/469

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES tlie service ot l^d. yearly, subject to providing reasonable sustenance for William de Hoc, a friar of the latter order.' Hence the king was acknow- ledged as the founder of the second Norwich house, his successors as royal patrons. Sanction for this new foundation was speedily forthcoming from Clement V. In 1 3 1 7 Pope John XXII confirmed to the Friars Preachers of Norwich the grant made to them by Clement V (1306-14) of the place for- merly occupied by the Friars of the Sack (Saccitarum), according to the ordinance of Thomas, cardinal of St. Sabina's.^ The Friars Preachers obtained in 1 3 10 licence to acquire land adjoining their dwelling, whereon to erect a church and other buildings, and also to enlarge their cemetery and cloister.^ Fortified by this grant and by various benefactions of small plots of contiguous lands, the friars proceeded to erect a large church, dedicated to the honour of St. John Baptist, on the site of the smaller one pertaining to the Sackites, and to provide conven- tual buildings for the accommodation of sixty religious. To house and provide for so large a number required yet further extensions, and further donations of adjoining houses were made by the faithful. The friars also strained their rules by purchasing others at some little distance. The citizens took alarm at this appropriation of so many houses in their midst, and urged that the king should not permit this without the usual inquisition and royal licence. Therefore the crown seized the distant messuages, and returned the purchase money of /^6o to the friars. In 1345 an inquest was held at Norwich as to any damage that might accrue from the friars holding the lands in their custody. A verdict favourable to the Dominicans was returned, and a royal pardon was therefore granted for all contraven- tions of mortmain, with licence to retain all they then held.* In the course of the next few years they built another and yet larger church. 'In all likelihood, the old church was then or soon afterwards con- verted into the library, leaving, however, intact the large groined-roof crypt, which was the chapel of St. Thomas a Becket, with its altar.' During a royal visit to Norwich in January, 1325— 6, there was a pleasant interchange of gifts. Edward II gave an alms of I Js. 8d. for a day's food for the fifty-three friars then in residence, and on the morrow they presented him with fifty-three apples. Edward III when passing through Norwich in 1328, repeated the same alms for a like number of religious. On 4 May, 141 3, a grievous fire broke out at ' CaL of Pat. I Edw. II, pt. i, m. 14. Inq. a.q.d. file 66, No. 9. ' Cal. Papal Reg. ii, 162. ' Cal. of Pat. 4 Edvi'. II, pt. i, m. 25. pt. i, m. 3. ' Reliquary (new ser.), vol. iii, 169. Norwich, and consumed the greater part of the city. Ths house and church of the Dominicans, with all their contents, were destroyed, and two of the friars perished in the flames.^ The friars were now thankful that they had retained their old house and church across the water, known as the Black Hall. There they continued until 1449, when they returned to their newly built convent and church.' The church was restored on a magnificent scale between 1440 and 1470, mayors and other leading citizens vying with one another in the generosity of their gifts. There were two gilds attached to this church, the gild of St. William mentioned in 1 25 1, and the gild of the Holy Rood in 1527.* Edmund Harcock, one of the last of a long series of Dominican priors of this house, preached a long sermon on Easter Monday, 1534, before the mayor and aldermen of the city, taking for his text the words from the Psalms, Ohscurentur oculi eorumy ne videant. The mayor, on his coming down from the pulpit, took him to task for alleged political allusion, and afterwards sent for him, to which summons there was no response. Thereupon the ex-Friar Richard Ingworth, who was then at Norwich on his visitation for reducing all friars to the royal supremacy, arrested Harcock, and made him write out an abstract. This abstract was sent to Cromwell on i May, with a request to know what was to be done with the prisoner ; Harcock, who had already accepted the supremacy, was alarmed, and offered to submit himself to correction. Sir Roger Townsend was ordered by Cromwell to arrest the prior and bring him before the council.' Apparently he made good his case, for he returned as prior to Norwich. About a year later Harcock was again in trouble. When preaching at St. Leonard's-without-Nor- wich, on Ascension Eve, 1535, he said in his prayer, ' Ye shall pray for our Sovereign Lord King Harry, of the Church of England chief head so called.' This sentence, together with an equivocally worded extract from his sermon, was sent up to London to the council.'" What was his fate cannot now be discovered, but at all events, he ceased to be prior. The priory was suppressed by Ingworth in November, 1538. On 5 September the mayor and council foreseeing the suppression of the friars, besrged Cromwell to secure for their use the Black Friars, which was in the midst of the city." A fortnight later the Duke of Norfolk wrote to ' Walsingham, Hist. Angl. 385. ' Blomefield, misunderstanding the terms of the royal licence of 1449, wrongly concludes that they had been again driven out by fire from their old site. ' Kirkpatrick, Relig. Ord. ofNoru-. 39. ' L. and P. Hen. VIII, vii, 237, 270. The abstract of the sermon is extant (Misc. Bks. [Exch. T.R.], fol. 23). "• Ibid, viii, 254. " Ibid, xiii (2), 144. 429
 * Inq. a.q.d. 19 Edw. Ill, No. 17; Pat. 19 Edw. Ill,