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 THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF RUTLAND The religious houses of Rutland were few and of small importance. There was indeed no independent monastery built in this county after the Conquest : the small priory of Brooke, for Austin canons, being only a cell to the priory of Kenilworth. The Benedictine monks of St. Georges de Boscher- ville had a cell at Edith Weston from the 12th century till the end of the 14th. Only three hospitals, at Tolethorpe, Great Casterton, and Oakham, can be traced, though there are doubtless others of which no record remains. A college at Manton, founded by Sir William Wade in 1356, completes the number of religious foundations, the short-lived college at Tolethorpe being treated as a refoundation of the hospital. The manors of Manton and Tixover were given by King Henry I to the abbey of Cluny about 1 130 ; but they were always held directly by the abbot, and leased by him to seculars until the time of their confiscation by Henry V in 1414.^ No priory was ever built in connexion with either of them. HOUSE OF AUSTIN CANONS I. THE PRIORY OF BROOKE The lands which formed the first endowment of the priory of St. Mary at Brooke were granted to the prior and canons of Kenilworth early in the 1 2th century, probably during the reign of Stephen and before 1 153, by Hugh de Ferrars, then lord of the manor of Oakham.^* His grant was confirmed by his brother William and his nephew Walkelin : and the latter, who was ' The history of these manors may be clearly traced through Sir George Duckett's Charters and Records of Cluni. With the manors of Letcombe Regis, Berks., and Offord Cluney, Hunts., they were reckoned as de mensa abbatis Cluniacensis, after the priories of the order in England. Richard II issued letters patent to the abbot's tenant in 1 397 to hold them in the same w.iy that they had hitherto been held ; but in 1 40 1 they were seized by Henry IV, with other property of aliens, and never restored. Negotiations and letters passed for several years between the abbot and the king, in the hope that a sale might be effected : but no terms could be arranged agreeable to both parties, and the manors were finally confiscated in 1414. The Cluny records are supported by Hund. R. (Rec. Com.), ii, 49, which states that the manors were the gift of Henry I to Cluny, and were held in 1276 by Humbert de Montferaud from the abbot. afterwards lord of Oakham, has in consequence sometimes been called the founder.^ It was a small priory from the first — Cellula de Broke it is often called in the Episcopal Registers — and only intended to support three canons. The priors were instituted by the Bishops of Lincoln, who had the right to visit the house. Its history during the 13th and 14th centuries is not very edifying. Priors were sent quite regularly from Kenilworth, but the poverty of the house made them wishful to resign on very small excuse ; and the continual change of management did not tend to improve matters. Bishop Wells held a •^ Harl. MS. 3650 (Chartul. of Kenilworth) fol. 17 d. 75. The gift of Hugh de Ferrars is also referred to in Pat. 17 Edw. IV, pt. ii, m. 17. The date of the original grant must certainly be earlier than 1167, when, according to the Pipe Roll of that year, Walkelin de Ferrars had already succeeded his uncle as lord of Oakham. But it is probably earlier than 1 1 5 3, for the name of '. . . de Novoburgo ' is joined to that of Walkelin in the confirmation charter. The reference can scarcely be to anyone else than Roger de Newburgh, who died 1153. He had been lord of Oakham under Hen. I. (See Wright, Hist, of Rut. 95, and Diet. Nat. Biog.). '' Dugdale, Mon. vi (i), 233. 159