The collection of documents here printed for the Royal Historical Society almost necessitates, by way of introduction, some account of the Order of Prémontré, the history of which in England they do much to illustrate. It was founded in the early part of the twelfth century by St. Norbert, who was born in 1080 at Xante, in the Duchy of Cleves. His father was Count of Gennep, and his mother a cousin of the Emperor Henry IV. He was educated in the household of Frederick, archbishop of Cologne, and in his early years he seemed to possess an inclination to the ecclesiastical state. For this reason, whilst yet a youth, in accordance with an abuse of church patronage unfortunately too common in those days, he was presented with a canonry in his native city, and at the earliest possible age was ordained subdeacon. He was at this time called to the court of his kinsman the Emperor, Henry V, and for a period acted as his almoner. Being attracted by natural disposition to the gaieties of the world, he hesitated for some years to enter the higher grades of the sacred ministry, and it was not until his thirtieth year that he retired from court in order, in the strict retirement in the abbey of Conon, to prepare for the sacred ministry. As the immediate result of his reflections he resigned his canonry and other ecclesiastical preferments and in 1118, embraced a life of complete poverty, so that he might thereby the better devote his life to the work of preaching the Gospel to the poor. The folliwng year, 1191, he presented himself to Pope Callixtus II, who was then at Rheims presiding over a Council, and obtained the pontiff's general approval of the form of life he hoped to establish. At Rheims he made the acquaintance of Bartholomew Viry, bishop of Laon, who invited Norbert to found his first house in his diocese; and St. Bernard, in order to second the desire of the bishop, offered a solitary valley in the neighbourhood for the purpose. This lonely and desolate spot in the forest of St. Gobain promised all that the saint desired; and here, by the side of a stream and near to the ruins of an ancient chapel, the bishop of Laon, having built the first house of the new Order, on Christmas Day 1121 gave the white habit of the Canons Regular to Norbert and some forty companions. The monastery thus founded became known throughout Europe as Prémontré, and for many centuries was the mother-house of the Order, called after it the Premonstratensian Order.
From the time of its establishment the new Foundation grew by leaps and bounds. Even in the lifetime of Norbert himself it is said that at Prémontré alone more than five hundred people followed the rule he had given them, and thirty years after the first foundation nearly a hundred abbots of the Order assembled in General Chapter at the head house. St. Norbert destined his followers for the work of preaching to the poor, and his design was to mould them for that ministry by the practice of strict conventual life. He gave them the rule of the Augustinian Canons with some slight modifications; for example, he desired that the superior should always receive the abbatial dignity, wherease with the Augustinians, although some of the greater houses were ruled by an abbot, in most instances the superior was only a prior.
It is worth remarking that the canons of Prémontré were apparently the first to conceive the idea, afterwards so largely developed by the mendicants of the thirteenth century, of uniting lay men and women to them by a formal aggregation in what was known as 'a third Order,' with a share in all the prayers and privileges of the brethren. Those associated, though not bound by the strict obligations of the religious life, still, whilst engaged in their secular employments, followed a mitigated observance somewhat akin to that of the canons themselves. At Prémontré also and elsewhere there were established in the vicinity of the abbeys convents of women, called canonesses, much on the lines subsequently adopted by the Gilbertines. Indeed, during the life of the founder, many of the monasteries were double houses, only divided by the enclosure wall, and before his death the canonesses are said to have numbered many thousands. St. Norbert's successor, however, in 1197, ordained in the General Chapter that the houses of the canonesses should henceforth be in distinct places, so that the common form of double monasteries never obtained in this country, and the only two establishments of English canonesses of the Premonstratensian Order which came into existence had no connection with any other abbey of men.
The first monastery of Premonstratensian canons to be established in these islands was in Scotland, whither King David in 1125, during the lifetime of St. Norbert, brought a colony from Prémontré. In England itself the first abbey was founded at Newhouse, in Lincolnshire, the community being furnished from the abbey of Licques, near Calais. Within a quarter of a century Newhouse became the parent of Alnwick (1147); St. Agatha's Easby (1152); Welbeck (1153); Barlings (1154), and Sulby or Welford (1154). In another fifty years or so the same abbey of Newhouse had sent out six more colonies: namely, Croxton (1172); Parndon in Essex (1172), afterwords removed to Beeleigh, near Maldon (1180); Tupholme (1190); Newbo (1198); Dale, otherwise called Stanley Park (1204), and Coverham (1212). In 1195 Alnwick placed a daughter-house at Langley, and in 1200 St. Agatha's did the same at Eggleston. Welbeck, destined to be the most important of all the English houses, commenced to throw out its branches in the last quarter of the twelfth century. Its first colony was placed at Hagnaby (1175); and six others followed in succession: Leyston/Leiston (1183); Beauchief (1183); West Dereham (1188); Torre (1196); Durford (circa 1217), and Halesowen (1218). Sulby too, had by this time established one daughter-house at Lavendon (circa 1175), and Croxton three, namely, Blanchland (1190), Cockersand (1193), and Hornby (circa 1200); whilst Shap or Heppa in Cumberland was the creation of Blanchland (circa 1200), within a few years of its own foundation. Prémontré itself was directly responsible for the foundation of two English houses: St. Radegund's, and Bayham in Sussex (1200). To the above we must add an offshoot from Leyston/Leiston, namely Langdon (1183); Titchfield (1231), from Halesowen; Wendling (1267), from Langley; and the cell of Dodford, belonging to Halesowen. To complete the list of English Premonstratensian foundations, it is only necessary to name the two convents of canonesses of the Order at Broadholme in Nottinghamshire and Irford/Orford in Lincolnshire.
It may be useful here to give a chart of the various descents mentioned above, which was drawn up by Francis Peck, and appears in his collections in the British Museum, Add. MS. 4934 f. 5:
Up to the present time the information available for the history of the Order in this country and for the particular history of the individual houses has been scanty and disappointing. The great collection of documents for the history of the Norbertine canons generally, published by Le Paige in 1633, contains practically notheing in its report to the branches of the Order in England, and although some county histories, like that of Leicestershire by Nichols, or some monographs on particular houses, like Addy's Beauchief, contain some scattered documents of interest and importance, there has been no collection relating to the English Premonstratensian Order hitherto available for students. The documents now for the first time printed, of which the present installment forms the first of two volumes, add very materially in every way to our knowledge of the general government of the Order, as well as giving many details regarding each particular house of the English province.
The papers for these Collectanea Anglo-Praemonstratensia are drawn from two sources:
Documents printed from the first are designated throughout this volume as P., those from the second, or Ashmole volume as A.
The Museum Transcript:
This forms part of the collection of the antiquary Francis Peck, the well-known author of the Desiderata Curiosa. The five volumes (Add. MS. 4934 to Add. MS. 4938) now in the British Museum were intended as a continuation of Dugdale's Monasticon. The first two of the five quarto volumes relate exclusively to the Premonstratensian Canons, and consist of 181 and 231 leaves respectively. They were meant to form in print the first portion of the 'Supplement' to Dugdale, and are called by Peck (MS. 4934, fol. 1), Monasticon Anglicanum, Supplementis novis adauctum, vol. 1.
Peck's sources for this proposed volume were three:
He divides his collection into three parts:
With regard to the Croxton documents, a considerable portion of them has been published in Nichol's History of Leicester, vol. ii, part i, appendix, pp. 77-104, and much of the remainder has been used and translated in various parts of the same county history. The present Collectanea are concerned, therefore, only with sections i and ii: the documents in MS. 4934 and MS. 4935 which Peck copied out, apparently about the year 1733, from a certain Registrum Premonstratense, which, although systematised and arranged, is obviously fully transcribed.
The Museum became possessed of these Peck transcripts in a very simple manner. Upon the death of the antiquary, most of his manuscripts were purchased by Sir Thomas Cave. These monastic collections were placed by him in the hands of Dr. Andrew Gifford, one of the sub-librarians of the British Museum, for examination and arrangement. At the beginning of the first of these five volumes (MS. 4934) Dr. Gifford has inserted a memorandum, dated 14 May 1779, setting forth how they found their way into the national library. Having put them in order for Sir Thomas Cave, Dr. Gifford, recognising their value for English monastic history, pressed Sir Thomas to allow them to remain among the Museum collections. He could however, obtain no definite promise from their owner, and had to be content with a reply to the effect that 'probably some time or other they would come' to the library. For many years they remained under Dr. Gifford's care at the Museum, but in the year 1777, the owner called for them and took them away. Sir Thomas died the year after their removal, and his son, in answer to the librarian's renewed request that these collections might be given to the nation, handed them over to him. Dr. Gifford's opinion as to their worth is recorded in the note already mentioned. "They are," he says "a most valuable and almost inestimable collection. If the gentlemen at Rome, who have been some years composing the history of the Premonstratenses, knew of them, doubtless they would consult and insert them, having made great inquiries after them some years ago." [1]
Unfortunately, Peck does not give any indication of the pladce where the Registrum Premonstratense thus transcribed and arranged by him was preserved. This is all the more strange inasmuch as in his other collections he is usually most careful to give the name of the owner of every manuscript he copied. In this case, however, although the exact folio of the Register is always carefully noted - so carefully indeed, that it is possible to re-arrange the MS. according to its old plan - still, no indication is given anywhere by which to discover where the original was to be found even in Peck's time, still less, of course, where it is at the present day. As no reference whatever is made by the antiquary to ownership, where he is generally so careful to state it, it seems not an improbable conjecture that the volume may have been his own property at the time he copied it.
In default of the original MS. it has been necessary to depend entirely upon Peck's transcript for all documents marked P. in the present volume. This has been an obvious disadvantage, as a reference to the MS. text might have cleared up several points in which the transcript is defective or obscure; it would also have shown whether some obviously wrong constructions were the fault of the original scribe or the transcriber. It is true that Ayscough, in the preface (p. ix) to his Catalogue of Additional MSS., writes that Peck's five manuscript volumes "by all lovers of antiquity will be esteemed an inestimable acquisition, being transcribed with such exactness as to be nearly of equal authenticity with the original papers." In the documents here printed there will be found many examples of not inconsiderable errors (e.g., pp. 11, 14, 41, 56, 57, etc.), which will force the reader somewhat to modify this judgement. Although, of course, it is now impossible to say with certainty that they are errors of transcription, in some cases it is practically certain. Thus, Peck frequently, if not generally, writes hujus for hujusmodi, misreading the contraction (cf. pp. 49, 65, 66, etc.). In the answers to questions proposed in the Visitation of 1478 (document 99), which will be printed in the second volume, Peck had originally written, in the answers which he numbers 5 and 132, 'fundatum erat' and 'habent': this he has altered to est and habet. It may, however, be gathered from certain extracts in Additional MS. 6118, that the former are the true readings, and that the latter were adopted by the antiquary to suit the arrangement he had devised. In one case it is impossible to believe that the original scribe, who was no doubt familiar with the Vulgate, could have written: 'non Arabus in primogenito Boois' for the text 'non arabis in primogenito bovis' (document 159). This is pointed out, however, without any wish to detract from the due merit of Peck's collections, or by way of carping at one from whose labours we derive so much advantage, but only to give the reader warning as to the drawbacks that somewhat detract from the value of these transcripts. [1]
The Original Register in the Bodleian (MS. Ashmole 1519):
The second source from which the collections here printed are taken is, as already indicated, a manuscript Register now in the Bodleian Library. MS. Ashmole 1519 is an original Register of the acts of Bishop Redman, himself a Premonstratensian; and records the visitation she made and other business transactions he had with the Order in England during the long period at the end of the fifteenth century when he was practically the superior. It had been supposed by many that this Ashmole MS. was really the original Registrum Premonstratense from which Peck's transcript had been made, although in 1839 Mr. Thomas Wright, in editing a paper from the Peck collection for the Camden Society, describes it as from 'a modern copy from a MS. not now known.' [2] When, however, the Royal Historical Society acquired a transcript of the Oxford MS., and it became possible to compare it carefully with Peck's volumes, it was at once apparent that the two were entirely different, although evidently possessing some connection one with the other. In point of fact, a careful examination of the two volumes leaves little room to doubt that the original from which Peck copied his documents and the Oxford MS. were parts of the same general Register.
When put together, then, the two parts furnish a fairly full record of the Order in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Moreover, it would appear more than likely that both volumes were in reality the work of Bishop Redman. Both certainly were in some way or other connected with him, since the records of his visitations are to be found in both. No single document, however, is repeated in the united collection; the full Register requiriing both manuscripts to make it complete. It would seem not improbable that in the first part, which we know now only in Peck's transcript, the bishop had gathered together copies of early documents mainly regarding the relations of the mother-house at Prémontré with the English abbeys. The earliest document is a letter dated 1291, and written to England by the abbot of Prémontré, and the last document concerns the election of Edmund Greyne as abbot of Halesowen on July 4, 1505. At the close of the fifteenth century the same MS. records several visitations by Bishop Redman, thus proving its connection with him. The Ashmole MS. then takes up the story of his administration and is rightly known as 'Redman's Register' as it concerns his work for the Order almost exclusively from 1474 to 1505. Whilst recording some few early documents - probably copied into the volume for easy reference, as precedents - it is mainly occupied by the account of the visitations, etc., made by the bishop as vicar of the abbot of Prémontré; those in the first volume being supplementary to these. It may, therefore, with some probability be conjectured that the lost original of Peck's transcript was not very dissimilar in character from the present Ashmole MS. 1519.
As regards this original part of Redman's Register, Black, in his Catalogue of the Ashmolean MSS.[1], writes thus: "A valuable folio MS., on paper, written in a small character, at different times; in a miserable mutilated state; it having been stained and almost rotten with damp throughout, the two first leaves having almost perished, and small fragments only remaining of the two last, when Ashmole caused it to be newly bound . . . The contents of this volume are highly curious and valuable; but too numerous to be particularly specified in this place."
Addy also, writing of Beauchief, says of this Ashmole MS.: "The volume itself is of great historical value. fosbrooke used it largely in the compilation of his British Monachism, and it is noticed, passim, in the account of Premonstratensian abbeys in the Monasticon. I wonder that a volume of such extraordinary interest has not long ago been published; for it gives a better acount of monastic life in England during the years which it covers than perhaps any other record; and that, too, at a period when English history requires much eleucidation."
There is no record of when or how the volume came into the possession of Ashmole. In 1697, when the Catologus Angliae was published, it was already among his MSS. In 1542 however, Gervase Holles transcribed from it certain lists in a volume now in the British Museum (Add. MS. 6118), and the old Register was then in the possession Sir Wingfield Bodenham. This is practically all that is known about it. Since it has been in the Bodleian it has furnished some material to local antiquaries interested in the history of certain houses. In Nash's Worcestershire (appendix, xxxix-xl), for example, there are several pieces regarding Halesowen priinted from this volume, but antiquaries have as a rule been deterred by the character of the volume from making much use of it. In Pegge's account of Beauchief Abbey, for instance, there is a letter from a William Huddersford, dated "Trinity College, Oxon. Feb. 15, 1753" addressed to Pegge respecting this MS. [1] In this he says: "The book is but in a bad condition, and the ink so much altered that it is very difficult to make anything out. I have therefore rather delineated than wrote what I found there."
A minute examination of the MS. made for the purpose of this volume, has furnished one or two items of information which are not uninteresting. The Register consists of 162 folios of paper 16 3/4 inches by 8 inches. The whole is much damp-stained, the first twenty-five leaves and the last four or five being considerably damaged. The writing is mainly in one hand, entered at different times and under various circumstances, and it sometimes shows marks of considerable haste. It is not a Register in the sense of being a volume into which documents were systematically and carefully copied by a clerk; but it is evidently the actual book into which the bishop's notes and doings were entered at the time. This supposition is borne out by the paper used, which is not of one kind, for no less than five different water-marks are to be seen in the 162 leaves. Most probably the quires of paper were bought when needed, and the entries were no doubt originally intended as rough though complete notes, to be afterwards copied fairly and with all necessary corrections into a proper Register. Some of the pages were naturally at first left blank, and on many of these roughly written documents and drafts with corrections have apparently and subsequently been written. The regular records, as has already been said, are mostly in one hand. From folio 50 it appears the penman was R. Bedall; from folio 58 that he was Bishop Redman's chaplain; from folio 155 that he was a Premonstratensian canon; and from folio 69 that he was prior of Shap Abbey and the Visitor's associate in his journeys and visitations. In the Latin of these records there are many and obvious slips which the writer did not stop to correct, but which he would not have desired to see reproduced in all the distinctness of modern print. Such mistakes as 'predicte patres reverende,' or the use of 'qua' for 'quam' are quite common. Capitals too, are used without any apparent reason, as for example, 'in hoc negocio Assumpto,' or 'Campanas dicte ecclesie'; but all these mistakes are after all signs rather of the haste in which these notes were necessarily written than of any ignorance on the part of Prior Robert Bedall.
One feature of Peck's transcript must be noticed. It has already been said that the antiquary did more than merrely copy the original Register: he arranged it in such a way as to render its contents more accessible to the historical inquirer. To begin with, he sorted the documents and classified them under the heads of Generalia and Specialia, placing in the first division all records relating to the general history or administration of the Order in England, arranged as far as possible in strict chronological sequence. Into the second division, or Specialia, he gathered up all pieces relating to the individual houses and arranged them under their special names, set down in alphabetical order. In this way those who are interested in any special locaity or abbey are able to turn at once to the material they desire to consult. On consideration and consultation for the purpose of this edition of the MSS., Peck's arrangement was thought to be so useful that not only has it been determined to leave it, but to treat the Ashmole Regsiter upon the same system, and to classify the documents contained in it under the same two headings, placing them in their proper position with those copied by Peck. The present volume contains the documents - 163 in number - from both collections classed under the head of Generalia. This has been subdivided, for convenience of consultation, into six sections:
In printing these papers they have been regarded from the point of view of history rather than from that of any science of language. For philological purposes the very circumstances under which the Ashmole documents were drawn up make them of as little import as Peck's seventeenth-century transcripts. for this reson no attention has been paid to the capital letters of the MS., or to the indiscriminate use of the u and v, and whilst attention has been called in the notes to certain necessary corrections in the text, obvious slips aand mistakes have been rectified throughout.
Something must now be said about the bishop from whose Register the documents here published are taken, and who in all probability collected the more ancient papers as precedents to guide him in the administration of the English Province of the Premonstratensian Order.
Bishop Redman, a native of Cumberland, entered the Order in the house of Shap, of which he subsequently became abbot about 1459. Shap Abbey was situated only a few miles from Levens, his birthplace, and it was an important house, with ample revenues. In 1478 Redman was nominated by the abbot of Prémontré his vicar in England. By this time he had already been bishop of St. Asaph for ten years, although he still continued to hold the abbacy of Shap with full jurisdiction, and spent much of his time in the practical government of his house. Redman was evidently a man of great energy and determination. He found the cathedral church of his see of St. Asaoph a mear heap of ruins in which state it had remained since Owen Glendower had destroyed it in 1408. He set to work to restore it, and when, in 1496, he was translated to Exeter, he left it substantially as it appears today. In 1501 he was again translated, to Ely, and he died at Ely House, Holborn, on August 24, 1505. Practically during all his long episcopate, extending over thirty-seven years, Redman continued to exercise the office of Visitor of his Order in England; and the record of his work is to be found in these two volumes of his Register now published. That he continued to hold the abbacy of Shap after he became bishop, and that not merely in commendam but as the governing superior, is a fact quite out of the ordinary course and somewhat difficult to explain. The only suggestion I can offer is that, in view of the impoverished state of his first diocese and his determination to rebuild his cathedral, he was allowed to retain the well-endowed abbey of Shap. His continuance to the close of his life in the office of Visitor of the English Province of Premonstraensian Canons is evidence that he had the confidence of the authorities at Prémontré and of his own brethren in England.
We may now consider a few of the main features in the history of the English Premonstratensians as it appears in the documents printed in this volume. The first, and indeed in many ways the most important, point illustrated by these papers are the relations of the English abbeys with the head house of the Order at Prémontré. The documents concerning this are to be found in the first section. Although, as we have seen, that abbey had very little direct share in planting the English branch of Premonstratensians, it still claimed, by the rule of St. Norbert, to be something more than a head or chief house. Its abbot demanded the right to exercise authority over all other abbots. In this the claims of Prémontré were similar to those of Citeaux and Cluny in regard to the Benedictine houses of their respective congregations.
The case of English Premonstratensians provides us with a good illustration of the almost necessary difficulties and inconveniences which in practice existed in regard to these international Congregations, and of the friction which at times at least prevented the smooth working of such a system. Apart from the obvious difficulty which must be experienced by any foreign superior, of understanding the temperament and peculiar needs of his English subjects, national complications were always possible, and the religious in this country were frequently forced to make choice between obedience to the laws of their country and the duty they owed to the foreign heads of the Order. We may premise that, just prior to the date of the first of the documents here printed, the Order, desiring to stand well with the king, Edward I, and in return for his benefactions, made him a Confrater in the General Chapter of 1290 and promised him a full share in all suffrages and good works. [1]
From the English canons Prémontré claimed three things: regular attendance on the part of the abbots at the annual General Chapter, held at the mother-house; the appointment of the visitor to examine and report to the abbot-general as to the state of the houses; and the right to tax the affiliated houses for the benefit of the Order in general and Prémontré in particular. It was this last demand which, in practice, caused many difficulties and led to many misunderstandings. Our documents, indeed, commence with a quarrel on this score in full swing. Adam de Crécy was abbot of Prémontré from 1304 to 1327, and the result of his battle with the English suffragan abbots on the subject of subsidies was ever after considered as the ruling precedent, at least in this country. The English abbots, acting on a royal prohibition against any such payments to foreign superiors (document 001) - which, by the way, they do not seem to have much misliked - had for some time been defaulters, when, in 1310 Abbot Adam de Crécy summoned them all to the meeting of General Chapter at Prémontré, and commanded them to bring with them the overdue tallages. On receipt of this citation the abbots met together on 21 July 1310, and by a joint letter (document 002), whilst expressing 'due obedience, reverence and honour' for the abbot of Prémontré personally, informed him that they were quite unable to comply with his orders. A royal prohibition passed by Parliament, they said, prevented them from leaving the kingdom for such a purpose, and were they to disregard this statute they would certainly be outlawed and unable to return to their country. Two of their number were, however, deputed to go over the sea to the meeting of the General Chapter, and they were charged to explain more fully the real state of the case, and to show the Chapter that, besides this prohibition against leaving the country, the English law also forbade them to pay any tax that might be imposed on them by the superiors of the Order abroad.
The abbots of Langdon and Sulby were the two chose as proctors to represent their English brethren at Prémontré on this occasion; and, fortified by a letter signed and sealed by fourteen English abbots (document 003), they attended the meeting of the Chapter. How they fared does not exactly appear in these papers except in the result. Abbot Adam and the Chapter of Prémontré would listen to no explanation, and issued a decree of condemnation against the English abbots for not appearing in answer to the citation, and for not paying the required subsidy. Their excuses, as set forth by the two delegates, were rejected as unworthy and inadequate; and a sentence of excommunication was passed on all of them, to take effect without further formality if they had not paid all that was due from them by the following Easter (document 004). The English delegates, the abbots of Langdon and Sulby, were ordered moreover, under severe penalties, to publish this sentence of the whole Order in every English abbey before the end of the year (document 005).
On 18 October, 1310, consequently, these two abbots summoned a General Chapter of the English Province to meet them at Lincoln on 1 December, in the church of the Friars of the Sack (Fratres Saccorum). Besides the attendance of the abbot, each house was, as usual, directed to elect and send a delegate to the meeting, that the affair might be fully known and discussed. The delegates would, they say, personally explain to the Fathers how and for what reasons the General Chapter at Prémontré had rejected the excuses they had been charged to give in their name, for not obeying the citation to the General Chapter, and for their continued non-payment of the tallages. In the same assembly they purported to carry out the orders they had received in regard to the publication of the decree of general excommunication (document 006). The position was difficult and perplexing; on the one side and on the other there was danger. If the English abbots gave way and paid the foreign demands, they would have to reckon with the law of the land; if they refused, or neglected to comply, they were threatened with the displeasure of their superior and the heaviest of spiritual penalties. It was really a case of 'the devil and the deep sea'; but it is fortunately not necessary, at any rate for us, to determine exactly which was which.
The English abbots, as we have seen, were to meet at Lincoln on 1 December 1310; but before that date the king had written a letter to the conveners of the Chapter (document 008), which somewhat assisted the solution, or at least fortified the English abbots in their resolution to resist. It is not very far-fetched to imagine that some one of the Chapter Fathers had acquainted the king with the perilous position in which they found themselves. At any rate, on 10 November, 1310, Edward II, writing from Berwick-on-Tweed, issued letters absolutely prohibiting the levying of any subsidy or tallage on behalf of Prémontré or the payment thereof. His father, Edward I, he says, had already finally dealt with this matter. Knowing that imposts were exacted of religious in England by their foreign superiors, contrary to the intention of the founders of the English houses and to the injury of the realm, in the thirtieth year of his reign he passed an Act of Parliament forbidding any English superior ever again to try to raise such subsidies, under whatever name they chose to call them. By the present letter, therefore, the king desired to remind the abbots of Langdon and Sulby of these enactments, and warned them of the grave penalties they would all suffer if they ignored the statutes of the realm.
The king's monition had its due weight. The Chapter met as arranged at Lincoln, and the Fathers, sheltering themselves behind the authority of the royal letter, determined on a bold course of action. They denied that the abbot of Prémontré or the Chapter could legally claim any tallage from them. They admitted that it had been paid previously, but they claimed that this had been done merely through motives of fraternal charity towards Prémontré, and not because they were in any way bound to contribute to the foreign establishment. In the present case, being constrained by King Edward's distinct prohibition, they unanimously resolved to withstand the claims of Abbot Adam and the General Chapter of the Order as onerous and injurious. They indited a spirited protest against the action of Prémontré, inasmuch as, although the distinct prohibition of the king was made known to him, the abbot that imposed heavy subsidies under ecclesiastical excommunication for refusal to pay. 'We therefore,' they say in conclusion, 'fearing prejudice to our houses, and desiring to safeguard their interests from foreign exactions and ourselves from excommunication and punishment, appeal directly to the Holy Apostolic See' for protection (document 009). Before dispersing, on 2 December, 1310, the necessary formalities for the appeal were gone through in the choir of the Friar's Church, and notaries and proctors were appointed to draw up the needful documents and prosecute the business to a conclusion before the Curia. (document 010).
For the purpose of this appeal, the proctors of the English abbots in the first instance called for copies of all the letters from Prémontré, which had been produced by the two abbots of Langdon and Sulby who had acted as delegates from the abbot and General Chapter. These were produced on 20 January, 1311, at Barlings Abbey, in a certain room called the 'abbot's new chamber.' The record of this meeting is of interest as showing the extreme care that was taken to verify the original documents: a minute description of the subscriptions and of the various seals being given (document 011). The following day, 21 January, in the abbot's said chamber and in the presence of a notary public, the English abbots constituted William de Kyrkton, canon of Barlings, Robert de Spalding, canon of Croxton, and Robert de Rotheram, canon of Beauchief, their proctors to prosecute the appeal to the Pope. They gave them full power to act, and to get others to act in their name. They engaged to abide by the decision, whatever it might be, and pledged themselves to meet all necessary expenses (document 012).
The same day William de Kyrkton, named above as first proctor, submitted a draft of his formal appeal. It complained generally of the imposition of subsidies from abroad without the consent of the abbots themselves. It asserted in plain language that the English houses were unduly burdened, and had a right to complain that such subsidies were demanded under threat of spiritual censures. Moreover, in regard to visitations the English canons had serious cause to protest. Whilst other provinces were visited yearly by two abbots chosen for the purpose in the district, the abbot of Prémontré, either himself personally or by a commissary, had been accustomed to come over to England with a large train of horses and attendants, and this had been necessarily a source of great expense to the various houses. William de Kyrkton submitted this draft for the criticism and reply of the abbot of Langdon, who by a legal fiction was supposed to be representing the abbot of Prémontré, and he annexed to it a list of papers (document 013). On 10 March, 1311, the appeal was ratified by all the abbots who had not previously taken part in the business, and the process was launched at the Curia (document 014). As time went on, however, some of the Order were apparently not entirely satisfied as to the position of hostility to Prémontré definitely assumed by English abbots generally. How far the distrust went it is now impossible to say; but a private letter was certainly sent by the abbots of Newhouse and Croxton to the other abbots of the Midland houses requesting them to convoke a meeting as secretly as possible to discuss the matter (document 019). On 22 August, also, the same two abbots, - who were, by the way, the Visitors of the province in the year 1311 - wrote fully to the same Midland abbots explaining the situation and advising a continuance of the appeal (document 020). The English Premonstratensians were in a serious dilemma. Hence the only apparent and legitimate way out of it was to ask the Holy See to decide, and in this all agreed and guaranteed the necessary funds. They had acquainted the abbot of Prémontré of their attitude and their appeal. Some of the abbots, however, had not paid the sum at which they were taxed for the expenses of the appeal, or rather had not refunded promptly to the parties who had advanced the money for transmission to Rome, so as not to jeopardise their case by delay in the payment of fees. For this reason, as the Visitors explain, it was necessary to make an new apportionment, and all are asked to meet their obligations punctually and without fail (document 020). It is added, by way of encouraging them to pay cheerfully, that the subsidy demanded by Prémontré was really greater than the tax necessitated by the expenses of the appeal. The sum asked was in most cases four-Pounds, fourteen-Shillings from each house; but the costs were mounting up; and already, in the one year, five demands had been made upon the abbeys, and the total had reached no less than a sum of 320-Pounds - a very considerable amount in those days.
Meanwhile, as far as appears, the Prémontré authorities abroad took no notice of the appeal to the Pope. General Chapter met in the autumn of 1311 and proceeded to declare the English abbots contumacious and rebellious in withholding the payments previously made to the head house and sanctioned by Chapter. These dues, however, it may be remarked, were no longer apparently claimed as a right, but by 'ancient and approved' custom. The abbots of Langdon and St. Radegund were charged by the Chapter under the severest censures to publish, during the solemnity of the Mass, the excommunication pronounced by it against all the English abbots. They were to warn all the canons to have no dealings with the abbots whilst they remained under the sentence, and to declare to the abbots themselves that, under pain of deposition, they must personally appear at Prémontré to answer for their disobedience. (document 022).
Abbot Adam this year, after celebrating the Prémontré General Chapter, went to Vienne, where a General Council 0 the same which sealed the doom of the Templars - had assembled on 16 October. Thence on 10 February, 1311-12, the abbot-general sent the English a reminder of his existence and of his determination to bring them back to a sense of duty. He had been very kind to them, he says in this letter, and had granted them many privileges in former days; but now, as they were all under the sentence of excommunication passed upon them by the General Chapter of the Order, he desired to recall all favours previously granted, and he ordered the abbot of Langdon to publish in his name this revocation of privileges (document 023).
Abbot Adam, however, did not have it all his own way. Pope Clement V, to whom the English had appealed for protection, appointed Cardinal Peter Colonna to act for him as auditor, or judge. On 17 March, the cardinal, being then also at Vienne for the Council, after having listened to the proctors of the two parties, issued a prohibition to the abbot of Prémontré. By this document he was commanded not to do anything in the matter or to issue any sentence while the case was pending, and it condemned him to pay all costs and a further sum in compensation for damage in the event of his disregarding this peremptory admonition (document 024). Even this, however, does not appear to have made the abbot-general pause in his endeavour to vindicate what he held to be the rights of the mother-house of the Order. On 14 April, 1312 , his agents in England, the abbots of Langdon and St. Radegund, again issued a notice of his excommunication against the recalcitrant English superiors, and further absolved all their subjects from obedience to them (document 025). They again, according to their instructions, warned the canons generally to hold no converse or communication with any of their abbots so long as they remained under the sentence; and they commanded the priors of the various houses to notify orders of the abbot of Prémontré to their respective superiors. This sentence was repeated on 30 April, to guard against any plea of ignorance (document 026).
It must have been throughout a difficult and anxious position for the English abbots,
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