Lewes Priory: Plague and Denization 1348-51

Text Box: The death of John de Warenne in June 1347 without legitimate male heirs meant that Lewes Priory had a new patron, Richard earl of Arundel, one of Edward III’s most trusted military commanders. Richard evidently recognized the extreme plight of the priory and took swift action. By February 1348 he had presented Edward III with a petition outlining the severe damage to the priory which had resulted from its designation as an alien monastery. The petition, in French, sets out his request that Lewes Priory be made denizen. It describes the priory, founded by his ancestors the earls de Warenne, as overburdened with chantries, alms and hospitality. Its 40 monks were for the most part English and its prior was from Burgundy. It supported two hospitals in the town of Lewes out of its alms and paid £80 a year in annual pensions and liveries. The priory owed over £1000 to various creditors and its church, buildings, walls and closes, both of the priory itself and its manors were in need of urgent repairs costing at least £500. Its manors have had to be leased out and the income remaining in the monks’ hands amounted to only £180 a year. They paid their clerical tenth of a year’s income to the crown at the rate of £106 4s 6d. Were their revenues not diminished their income would be worth £1000 a year, which they needed to pay all the aforementioned charges. He therefore asked the king to enquire into the matter and to certify that Lewes Priory, its lands and possessions should be regarded as denizens as was the intention of the first founders, confirmed by the royal charters of the king’s royal predecessors and by himself. The French Wars and the death of the prior, John de Jaucourt, as the Black Death spread across Sussex in the spring of 1349 meant that negotiations on the terms of the royal grant were not concluded until the summer of 1350. Meanwhile, since the restoration of advowsons to the late prior had been personal only to him, royal presentation to vacant priory benefices resumed and in October 1349 the king appointed his own nominee to the rectory of Bery Narbor in Exeter diocese. Similar presentations followed, to East Grinstead, Foulden and Sutton churches between February 1351 and January 1352, in the latter cases apparently on the basis of the priory having been “lately” in the king’s hands due to the war with France. By August 1350, however, the broad terms of the agreement between the king and the priory had been settled. The monks agreed to grant Edward III certain advowsons of churches held

Text Box: by the priory to the annual value of 200 marks to be appropriated to the new chapel of St Stephen in the Palace of Westminster. In exchange the king promised denization to the priory “so that the prior and convent may be quit in future of all farms, fines and subsidies exacted on them by reason of the war with France”. Before finally granting letters of denization, however, Edward wanted to be sure of the value of the churches he was being offered, particularly since the ravages of the Black Death had substantially affected the agricultural production upon which tithes were based.. Therefore on 20th August “because the said affair cannot be finally dispatched without great deliberation”, he suspended until further notice the exactions on the priory as a sign of royal favour. Meanwhile preparations were made for a commission comprised jointly of two of the priory’s nominees and two royal representatives to enquire into the income both before and after the plague of eight rectory churches in Yorkshire, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire, from which the king would make his selection. On 15th December the king appointed the four commissioners, Walter Pykot, prior of Castle Acre and Robert Melewych on behalf of the prior of Lewes, William de Loughteburgh and William de Blaunkeneye on behalf of the king to travel to the various parishes and to make enquiry as to the values of the advowsons of the churches offered the king. They were in Yorkshire in early January and summoned jurors from each parish, before proceeding in similar fashion to Cambridgeshire and Norfolk. Their findings provide direct evidence of the immediate impact of the Black Death on the village economy in

Text Box: three different areas of the country where Lewes Priory had considerable interests: the West Riding of Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire and the north-east Norfolk coastal plains. As the table demonstrates the immediate effect of the Black Death on agricultural production and hence tithes varied substantially even between parishes in close proximity to one another, such as East Ruston and Gimingham in Norfolk or Caxton and Whaddon in Cambridgeshire. In some cases values dropped only slightly, as at Whaddon, whilst in others values fell by more than a third, as at Sandal Magna. Overall the five parishes selected by the king (the first five in the table) showed a fall of just under a third, from £294 18s 3d prior to the epidemic to £201 12s 1d in its immediate aftermath. These were rectories which Lewes Priory might itself have expected to appropriate in due course, so their loss had long-term consequences for the priory’s finances. Nevertheless the bargain with the crown lifted the much more severe impact of alien status from the priory and enabled it to begin the long, slow process of recovery. Even so, when war with France was resumed, the Earl of Arundel was forced to intervene again, in 1373, to secure confirmation of the same rights as denizens for Lewes’s cells at Castle Acre, Prittlewell, Monkton Farleigh, Monks Horton and Stanesgate (for some reason Clifford was not mentioned). And the crown again took the opportunity to present its own nominees to Lewes Priory livings, in 1370 to Waldron and in 1373 to St Olave’s Southwark.

Top: Stained glass at Fishlake, Yorkshire, one of the parishes granted to Edward III in return for denization. Note the blue and gold chequers of the de Warenne and Lewes Priory arms.

Right: Langney Manor