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668 N. M. TrenJiolme abbot regained complete ascendency over the town. The monas- tery, the hospital of St. John, the church of St. Nicholas and all other vulnerable points were fortified by royal license,' and, though conflicts occurred later between abbey and town, Abingdon re- mained, down to reformation times, a monastic town under the absolute control of abbot and convent. The risings at St. Albans, Bury St. Edmunds, and Abingdon were the three great outbreaks of which we have detailed accounts. Other risings, however, occurred throughout England of which we have merely a passing mention but which, perhaps, were serious at the time. For example there is a royal letter to the sheriff" of Bed- ford to take and put in prison certain armed men and malefactors who lie in wait for the prior of Dunstable. A century earlier Dun- stable had been the scene of a serious conflict betwixt the monks and the townsmen, and no doubt the abbot's tenants took the opportunity in 1327 to again make trouble.^ At Faversham, in Kent, and at Winchelsea, in Sussex, there are said to have been similar outbreaks on the part of the populace against ecclesiastical control and jurisdiction.^ The similarity of these movements, all occurring in the year 1327, seems to indicate clearly that there existed a wide-spread desire on the part of the burgesses, living under monastic control, to throw off" the jurisdiction of their ecclesi- astical lords at this particular time. No definite alliance, no inter- communal league, was formed between them. It was simply that the time was favorable for insurrection, and that the townsmen in many of these places were ready and eager to revolt at the first opportunity. Accordingly the year 1327 is remarkable in the annals of English municipal history for the number of risings that took place in the monastic towns. That these risings were without exception unsuccessful, has, I trust, been clearly shown. The punishment meted out to the rebellious burgesses was always severe ; so severe, indeed, that no further troubles of importance are known to have occurred in monastic towns until the great re- volt of 138 1. In some respects the outbreaks which occurred in England, in 1327, are similar to the risings against the control of ecclesiastical lords that took place in the communes of Northern France, and in' the German episcopal cities, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. 1 Cal. Pat. Rolliy 1327-1330, p. 547. 2 Cal. Pat. Rolls, 1327-1330, pp. 232-233 ; for the earlier conflict see Annales Monastici, R. S., III. 105-124, or the article on the history of the conflict in the Corn- hill Magazine, VI. S35 ff^. 3 Brit. Mus. MS. 2S666, p. 164.