RELIGIOUS HOUSES silver cups at the common table ; and that claustral brethren should not go to manors outside the monastery without good reason.'^ Of the history of the next ten years little is known ; the abbot was apparently frequently absent, for he was the king's treasurer, and was employed for long periods on foreign embassies and judicial cyres.'^ In January, 1279, how- ever, John Peckham was consecrated archbishop of Canterbury. Robert of Reading remarks that ' in his prosperity he despised many, especially the Benedictines.' ^^ However this may be, he cer- tainly made his authority felt at Westminster. In 1 28 1 he complained that the tenants of the abbey were defrauding his men of Lambeth at the ferry, and in the same year he excommunicated the abbot together with the heads of other exempt religious houses within his province for refusing to attend a council at Lambeth."* A few months later a long-standing dispute with the bishop of Worcester as to visitation and jurisdiction in the cell of Great Malvern reached its height, and the archbishop characteristically gave his support to the diocesan against the exempt abbey. '"^ In each of these cases Peckham would seem to have combined a real zeal for abstract justice and morality with a singular lack of tact and respect for valued privileges, and ill-feeling ultimately ran so high that when the archbishop came to Westminster in 1283 the sacrist lost his temper, and threw a great and hard roll in his face, aggravating the offence with many insults. The occasion of the archbishop's visit and of the sacrist's outbreak is not specified, but it would seem that the latter had some interest — probably as a papal commissary — in a case then pending between Peckham and Theodosius de Camilla, dean of the royal chapel of Wolverhampton, as to the church of Wingham (Kent)."' The parishioners of Wingham were inhibited by the sacrist from the payment of tithes, and the archbishop may have gone to Westminster in this connexion. Possibly he asked to inspect the papal mandate for the inhibition, and it was this that the sacrist threw at him.^* " Cott. MS. Faust. A. iii, fol. 210 et seq. " Ciil.o/Pat.lzSi-qz,^. logjibid. izjz-Zl passim. " Flores Hist. (Rolls Ser), iii, 82. •' Registrum Epist. J oh. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), 1,28 3-4. '^ Atin. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), iii, 397, and D. and C. Westm. 'Jurisdictions,' parcel 36, Nos. 2 and 3.
- This very unedifying affair belongs rather to the
hiitory of Great Malvern than to that of Westminster. Its chief importance in the abbey history is that it illustrates the tenacity with which the monks clung to their privilege of exemption even at the cost of maintaining a prior of evil life in one of their cells. Legally there can be little doubt that the position of the abbey was tenable, but morality and humanity seem to have been on the side of the bishop. See r.C.H. If ore. u, 138-41. " Reg. Epist. Job. Peckham (Rolls Ser.), i, 385-6 ; ii, 395-6. • '« Ibid, ii, 588, 617-8. In 1290 a quarrel arose between Westminster and the English Franciscans, and it was probably again owing to the influence of Peckham, him- self a friar and conservator of the order of the Brothers Minor in England, that the abbey nearly had to submit to the utmost humiliation. It appears that a certain Brother William, once a Benedictine monk of Pershore, and subsequently professed a Friar Minor, had become apostate from his order and fled to Westminster. According to the custom of the house truants seeking refuge in the abbey were to receive one day's victuals from the sub-almoner and go where they would, but in this case the sympathies of the convent seem to have been enlisted in favour of the delinquent, and he had been received and har- boured by the brethren. On 30 July, 1290, Peckham ordered the oflScial of the bishop of London to publish sen- tence of excommunication against the apostate and his accomplices. On 7 October following the monks appealed to the pope. Apparently, how- ever, the appeal was in vain, and the abbot and con- vent remaining obdurate, were excommunicated. Subsequently the proctors of both parties appeared before Matthew, cardinal of St. Laurence, who gave judgement on 4 April, 1 29 1. He ordered the abbot and convent to acknowledge that the apostate could not remain amongst them without the loss of his own soul, to purge themselves upon the most stringent conditions of having helped him to escape, and to undertake to aid the Fran- ciscans in his recovery. The abbot was to come specially to the next provincial chapter of Franciscans in London to humble himself pub- licly and to be received back to charity. He, however, protested that he would not submit to the pronouncement, and in December, 1 291, the more onerous terms were commuted for a sum of 60 marks, the last instalment of which was duly paid on 21 December, 1294.'"" There is reason to suppose that the convent was in anything but a satisfactory condition at this time. In 1303 occurred the famous robbery of the king's treasury in the abbey, the story of which has so frequently been told that it scarcely requires repetition in detail. The more salient facts of the case cannot be doubted, namely that the treasure was taken from the usual depository within the abbey precincts ^"^ by a carefully ^ Customary (Hen. Bradshaw Soc), ii, 86. ^"^ Mon. Fran. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 31-62. The prior and convent had evidently been willing to submit to the hardest terms {Hist. MSS.Com. Rep. iv, App. 178). '"' Mr. Harrod in j4nh. xliv, 373 et seq. has argued with every appearance of probability that the treasure was stolen not, as was formerly supposed, from the treasury in the cloister, but from the chapter-house crypt. This would account for much that is other- wise inexplicable in the details of the robbery, without supposing that the entire convent knew of what was going on and was in the habit of admitting seculars to the interior of the monastery. 441 56
