RELIGIOUS HOUSES grossly extravagant and ostentatious, and left the abbey burdened with all kinds of pensions and corrodies. As an example of his free- handed 'generosity' with the community's pos- sessions, it is recorded that on one occasion when visiting the priory of Wymondham the abbot was pleased with the courtesy and hospitality of Sir Simon de Hethersete, a magnate of the district. Noticing Edmund, his infant heir, in the cradle, he conferred on the child the pension of 40;. due yearly from the priory to the abbey. Edmund de Hethersete lived to enjoy the pension for fifty years.^ When Richard de Wallingford was chosen abbot in 1326, prior John de Hurlee was one of the electors. It was customary on the election of a new abbot for the priors of the various cells to make handsome offerings ; but owing to the extravagance of the last abbot all the cells were embarrassed. The handsomest gift received from the cells by Abbot Richard was ten marks from the prior of Wymondham.^ In 1334 Richard de Hethersete, almoner of St. Albans, was appointed prior, and soon after his appointment was made collector of fleeces and corn for the king. Partly through his own negligence, but more through the fault of his colleague. Prior Hethersete by undertaking this work involved his house in considerable loss. The prior, who had done long and faithful service as almoner of the abbey, was so over- come with grief that it hastened his end. One good result was that the prior and other obedienti- aries of the abbey were henceforth forbidden to act as proctors or executors, or to be collectors even in obedience to royal mandates.' In 1380 there was a grant made by the clergy of the province of Canterbury, of a subsidy to Richard II, and the bishop of Norwich was enjoined to find collectors for his diocese. The bishop or- dered the prior of Wymondham to collect, whereupon Abbot Thomas removed the prior from his office and declared that he was exempt from the bishop's jurisdiction. Thereupon there was a brisk interchange of legal hostilities between the bishop and the abbot, involving several appearances of both litigants before the king's council. Eventually victory rested with the abbot, and on i August privilege was granted that neither the abbot nor the priors of his cells should be collectors or assessors of any grant or subsidy.* Michael, twenty-ninth abbot of St, Albans, died of the pestilence in 1349, which at the same time carried off both prior and sub-prior. The choice of the convent at first fell on Henry de Stukeley, the prior of Wymondham, but on his definitely refusing to take upon himself the office of abbot, they elected Thomas, prior of Tynemouth. The new abbot set out for the ' Gesfa Abbatum, ii, 172. ' Ibid, ii, 187. ' Ibid, ii, 313.
- Ibid, iii, 122-34, 281-5.
papal court, and chose Prior Stukeley and William de Dersingham, as the most religious and learned of the monks, as his companions. At Canterbury Dersingham was suddenly seized with plague, died, and was there buried.' On the withdrawal of Nicholas Radcliffe from the priory in 1380, the abbot sent in his place to be prior William Killingworth, arch- deacon of St. Albans. Nicholas, in his turn, became archdeacon ; he lived to a great age, took an active part in the election of John, the thirty-first abbot, was an active controversialist {expugnator forthslmus) in the Wycliffe strife, was buried at St. Albans, under a costly marble tomb, and obtained an honourable place in their book of benefactors.^ Killingworth was at St, Albans at the time of the Peasants' Rising in 1381, and when it had collapsed and the terrified townsmen were endeavouring to appease the abbot and purchase his favour he was sent as the abbot's deputy to receive an ancient chartu- lary back from them which had been stolen during the rising.' Whilst Killingworth was prior of Wymondham, seven of the monks of St. Albans and its cells joined the crusade in Flanders in 1383, under Henry le Spencer, bishop of Norwich. Among them was William York of Wymondham Priory. The prior of Hatfield Peverel, in Essex, who was one of the number, died in Flanders ; the rest returned, but none of them regained their former health, having suffered much from the heat and from foul water.* Thomas Walsingham, the historian, was appointed prior in 1394. He was one of the electors who chose John de la Moote as abbot in 1396, and that abbot recalled him to the abbey very shortly after his installation. About this time a return was made of the annual contributions of the different cells to the mother abbey. From Wymondham there were three yearly payments, namely, 10/. for scholars at Oxford, 20J. as the subjection fee, and 265. ?id. towards the expenses of the provincial chapter.^ The cellarer's accounts for 1382 show that at this time there were sixteen monks in the priory^" and the same number appears in 1423.^^ This had fallen to fourteen besides the prior in 1447,'^ and to eleven in 1500.^' The income of the monastery during this period seems to have averaged about ^350, and the expenditure was usually slightly in excess of that amount. Mbid. ii, 381-3.
- Ibid, iii, passim ; Amundesham, jinnaks (Rolls
Ser.), i, 436. ' Walsingham, Historia Anglkana (Rolls Ser.), ii, 28. ' Ibid. Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Sen), ii, 416. ' Cott. MS. Claud. E, iv, 346. '° Mins. Accts. 945, No. i;. " Ibid. No. 17. " Registrum, Whethamstede (Rolls Ser.), i, 147. " Mins. Accts. Hen. VII, 420. 339
