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A HISTORY OF NORFOLK When Edward I was at Yarmouth, in 1277, he gave the friars on Low Sunday an alms of 23^. lod. to find the food for two days.' From this it may be estimated that there were about thirty-five inmates. In 1287 the east coast of England was ravaged by a severe storm, and Yarmouth suffered griev- ously. Much of the town walls were destroyed, and the house of the Dominicans was covered by the waves. ^ Thereupon the friars, with the idea of escaping like misfortune in the future, began to fill up a deep place between their house and that of Simon Salle, beyond which the sea often flowed, with stones and rubbish, and proceeded to build on this small piece of reclaimed land, which measured 130 ft. by 115 ft. Early in 1290 a royal writ was issued to the sheriff of Norfolk to hold an inquiry whether this alteration, which involved the removal of a part of the town wall, might be licensed. The jurors, one of whom was Thomas Fastolf, held that the proceedings of the friars were calculated to jeopardize the town wall, and the scheme was consequently abandoned.' The executors of Queen Eleanor, about Michaelmas, 1 291, gave an alms of lOOJ. to William de Hotham, provincial for this con- vent.* Each of the three orders of friars at Yarmouth, and in several cases the Friars Preachers alone, had many small bequests made to them, by bur- gesses and others who prudently made their wills at the time of the Great Pestilence of 1349. Simon de Ormesly, smith, by will of 26 January, 1350, directed his body to be buried in the church of the Friars Preachers, to whom he left lOi. as well as lid. to two particular friars. The wills of this county show that bequests to this and the other two houses of friars at Yarmouth were fairly frequent up to the time of their dissolution.* In the year 1525 the church of this convent was burnt down and never restored.* Richard Ingworth, the ex-friar, and special instrument of the king for the suppression of the mendicant orders, wrote to Cromwell in November, 1538, naming nineteen houses of friars whose surrender he had accepted, the Black Friars of Yarmouth being among the number.' The fourteenth-century seal of this house (if in. X I i) is an elaborate composition for its size. In three niches stand the Virgin and Child, St. Dominic with a cross, and a bishop ' Rot. Gard. 5 Edw. I, cited by Palmer. ' T, Wykes, CAron. (Rolls Ser.). ' Inq. p.m. 18 Edw. I, No. 14.0. ' Rot. gard. 69-70 Edw. I, No. 14.0. ' YiXmcr, Reliquary (new ser.), i, 141-4., gives about four closely-printed pages of these bequests, chiefly taken from Blomefield, Hist, of Noif. and Swinden, Hist, of Yarmouth. ' Manship, Hist, of Yarmouth. ■ L. and P. Hen. Fill, viii (2), 117. with crozier. In the base are two fishes naiaiit, for the ancient arms of Yarmouth. Legend : — s'. CONVENTS FRiTm. PREDIC. GERNEMUTE ' 64. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF YARMOUTH The Franciscan or Grey Friars probxbly came to Yarmouth soon after 1226, which was the year of their arrival at Norwich. Their founder is said to have been Sir William Gerbrigge, knt.' The site originally granted them was about the centre of the town, on ground now occupied by Queen Street ; their precincts gradually extended from the river on the west to Middlegate Street on the east, and from Row 83 on the north to Row 96 on the south.'*' Leave was given in 1285, after an inquisition ad quod damnum, by the bailiffs of Yarmouth for the Friars Minor to hold that rengiate of land, with buildings and appurtenances, con- tiguous to their area, which the king held of the grant of John son of William Gerbrigge, the younger, for the enlargement of their site, pro- vided that the lane between the said rengiate and the rengiate of Thomas Gerbrigge remain open and common for the easement of both rengiates, and of the neighbours and others of the said town as heretofore." In May 1290, con- firmation was granted of a quitclaim by John de Bromholm to the Friars Minor of his right in a plot of land lying between the dwelling-house of the friars on the north side and the common lane on the south side." A commission of oyer and terminer was ap- pointed in 1 302 touching the petition of the Friars Minors of Yarmouth, who complained that some malefactors of the town had broken the pavement near the wall, whereby rainwater ran under it to the destruction of the pavement, and that some of the townsmen, with strangers, threw down and broke to pieces their fence, which they made for the defence of their dwelling- place against the flow and violence of the sea, by putting timber and other heavy weights upon it." Wills of the thirteenth century downwards show frequent small bequests to the Grey Friars by the townsfolk of Yarmouth, often accom- panied by a request for interment in the church or churchyard. Many of the once powerful family of Fastolf were buried there. No men- ' B. M. XXXV, 70 ; Gent. Mag. Ixi, 513, 632. ' Speed, Hist. 1066. William Gerbrigge was one of the Yarmouth bailiffs in 1271 (Blomefield, Hist, of Norf xi, 322) ; he was probably a son of the founder. '° Palmer, Hist, of Yarmouth, , 419. " Cal. Pat. 13 Edw. I, m. 18. 'Rengiate' is apparently a local term for a plot of ground. " Ibid. 18 Edw. I, m. 28. " Ibid. 30 Edw. I, m. <i. 436