^{page 8 note 2} [But see Turner, D., ‘Copies and translations of two deeds in the possession of the corporation of Lynn’, Norfolk Archæology, II (1849), 194–5, for a grant of a corrody (26 February 1378) by the Austin friars of Lynn which is closely analogous to nos. v and ix of the corrodies discussed below and printed in Appendix I.]Google Scholar

^{page 8 note 3} C. L. Kingsford, The Grey Friars of London, 207–8. Corrodies are recorded in the London house of Minoresses, but they were not a mendicant order: A. F. C. Bourdillon, The Order of Minoresses in England, 65.

^{page 8 note 4} VCH Oxfordshire, ii. 141, 147.

^{page 8 note 5} C. Cotton, The Grey Friars of Canterbury, 34, 40, 96–9.

^{page 8 note 6} E.g., Robert Collens at the Black Friars, Canterbury (VCH Kent, ii. 180); William Tilgeman and his wife at the Carmelite Friars, Aylesford (ibid., 203); Charles Bulkeley at the Grey Friars, Salisbury (Letters and Papers Henry VIII, xiii, pt. ii. no. 403).

^{page 9 note 1} P.R.O., MS. E. 135/2/50. I am indebted to Mr. H. C. Johnson for a description of the document, and to Miss Hope Emily Allen for photographs of the relevant pages. For useful details of the contents see J. C. Cox, “The Carmelites of King's Lynn’ in Memorials of Old Norfolk, ed. H. J. D. Astley. [And see Appendix III.]

^{page 9 note 2} Fos. 25^v–6. [References are to the medieval numbering, unless the contrary is stated.]

^{page 9 note 3} [Fo. 26 has a grant (17 March 1351) of spiritual benefits by the Carmelites of Norwich to the same Hugh, ‘dicti ordinis humilis professor’, who had given them £100 towards the construction of a new dormitory, a set of vestments worth £22, a censer, two phials and a basin of silver worth £7, a stone gate worth 10(?) marks, and had begun and completed at his own cost the south aisle of their church. Bale names Hugh as one of seven ‘equestris ordinis strenuissimi milites’ who joined the order about the time when John Foulsham was prior provincial (1342–8), Hugh being one of three who entered the Norwich house (B.M., MS. Harl. 3838, fos. 31–31^v, pencilled numbering). Hugh was presumably one of the Dowdales of Tacolneston, Norfolk. He may have been a younger son of the John Dowdale of Tacolneston who died in 1322 (Calendar of Inquisitions post mortem, vi. no. 310).]

^{page 9 note 4} MS. sigilla. [Responsibility for the text is mine.]

^{page 9 note 5} Fos. 32–5.

^{page 10 note 1} Appendix I, nos. v, ix.

^{page 10 note 2} John Pentney was admitted freeman of Lynn in 1347 and was prominent in civic affairs from 1361 to 1378: The Red Register of King's Lynn, ed. H. Ingleby, ii, passim. In 1377 he was one of the four chamberlains who had to face the large deficit due chiefly to the legal expenses of the quarrel between the town and the bishop of Norwich: Hist. Mss. Comm. Eleventh Report, Appendix, pt. iii, 222; Mrs. J. R. Green, Town life in the fifteenth century, i. 291–2 and ii. 410.

^{page 10 note 3} Eynsham Cartulary, ed. H. E. Salter, i. 186–7.

^{page 10 note 4} The cartulary of the monastery of St. Frideswide at Oxford, ed. S. R. Wigram, i. 483.

^{page 10 note 5} See Froude, J. A., Short studies on great subjects, London 1892–1896Google Scholar, i. 418–24; Gasquet, F. A., Henry VIII and the English Monasteries, London 1888, 365–70Google Scholar; Coulton, G. G., Medieval Studies, 1st. ser., London 1915, 88–9Google Scholar. A full summary of the canon's accusations is in L & P Henry VIII, xii. pt. i, no. 742; the subsequent injunctions of the episcopal visitation are in Registrum Edwardi Foxe episcopi Herefordensis, ed. A. T. Bannister, 372–4. Reading between the lines of the discreetly worded injunctions one gathers that the charges of adultery, cruelty, embezzlement and fraud were well-founded; no reference is made to the charges of robbery and murder of the corrodier.

^{page 11 note 1} Appendix I, nos. iv, vi.

^{page 11 note 2} Appendix II; below, 42.

^{page 11 note 3} Appendix I, nos. i, viii.

^{page 12 note 1} The Richard Smith of Southburgh admitted to the freedom of the town 14 April 1368 (Red Register, ii. 87) can hardly be father of Alan.

^{page 12 note 2} Red Register, ii. 169, 174, 178, 79, 89; he or a namesake appears as early as 1333 (ibid., i. 114).

^{page 12 note 3} Appendix II; below, pp. 41–2.

^{page 12 note 4} Some of the earliest monastic corrodies contain provisions that they should not descend to the corrodier's heirs: Round, J. H., ‘The Burton abbey surveys’, English Historical Review, XX (1905), 288. At Warter (Yorkshire) a corrody of 10s. a year was paid to William Babthorpe ‘et heredibus suis imperpetuum’: A. Savine, English monasteries on the eve of the Dissolution (Oxford studies in social and legal history, ed. P. Vinogradoff, i), 244 n. 1. Hereditary corrodies seem to have been very rare.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 12 note 5} Appendix I, nos. ii, iii.

^{page 13 note 1} Each resigned the office of head of a ‘constabularia’ (the town was divided into nine constabularies or wards) on 25 February 1379: Red Register, ii. 140.

^{page 13 note 2} [For earlier references see Calendar of Patent Rolls 1364–7, 17, 313, where he appears as a vintner exporting ale to Flanders, cloth to Gascony, and importing wine from Gascony.]

^{page 13 note 3} Red Register, ii. passim.

^{page 13 note 4} Besides being constable, he was an elector of the mayor and other officers in 1367, assessor and collector of taxes in 1374 and 1378, a scrutineer of lepers in 1376: Red Register, ii. 85, 116, 134, 122.

^{page 13 note 5} E. Powell, The Rising in East Anglia in 1381, 36. [He had earlier been accused of taking part in an assault on the bishop of Norwich at Lynn in 1377: CPR 1374–7, 502.]

^{page 13 note 6} Red Register, ii. 4.

^{page 13 note 7} HMC 11th Rep., Appx., pt. iii. 192; Mrs. J. R. Green, op. cit., i. 193 n. 1; ii. 411–26.

^{page 14 note 1} [If a partially erased entry in a list of benefactors refers to them, Hugh was probably still alive c. 1383 and was outlived by Cecilia. See Appendix II; below, 42 1. 5.]

^{page 14 note 2} [According to a marginal note Hugh undertook not to remarry if he survived Cecilia.]

^{page 14 note 3} Appendix I, no. vii.

^{page 14 note 4} Above, 25–6.

^{page 14 note 5} Thus in 1339 Bishop Grandisson authorised the prior and convent of Bodmin to sell a corrody to raise money for the rebuilding of the chapter house and dormitory, which had been destroyed: The Register of John de Grandisson, bishop of Exeter, ed. F. C. Hingeston-Randloph, ii. 898.

^{page 15 note 1} [Some of this activity is attributable to the destruction of the church and choir by lightning in 1363, alluded to in Songs and carols, ed. T. Wright, 74–5 (cited, The book of Margery Kemp, ed. S. B. Meech and H. E. Allen, i. 338), dated by Gransden, A., ‘A fourteenth-century chronicle from the Grey Friars at Lynn,’ E.H.R., LXXII (1957), 276.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar

^{page 15 note 2} CPR 1343–5. 338; CPR 1350–4, 97.

^{page 15 note 3} The acreage of the sites of the Lynn friaries is not given in the ministers’ accounts after the Dissolution. The rent of the Carmelite site was larger than that of any other friary's site in the town. The figures are

(P.R.O., Ministers’ Accounts, SC. 6/31–2 Henry VIII/2632, mm. 51–3.) [The figures are charges to the accountants; the first figure in the second column includes 43s. 4d. allowed to the accountant as decayed.] Valor Ecclesiasticus, iii. 397, gives the value in temporalities of the Carmelite house as rent of a parcel of ground within the site let at 33s. 4d. a year, and a parcel outside the site let at 2s. 4d.

The Carmelites’ site is indicated by the modern Whitefriars Terrace and Whitefriars Road. I suspect the entry in the Ordnance Survey, ‘St. Mary's Priory (remains of)’, may refer to some building of the Carmelite friary towards the north-west corner of the area. The western boundary would probably be the river Nar and Friars Fleet; the northern and eastern boundaries might follow the lines of All Saints Street and Friars Street; how far the area extended southwards is quite uncertain. [O.S. map, 1/2500, xxxiii. 10 (2nd. ed., 1905); better, O.S. plan of King's Lynn, 1/500, xxxiii. 10/22 (1886).]

^{page 15 note 4} Little, A. G., ‘Grey friars of Aylesbury’, Records of Bucks., XIV. pt. ii (1942), 77–98.Google Scholar

^{page 15 note 5} Appendix II, nos. v, ii; and above, 23.

^{page 15 note 6} Liber quotidianus contrarotulatoris garderobæ anno regni regis Edwardi prim vicesimo octavo, London 1787 by the Society of Antiquaries of London, p. 36. [The number is inferred from the amount given to the friars in alms.]

^{page 15 note 7} P.R.O., Exchequer Accounts Various, E.101/381/14, 383/14.

^{page 16 note 1} Little, A. G., ‘The introduction of the Observant friars into England: a bull of Alexander VI’, Proceedings of the British Academy, XXVII (1941), 161.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 2} [For a different view of the general trend see Russell, J. C., ‘The clerical population of medieval England’, Traditio (1944)Google Scholar; Knowles, D. and Hadcock, R. N., Medieval religious houses, 1953, 54–5Google Scholar, 363. In both works the Carmelites are supposed to have made a specially good recovery; cf. D. Knowles, The Religious Orders in England, ii. 145, 260.]

^{page 16 note 3} [For A. G. Little's comments on the same problem in a Franciscan context see his Studies in English Franciscan history, 68–72.]

^{page 16 note 4} The Aylesbury Grey friars’ lists above referred to show equally drastic changes on a small scale, but are too late to be taken as evidence.

^{page 16 note 5} [The problems raised by this evidence are too large for adequate discussion here; they will be reconsidered on another occasion.]

^{page 16 note 6} Red Register, ii. 90–2. [His special connexion was with the Franciscans; his bequests to the other friars are smaller than his bequests to the churches of Lynn and South Lynn and to eight houses of lepers in the neighbourhood.]

^{page 16 note 7} [Later prior. P. Cosmas de Villiers, Bibliotheca Carmelitana, ed. G. Wessels, Rome 1927, i. 593–4; Acta capitulorum generalium ordinis fratrum B. V. Mariae de Monte Carmelo, ed. G. Wessels, i. 150 n. 2.]

^{page 16 note 8} [Peter Wisbech is ‘reverendus magister’ the mention of Edmund Barsham may be equivocal.]

^{page 16 note 9} Monumenta historica Carmelitana, ed. B. Zimmerman, i. 403; Bibl. Carmel., ii. 821–2.

^{page 17 note 1} Red Register, passim.

^{page 17 note 2} Ed. Skeat, W. W., London 1872, 3. For MSS. of the kalendar see: Bodleian Library, MSS. Land Misc. 662, Rawl. C. 895, Ashmol. 5/370; B.M., MSS. Arundel 347, 207 [Sloane 1110].Google Scholar

^{page 17 note 3} F. Blomefield, with a continuation by C. Parkin, An essay towards a topographical history of the county of Norfolk, vi. 526; [and see Acta cap. gen., i. 121 and n. 2, 146.]

^{page 17 note 4} [The number of more or less probable identifications could doubtless be greatly increased. Thus, John Leicester (1378) may be the bishop of Smyrna, suffragan in the diocese of Norwich, 1400–24, noticed in D. Knowles, Religious Orders, ii. 375. Thomas Peveryl (1377) may be the Carmelite of that name who was successively bishop of Ossory (1397), Llandaff (1398) and Worcester (1407–19) and was appointed chancellor of queen Isabella in 1399: Dictionary of National Biography, London 1921–2, xv. 1019–20; T. F. Tout, Chapters in the administrative history of medieval England, v. 263–4. Richard Norehale or Northale (1377, 1378) may be he who was successively bishop of Ossory (1386) and archbishop of Dublin (1396–7); DNB, xiv. 628.

The number of authors in the lists may include, in addition to William Coxford, Thomas Lombe, Nicholas Lynn, Thomas Peveryl and Richard Northale: John Tilney (1367, 1377, 1378; Bibl. Carmel., ii. 126); William Harsyk (1377; ibid., i. 602); John Thompson (‘Tempsthone’, 1378; ibid., ii. 127–8; DNB, xix. 695); though there is prima facie a chronological difficulty in the case of John Tilney.]

^{page 17 note 5} [Abbreviations have normally been extended; doubtful extensions are italicised only when meaning may be in doubt. Punctuation and capitals are not necessarily those of the MS. Emendation has been attempted only when meaning may be obscure.]

^{page 17 note 6} Margin, another hand: Anno domini m^occc^olxviii^o.

^{page 17 note 7} Initial capital not filled in.

^{page 17 note 8} MS. filii.

^{page 18 note 1} MS. horis et oportunis, possibly for horis licitis et oportunis.

^{page 18 note 2} MS. talem … consimilem.

^{page 18 note 3} MS. cibus.

^{page 18 note 4} MS. Alicic’.

^{page 18 note 5} MS. duvulgent.

^{page 18 note 6} Initial capital not filled in.

^{page 19 note 1} MS. cibus.

^{page 19 note 2} MS. extendet.

^{page 19 note 3} MS. corod’.

^{page 19 note 4} MS. eiisdem.

^{page 19 note 5} MS. prefatus.

^{page 19 note 6} MS. eiis.

^{page 19 note 7} Margin, another hand: Promisit etiam et fidem dedit predictus Hugo quod post mortem predicte Cecilie si ipsum contingeret esse superstitem quod aliam uxorem non duceret.

^{page 19 note 8} MS. hiis indenturis, ending over erasure.

^{page 20 note 1} MS. sigilla.

^{page 20 note 2} The ‘t’ over erasure.

^{page 20 note 3} Initial capital not filled in.

^{page 20 note 4} MS. tricensimo.

^{page 20 note 5} MS. propriis.

^{page 20 note 6} MS. prefatis.

^{page 21 note 1} MS. predicte.

^{page 21 note 2} MS. sit.

^{page 21 note 3} MS. prefatis.

^{page 21 note 4} MS. dabu’.

^{page 21 note 5} MS. conventus.

^{page 21 note 6} Initial capital not filled in.

^{page 21 note 7} MS. Agnetam.

^{page 21 note 8} Final letter and of preceding word over erasures.

^{page 21 note 9} MS. Agneti.

^{page 21 note 10} And preceding word over erasure.

^{page 21 note 11} Marginal insertion, another hand: racionem.

^{page 21 note 12} Ending over erasure.

^{page 21 note 13} MS. viam usque predictorum.

^{page 21 note 14} Originally pottagii.

^{page 22 note 1} MS. alienant. [The rest of this sentence may be defective: some words about divulging secrets may have dropped out here (A.G.L.) or perhaps the clause per … deterioretur should follow devulgent.]

^{page 22 note 2} MS. quam.

^{page 22 note 3} MS. predictus Wyllelmus.

^{page 22 note 4} MS. obligati sunt et erunt nee non patrem et matrem.

^{page 22 note 5} MS. eiis.

^{page 22 note 6} MS. perte.

^{page 22 note 7} MS. Agnet’.

^{page 22 note 8} Each of the remaining documents is in a hand peculiar to itself.

^{page 22 note 9} MS. de odem or de edem.

^{page 22 note 10} MS. predictis.

^{page 22 note 11} MS. pandoxoris.

^{page 23 note 1} Margin, same hand: de.

^{page 23 note 2} MS. om.

^{page 24 note 1} MS. predicte.

^{page 24 note 2} —>: marginal insertion, same hand.

^{page 24 note 3} [If this is to be trusted, the original, unlike the rest, was in the form of a notification.]

^{page 24 note 4} Interlineated in same hand.

^{page 25 note 1} MS. consilime.

^{page 25 note 2} Eius deleted.

^{page 25 note 3} MS. casii, altered in margin by the same hand to caseii.

^{page 25 note 4} Over erasure.

^{page 25 note 5} MS. factam

^{page 26 note 1} [Editorial conventions as in Appendix I.]

^{page 26 note 2} Mayor of Lynn 1342–3; testament dated 17 January 1349, proved 26 January 1349 (Red Register, i. 186–9). His widow Margery, daughter of John Swardeston, died soon afterwards; her testament, dated 16 April 1349, was proved 10 June 1349 (ibid., i. 195). It may be inferred that the new church was being built before the Black Death. [Hugh's commercial interests are indicated in CPR from 1332 to 1347. In company with his father-in-law (another mayor of Lynn) and others, and on his own, he traded with Norway, Flanders, Almain and Gascony in corn, beans, stock-fish, ale and wine. Collector of customs at Lynn 1341–2 (Calendar of Fine Rolls 1337–47, 208–9, 264). Summoned to an assembly of merchants in 1345 (Calendar of Close Rolls 1343–6, 645).]

^{page 26 note 3} Presumably the Simon who appears as rector of Bradwell 23 March 1375; Registrum Simonis de Sudbiria diocesis Londoniensis, ed. R. C. Fowler, C. Jenkins and S. C. Ratcliff, ii. 141. The Bardolfs of Wormegay had the advowson of Bradwell-on-Sea, Essex, in the fourteenth century; John Miles was presented to the living 22 July 1368 by queen Philippa as guardian of William Bardolf (ibid., i. 259; ii. 61). [Simon is probably Simon Noreys, rector of Holy Trinity, Caister (in Flegg, Norfolk) from 1359 at latest (CPR 1358–61, 227), when the living was still in the gift of the Bardolfs (CPR 1361–4, 111). He was still rector of Caister in 1374 (CPR 1370–4,464) and still alive in 1377 (CCR 1374–7, 516). He acted as feoffee to uses for the Bardolfs (e.g., CCR 1369–74, 570) and had commercial connexions (e.g., CPR 1364–7, 1).]

^{page 26 note 4} Apparently not a burgess of Lynn; attests 7 August 1364 (Red Register, i. 234). [Received a commission of the peace in Norfolk 6 May 1371; CPR 1370–4, 106. Collector of taxes in Norfolk in 1373, 1374, 1377: CFR 1369–77, 228, 267, 388. Earlier references to him in the published Calendars of Public Records throw a fitful and somewhat lurid light on his career: e.g., CPR 1350–4, 162; CCR 1349–54, 340; CPR 1358–61, 300; CPR 1364–7, 441, which shows that he had property at Hilgay, Norfolk. With another, he is said to have presented a canon of West Dereham to Wickmere in 1378: Blomefield and Parkin, op. cit., vi. 462.]

^{page 26 note 5} Admitted as freeman of Lynn 1358; prominent in civic affairs (e.g., chamberlain in 1363–4, 1367–8, 1373–4) from 1363 to 1377 (Red Register, passim)

^{page 27 note 1} Prominent in the affairs of Lynn from at latest 1349 to 1376—chamberlain, for example, in 1349–50, 1355–6, 1368–9 (Red Register, passim). [Dead by 1382, when his widow was found an idiot (CPR 1381–5, 212, 304, 351, 471—custody was not determined until 26 October 1384). She was dead by 3 May 1387 (CCR 1385–9, 229). His executors were a long time at work: on 1 February 1391 they undertook to deliver 100 marks or £100 to the use of the community (Red Register, ii. 52; cf. 8).]

^{page 27 note 2} Corrodier.

^{page 27 note 3} Perhaps wife of John Fincham, mayor of Lynn 1367–8 (Red Register, ii. 85). [He was admitted freeman in 1349, when his pledges were John Coxford and Robert Coxford; ibid., ii. 186. His prominence in the affairs of the town ends with his mayoralty. References in the Calendars of Public Records cease in 1367; they are too intricate for summary here.]

^{page 27 note 4} Joan Costyn was widow of John son of Simon Costyn, burgess of Lynn; he died in 1364 (testament dated 30 May 1364, proved 22 September 1364; Red Register, i. 231–2). [The testament cited shows him a man of substance, and like others from the same source gives only a minimum indication of his wealth, but record of him is slight. His admission as freeman preceded his death by a matter of months only: Red Register, ii. 78.]

^{page 27 note 5} The name is in another hand. I have no doubt that the name was originally that of William Bardolf, who died 29 January 1386 and willed to be buried in the Carmelite church at Lynn (N. H. Nicolas, Testamenta Vetusta, i. 116). He succeeded his father John in 1363, when a minor. Rights of wardship and marriage were sold in 1366 by queen Philippa to Michael lord Poynings; William's immediate marriage to his purchaser's daughter Agnes was a condition of sale (CCR 1364–8, 262–3). Agnes, who married again, died in 1403: CPR 1401–3, 214; Nicolas, op. cit., i. 162; Complete Peerage, i. 419.

Thomas Bardolf, son of William and Agnes, was a minor when he succeeded. He married before 8 July 1382 Anice daughter of Ralph lord Cromwell. He was captured at Bramham Moor 19 February 1408 and died of wounds. His widow died in 1421. See for father and son DNB Supplement, i. 123–4; CP, i. 419–20.

^{page 27 note 6} [Roger, died 25 December 1386; his widow Joan, who married again, died about 6 January 1415: CP, xi. 503. The alteration of the Bardolf name rules out Robert de Scales, son of Roger and Joan (CP, xi. 503–4). The precedence accorded to Bardolf over Scales is interesting in view of Bale's statement (in connexion with the foundation of the house), ‘Secundus fundator fuit dominus Robertus de Scales. Tertius, dominus Willelmus de Bardolf’. (B.M., MS. Harl. 1819). Roger de Scales willed to be buried in his monastery of Blackborough: Nicolas, op. cit., i. 120; cf. his widow's will: ibid., 184–6.]

^{page 28 note 1} Corrodier.

^{page 28 note 2} Corrodier.

^{page 28 note 3} [The erased name may be that of Hugh Ellingham, corrodier.]

^{page 28 note 4} Corrodier.

^{page 28 note 5} [The numerous references to him in the Calendars of Public Records cease in 1396: CCR 1392–6, 464, 513, 515. He was employed by William Bardolf as a feoffee to use: e.g., CCR 1369–74, 570; CPR 1377–81, 259. In this capacity and in others he is found in company with Simon Noreys, rector of Caister: e.g., CCR 1374–7, 516. He also had a connexion with Scales: e.g., CPR 1367–70, 27. Among his many public employments (as, for instance, J.P. in Norfolk) one has special relevance here: he was one of those appointed to inquire into the idiocy of Emma Beeston 26 July 1383: CPR 1381–5, 351.]

^{page 28 note 6} Perhaps wife of Simon Gunton, mayor of Lynn 1361–2 and 1364–5. [He was continuously in civic office from 1350 until his death shortly before 1 February 1376; Red Register, passim; CCR 1374–7, 297.]

^{page 28 note 7} A tester.

^{page 28 note 8} MS. primo … septimo … tricesimo.

^{page 28 note 9} [The erasures in the list of living benefactors written in the first hand show that this list was written not later than 1386; the inclusion of Thomas Paynot shows that it was written not earlier than 1378. The list of deceased benefactors written in the same hand includes one who is said to have been alive in 1378 and certainly was alive in 1377; two others, assuming that the rector of Bradwell is correctly identified, were alive in 1377; a fourth died 1376 x 1382. The composition of the two lists may, therefore, be dated 1378 x 1386. The hand is the one that wrote a list of contents of the cartulary on what is now the second folio, and there is nothing to suggest that its writing on these two folios was spread over a material period of time. The principal hand of the cartulary is different and logically prior (there is no possibility of determining sequence paleographically). If, therefore, 1382 is an acceptable datefor the principal hand of the cartulary (Appendix III), the date of the lists of benefactors may be narrowed to 1382 x 1386, which would accord well with the internal evidence. The fact that a benefaction made in 1384 is not note d in. the first hand may mean that the date should be further restricted to 1382 x 1384.]