Though records of the white canons are scanty during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, we are fortunate in possessing, for the last quarter of the fifteenth, the copious register of visitations and other documents compiled by Richard Redman, abbot of Shap from 1458 to 1505 and bishop successively of St Asaph (1471–95), Exeter (1496–1501) and Ely (1501–5), who from 1459 to his death was commissary-general for the abbot of Prémontré in England and visitor of the English province, over whose triennial chapters he was ex officio president.

Richard Redman was a member of a Westmorland family which had already given more than one of its sons to public affairs. He was in all probability the great-grandson of Sir Richard Redman, Speaker of the House of Commons. The seat of the family was at Levens, near Kendal, where the Elizabethan mansion, with its formal gardens, still preserves the family name in one of its rooms, though the estate had already passed to others when the present house was built. Redman became a canon of St Mary Magdalen in the Valley of Shap, not many miles distant among the fells, and was while still young elected abbot. His great administrative talents were speedily recognized, and within a year he was acting for the abbot of Prémontré, who continued from time to time to give him commissions until he was permanently appointed commissary-general.