Marginalia

By the thirteenth century, the prolonged period of economic and demographic growth experienced by Western Europe had brought profound changes to the religious landscape. Itinerant preachers who followed the trade routes between the newly developing urban centres found in these towns men and women very much like themselves: largely literate, critical of the contemporary church and eager for closer religious interaction. While some of this new religious enthusiasm could be accommodated within the traditional structures of the Church, the spread of unorthodox practices and the growth of large-scale heretical movements presented a problem that called for a more active response from the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The Fourth Lateran Council was the most significant of the reforming synods to respond to this crisis. Meeting in 1215, it launched a mission to re-connect the people of western Christendom with the orthodox practices of the Catholic Church. In the decades immediately following the Council, its reforms were disseminated across Europe through various sets of synodal statutes, which adapted the decrees to fit local circumstances and to correct the perceived abuses of individual dioceses. The English episcopate's enthusiastic response to the Lateran IV reforms suggests that some of the decrees promulgated were not entirely new to England. For example, the twenty-first statute of the Council exhorted the faithful to annual confession, yet legislation issued in the dioceses of Salisbury, Durham, Wells, Carlisle and York encouraged confession at three or four of the major festivals of the year - an indication that annual confession was already a widely accepted practice.¹ But in other ways, the English church was far from a model of reform. The reiteration of statutes concerning clerical conduct, simony and the promotion of properly qualified clergy indicate that the overall standard of pastoral care still left a lot to be desired.²

The key to these reforms lay in successful orthodox preaching: it was only by the direct instruction of the laity by men trained in the faith that the Christian community would be able to fully internalize Catholic doctrine. However, the creation of a parish clergy able to fulfil these preaching requirements would take time, and even when this body of men existed, many would shun the disparate, impoverished parishes of the rural north in favour of their more profitable urban counterparts. Fortunately, there were a number of auxiliary bodies available to supplement the deficiencies of the medieval parish clergy. The most prominent of these religious groups were the mendicant orders, but they were also ably assisted by others, such as the canons regular and the monastic communities, particularly the Benedictines. Focusing on the activities of these groups, this essay will examine the contribution of the auxiliary preaching bodies to the pastoral care of England's Northern Province in the period preceding the Black Death.

The Friars

The most important of these supplementary groups were the mendicant orders. Since towns contained not only large and receptive audiences, but also the wealth needed to support communities dependent upon alms, the friars were principally an urban phenomenon. First settling in the prosperous religious centres of the south, by the 1280s both the Franciscan and the Dominican Orders had also colonized the major urban settlements of northern England. Here they were joined by other mendicant communities, from the greater orders, the Carmelites and the Augustinian Friars, to the lesser ones, such as the Trinitarians and the Friars of the Sack - the latter being among the orders suppressed by the Council of Lyons in 1274.³

Various sources attest to the early activities of the mendicants in the Northern Province. For example, the Lanercost Chronicle records that in 1267 a Franciscan friar addressed the large crowd gathered in Beverley for the feast day of St John, the town's patron saint. In the following year, a grant of land extending the grounds of the Franciscan house in York refers to those attending sermons in the friary precinct.⁴ The evidence also shows that despite the mainly urban basis of their communities, the friars made significant efforts to reach smaller towns and villages. That an exemplum in the Lanercost Chronicle was based on the journey of two Dumfries friars to preach in Annandale suggests that it was a model readily understood by the audience, that such mendicant preaching tours were frequent occurrences.⁵ The letter issued by Archbishop John Romeyn in 1291, in which he instructed the friars to promote the crusade in the various urban centres of his diocese, provides further evidence of mendicant activity in outlying communities. Able to specify major towns such as Whitby, Rotherham, and Skipton, Romeyn faltered as he came to the sparsely-populated hinterlands of the far northwest. The Dominicans at Lancaster were to be sent to places in the deaneries of Kendal and Lonsdale 'where there is a large gathering of people', while the Franciscans of Richmond were told to preach somewhere in the deanery of Copeland 'where there is believed to be a large gathering of people'.⁶ The expectation that the friars would be able to identify suitable preaching sites indicates a firm belief, on the part of the archbishop at least, that they were already active in these areas.

The evidence also suggests that the mendicant communities of the north could provide a more regular system of pastoral support. At the 1270 visitation of the church of Snaith in Yorkshire, the chaplain testified that although the parish had no vicar, the Franciscans and Dominicans often came and preached there.⁷ The remote Carmelite friary of Hulne in Northumberland, which was home to a community of twenty-eight friars by 1301, must also have provided pastoral support to the neighbouring rural communities. Although from 1247 onwards, Carmelite friars followed their mendicant counterparts and became an urban movement, their house at Hulne reflected the eremetic origins of their order.⁸

However, despite providing often much-needed supplementary services, the general uncertainty over the pastoral rights of the parish clergy versus those of the friars meant that clashes between the two groups were inevitable.⁹ The tensions between the secular church and the mendicant orders have left several marks on the northern records and indicate the limitations that, to an extent, must have curtailed the friars' activities. The hostilities that arose after the arrival of the Carmelites in the parish of St Saviour, York, were resolved in 1301 after a consideration of the potential legal costs persuaded the two sides to settle out of court. The settlement indicates that the main complaint of the parish clergy was financial: the friars agreed to pay the rector thirty shillings a year to offset any reduction in the church's tithes and offerings.¹⁰ In other cases, amicable settlement proved impossible and the intervention of the higher ecclesiastical authorities became necessary. Although permitted to preach and hear confessions, the Dominican Robert of Rypon had been 'maliciously and blindly impeded' by the vicar of Ripon, Andrew of Kirkby. As a result, a mandate sent by Archbishop Melton in 1321 ordered the chapter of Ripon to exonerate the friar and allow him to carry out his duties.¹¹ Melton was also forced to issue diocesan-wide mandates instructing the parish clergy not to impede the activities of the Dominicans at Pontefract, the Augustinian friars at York and the Franciscans at Doncaster.¹²

The Canons Regular

The disparate and largely rural nature of the York archdiocese meant that vacancy was among the most significant of the difficulties faced by medieval reformers. Finding men to serve in large but poor parishes was a problem that, in several cases, had been solved by the presence of regular canons, religious orders whose vocation combined the monastic life with that of the pastoral. The activities of the canons, particularly the Premonstratensians who chose to settle in those isolated areas often worst affected by vacancy, must have played an important role in the cura animarum.¹³

The supplementary potential of the Augustinian canons in particular seems to have been recognised early on in their settlement of the north. During the first half of the twelfth century, Archbishop Thurstan appears to have actively encouraged the founding of four Augustinian houses as a way to improve the pastoral provisions of his diocese. The founding donation of each of these houses included various churches which the canons would then supervise.¹⁴ In the diocese of Carlisle, with the services of only four friaries at its disposal, the canons regular must have formed a vital supplement to the parish clergy. The Augustinian canons of Carlisle cathedral alone had been granted eight, if not ten, churches by Henry I in the early twelfth century, and in the century and a half following Lateran IV, despite considerable pressure from Scottish raids, the canons of the house continued to be committed to the parishes under their care.¹⁵ By the early fourteenth century, Carlisle's pastoral provision was so stretched that some canons appear to have been manning churches single-handedly, a measure in clear contravention of the ecclesiastical statutes on this subject. As a result, Bishop John Kirkby ordered the prior and chapter to recall two canons from the churches of Addingham and Castle Sowerby, stating that either other canons be appointed to serve with them or secular clerks were to be installed in their place.¹⁶

Although the availability of even a small number of canons must have eased the pastoral burden in rural areas, there is little evidence to attest to the early involvement of the canons in the cure of souls. That a section entitled De canonicis parochialibus appeared in the statutes of the Premonstratensians only in 1236x1238 indicates active pastoral duties were more common after the Fourth Lateran Council than before.¹⁷ It is possible that the institution of canons to appropriated churches reflected an increasing unwillingness on the part of the secular clergy to serve in these poorer parishes. As H. M. Colvin notes, for many houses the appointment of a single secular priest on a moderate stipend rather than the maintenance of two canons and, often, a secular chaplain seemed to offer the best way of exploiting this source of revenue.¹⁸ Concrete evidence for the pastoral activities of the northern canons appears only in the late thirteenth century. Although the church of Kirkby Malham in the diocese of York had been granted to the canons of West Dereham in 1205, it is only in 1276 that the a canon is first recorded as being instituted to the vicarage there.¹⁹ The earliest evidence that the canons of Shap were engaged in pastoral duties also dates to this period. The harsh surrounding landscape appears to have proven so great a disincentive to seculars that in 1287, Bishop Halton officially confirmed that the churches of Shap and Bampton should be served by two or three canons from the house at Shap 'as they have hitherto been accustomed'. It was not assumed, however, that the canons would take on the full pastoral burden of the churches involved - the bishop also specified that a secular priest was to be maintained in each parish to hear confessions.²⁰ The Lanercost Chronicle provides further evidence of an active interest in pastoral work in the late thirteenth century. The compilation of the Chronicle at Lanercost, a house of Augustinian canons, seems to have begun in the years after 1280.²¹ From a later comment in the chronicle, we know that Lanercost's library had a section devoted to the works of the friars, books that were no doubt used to aid them in their pastoral work, while the inclusion of a large amount of exempla in the text indicates a keen interest in preaching.²² Pastoral duties formed a significant part of the life of the Lanercost canons - the priory church served not only their community but also the surrounding parish.²³

The Monastic Orders

The work of the parish clergy, the friars and the canons was also supplemented by a renewed interest in pastoral care from the monasteries. The most significant contribution in this field came from houses of the Benedictine Order. As Margaret Jennings argues, the Benedictine drive to create an educated monastic elite was only partly in response to the rise of the universities and scholastic theology. The more immediate incentive was the need to dispense with the services of the friars in the cathedral priories and to reclaim these religious spaces as their own.²⁴ In 1336, Pope Benedict XII oversaw the formal introduction of a widespread programme of Benedictine preaching and higher education, which explicitly authorised preaching to lay audiences.²⁵ Benedict was, to an extent, sanctioning existing practice. Durham had been the first Benedictine house to establish a presence at Oxford in the 1270s, where it was joined by the monks of Canterbury in 1277.²⁶ In 1283 Gloucester College had been created to accommodate students from other houses of the order. The increasing popularity of education among the English black monks is indicated by the decision in 1321 to expand Gloucester College into the newly vacant Carmelite site next door and the 1343 decree that no rooms were to be kept vacant for over half a year, regardless of which particular monastery held a title to them.²⁷

Durham provides an interesting case study in the analysis of monastic pastoral ambitions in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. There can be no doubt that the cathedral priory of Durham was a powerful, independent house. As a monastery, the cathedral chapter remained largely free of outside influence, providing no prebends for papal provision, royal nomination or episcopal collation.²⁸ Its propensity to cater for its own needs was increased by the numerical strength and local loyalties of its brethren. In 1300, the Durham community stood at approximately 110, making it the single largest religious community in the north.²⁹ The majority of the brethren came from within a 35-mile radius of Durham, while the lack of local toponymics in the priory's outlying cells indicates that these small communities retained closer ties to the motherhouse than to their geographical locations. The cells were certainly kept under close reign - the administration of the nine dependencies formed an integral part of the overall monastic account.³⁰ The independence of both the see and the monastic priory were highly valued.

It is in this context that we must appreciate the local religious monopoly held by the monks of Durham. Although a substantial urban centre and a place of ecclesiastical and governmental importance, the city remained free of any other major religious orders. The absence of the friars from Durham is particularly striking. Nearby Newcastle contained convents of the four greater orders, while its inferior diocesan sister, Carlisle, was able to support both a Franciscan and a Dominican friary. In fact, there had been a short-lived Franciscan settlement at Durham. The Liberate Rolls record that in November 1239, the King had ordered the bishop to supply them with clothing and food.³¹ However, the friars do not appear to have remained in Durham long, presumably for the same reasons that the nearby Augustinian priory of Baxterwood had failed in the late twelfth century - a concerted campaign by the monks had forced their patron to not only abandon the new community, but to transfer the lands granted to it to the Durham cell of Finchale instead.³²

The Durham community's wish to maintain dominance over the city and the area in its immediate vicinity seems to provide the context for the priory's interest in pastoral care. The earliest reference to the regular Sunday sermons delivered by members of the monastic community in the abbey is a grant of indulgences from Bishop Kellawe's episcopate (1311-16) to all those who went to hear the monks preach in the cathedral church. In 1327 and the 1340s, additional grants of indulgences from Archbishop Melton and Bishops Bury and Hatfield provide evidence of the monks preaching outside the cathedral walls.³³ It is certainly possible that such regular public preaching began in the late thirteenth century and, perhaps, inspired or was inspired by the decision of the prior and convent in the 1270s to send their most promising monks to Oxford. Even though the monks of Durham refused to tolerate religious competitors within their locality, they clearly still felt the need to provide a competitive level of service.

It is also worth devoting a few words to the activities of the Cistercians in relation to pastoral care. Although generally an order that shunned secular duties, the evidence indicates that in certain circumstances the northern Cistercians were obliged to take a more active interest in the pastoral care of their local communities. The church at Scarborough, its chapel, liberties, and tithes had been granted to the abbey of Citeaux by Richard I.³⁴ Although there is no evidence that the members of the Cistercian cell established there performed any pastoral duties, it is clear that they took their role as custodians of the church and its interests very seriously indeed. In 1245, within five years of the friars' first appearance in Scarborough, the Cistercians had orchestrated the formal eviction of the Franciscans and their resettlement in a site outside the town.³⁵ By 1257, the Franciscans had returned and initially relations seem to have been cordial. The decrees of the Cistercian General Chapter in 1257 and 1262, which required the celebration of masses for Scarborough's deceased parishioners in every house of the Order, suggests that the Cistercians were either encouraging or rewarding local support for the cell.³⁶ This period of relative harmony ended in c.1280 when the Cistercians renewed their campaign against the Franciscans, probably in response to the building or enlargement of the friars' church. Letters in 1280 and 1281 complain of the friars' harassment, in particular the sentence of excommunication on all those attending the friars' church promulgated by the Abbot of St Albans as the protector of Cistercian interests in the case. The Franciscan archbishop of Canterbury, John Peckham, intervened on behalf of the mendicants at a regional level and in the papal curia, while Archbishop Wickwane of York ordered the Cistercians to allow the friars to preach freely in the parish.³⁷ The Cistercians' main grievance appears to have been financial. An appeal to Edward I in 1285 blamed the arrival of Franciscan and Dominican friars in the town for a sharp downturn in the church's revenue, while papal letters in 1318 and 1319 initiated inquiries into this matter.³⁸ Having proved themselves a force to be reckoned with, the Cistercians were able to negotiate a prior financial agreement to the church's benefit before allowing Carmelite friars to settle in the town in the early fourteenth century.³⁹

A very different set of circumstances forced the Cistercian abbey of Holme Cultram into an involvement in pastoral affairs. By 1300, the monastic grange established at Skinburness had developed into a substantial settlement and Edward I granted the monks the liberty to have a free borough, fair and market there. The town's growth seems to have outstripped the traditional pastoral provision in the area. Presumably in response to a request from the abbey itself, in the following year, the monks were authorized by Bishop John de Halton to build a church or chapel with a cemetery there, which would be served by a secular priest.⁴⁰

Conclusion

The Church had recognised the need to renew its teaching and preaching programme in order to strengthen and maintain the faith, and thirteenth and fourteenth-century legislation aimed to create a parish clergy that could satisfactorily provide the required religious services. But other fully trained preachers were also available to join the campaign. If the parish clergy were the dogged foot soldiers of the Church's attack, then the cavalry consisted of the newly formed mendicant orders, whose phenomenal expansion in the decades following the Fourth Lateran Council strongly reinforced the provision of pastoral care. The presence of such exemplary preachers in England inspired not only the secular clergy to improve their ministry but also the monastic orders, in particular the Benedictines, to reassert themselves among the local community. Further supplementary services were provided by the canons regular, many of whose activities seem to have begun as part of reforming programmes of the mid-twelfth century. In conclusion, in the largely rural lands of the north, when their shepherds had erred, it was not only the friars who were on hand to help round up those lost sheep. The much-undervalued canons regular, and even certain monastic houses took an active interest in the cura animarum which helped to keep the wolves of unorthodoxy at bay.

Helen Birkett, University of York

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NOTES

1. Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils Vol. I, ed. and trans. by Norman P. Tanner (London: Sheed and Ward; Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990), p.245; Councils and Synods with Other Documents Relating to the English Church Vol. II A.D. 1205-1313, ed. by F. M. Powicke and C. R. Cheney (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1964), pp.72, 593.

2. For a recent survey of the application of the Lateran IV reforms in an English context see Helen Birkett, 'The Pastoral Application of the Lateran IV Reforms in the Northern Province, 1215-1348', Northern History, 43 (2006), 199-219.

3. The orders suppressed in 1274 were forbidden from admitting new recruits and prohibited from preaching, hearing confessions or providing burial for outsiders. However, since they were left to die out gradually, a number of functioning communities continue to appear in the sources even after 1300. For a clear idea of the geographical spread of the mendicants, along with that of other orders, see the ecclesiastical maps in the Victoria County History series. A. G. Little, Franciscan Papers, Lists, and Documents, Publications of the University of Manchester Historical Series 81 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1943), pp.220-21; C. H. Lawrence, The Friars: The Impact of the Early Mendicant Movement on Western Society (London: Longman, 1994), p.72; Michael Robson, The Franciscans in the Medieval Custody of York, Borthwick Papers 93 (York: Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York, 1998), p.1; Frances Andrews, The Other Friars: The Carmelite, Augustinian, Sack and Pied Friars in the Middle Ages, (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2006), pp.184, 207-08, 213; VCH Yorkshire III, map facing p.1; VCH Durham II, map facing p.76; VCH Cumberland II, map facing p.126; VCH Lancashire II, map facing p.98.

4. Chronicon de Lanercost MCCI-MCCCXLVI e codice Cottoniano nunc primum typis mandatum, ed. by Joseph Stevenson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Printing, 1839), p.83; Calendar of Patent Rolls: Henry III AD 1266-1272 (London: H. M. S. O., 1913), pp.260-61; Robson, pp.14, 21.

5. Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 107; The Chronicle of Lanercost, 1272-1346 Vol. I, trans. by Herbert Maxwell with an introduction by James Wilson (Cribyn: Llanerch Press, 2001), p.26.

6. 'Fratres Praedicatores de Langcastre unum apud Langcastre, unum ubi major est congregatio populi in Kendal, et unum ubi est major congregatio populi in Lonnesdal... Fratres Minores Richmondiae habeant unum apud Richemund, et alium ubi major creditur esse congregatio populi in Coupland.' iHistorical Papers and Letters from the Northern Registers, ed. by James Raine, Rolls Series 61 (London: Longman,1873) p.95.

7. The Register of Walter Giffard, Lord Archbishop of York 1266-1279, ed. by William Brown, Surtees Society 109 (Durham: Andrews, 1904), pp.322-24.

8. Andrews, pp.23-24; Lawrence, pp.95-96.

9. Although Boniface VIII's bull 'Super cathedram' in 1300 mostly resolved the issue of the friars' pastoral duties, disputes over the legality of the friars' popular preaching continued. For more details see: Robson, p.18; Lawrence, p.160; W. A. Pantin, The English Church in the Fourteenth Century, Mediaeval Academy Reprints for Teaching 5 (London: University of Toronto Press and the Medieval Academy of America, 1980), p.124; H. Leith Spencer, English Preaching in the Late Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon, 1993), pp.167-68; Little, p.240.

10. The Register of Thomas Corbridge, Lord Archbishop of York, 1300-1304 Part I, ed. by William Brown, Surtees Society 138 (Durham: Andrews, 1925), pp.60-63; Pastors and the Care of Souls in Medieval England, ed. by John Shinners and William J. Dohar, Notre Dame Texts in Medieval Culture 4 (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), pp.117-20.

11. 'maliciose et temere impedivit'. Memorials of the Church of SS. Peter and Wilfrid, Ripon Vol. II, ed. by J. T. Fowler, Surtees Society 78 (Durham: Andrews, 1886), p.89; Spencer, p.60.

12. The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York 1317-1340 Vol. III, ed. by Rosalind M. T. Hill, Canterbury and York Society 76 (York: Maxiprint, 1988), pp.139-40.

13. Joseph A. Gribbin, The Premonstratensian Order in Late Medieval England, Studies in the History of Medieval Religion 16 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001), p.3.

14. Donald Nicholl, Thurstan, Archbishop of York, 1114-1140 (York: Stonegate Press, 1964), pp.127-28, 136.

15. After Scottish raids in 1316, at least six canons were temporarily placed under the care of other houses by royal command due to financial incapacity. Further incursions in 1318 saw the community made temporarily homeless and subject of a special appeal in the Northern Province. R. B. Dobson, Church and Society in the Medieval North of England (London: Hambledon, 1996), p.22; Calendar of Close Rolls: Edward II vol. II 1313-1318 (London: H.M.S.O., 1893), p.426; Rosalind M. T. Hill, 'Fund-Raising in a Fourteenth-Century Province', in Life and Thought in the Northern Church c.1100-c.1700: Essays in Honour of Claire Cross, ed. by Diana Wood, Studies in Church History Subsidia 12 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1999), p.33.

16. The Register of John Kirkby, Bishop of Carlisle 1332-52, and the Register of John Ross, Bishop of Carlisle, 1325-32 Vol. I, ed. by R. L. Storey, Canterbury and York Society 79 (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993), p.138.

17. H. M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Oxford: Clarendon, 1951), pp.23, 276-277.

18. Colvin, p.279.

19. Register of Walter Giffard, pp.255-56; Colvin, p.278.

20. 'sicut hactenus consueverunt'. However, the appropriation of churches was also a result of the financial problems faced by the houses themselves. For example, the incursions of the Scots, the burdens of hospitality, murrain, and the surrender of other rents are among the reasons cited in appropriations by the canons of Carlisle, Egglestone, Lanercost, and Shap in the early fourteenth centuries. The Register of John de Halton, Bishop of Carlisle, A.D. 1292-1324, ed. by W. M. Thompson and T. F. Tout, Canterbury and York Society 12 and 13, (London: Canterbury and York Society, 1913), I pp.39-40, 292-94, 299-300, II pp.33-35; The Register of William Melton, Archbishop of York 1317-1340 Vol. I, ed. by Rosalind M. T. Hill, Canterbury and York Society 70 (Torquay: Devonshire Press, 1977), pp.44-46, 58-61; Historical Papers and Letters, pp.250-53; Colvin, pp.278-79; John R. H. Moorman, Church Life in England in the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1945), p.50.

21. Wilson argues that the chronicle is the result of the continuous compilation of material rather than being composed in or shortly after 1345, the final year covered by the text. The interests of Lanercost Priory become prominent after 1280. Chronicle of Lanercost, pp. xviii-xix, xxi.

22. Chronicon de Lanercost, p. 172; Chronicle of Lanercost, pp.132-33.

23. VCH Cumberland II, p.136.

24. Margaret Jennings, 'Monks and the "Artes Praedicandi" in the time of Ranulph Higden', in Revue Benedictine, 86 (1976), 125.

25. The triennial chapters of the English Benedictine houses were ordered to start and end with a sermon, the latter to be given in the vernacular to a lay audience. Siegfried Wenzel, Monastic Preaching in the Age of Chaucer, Morton W. Bloomfield Lectures on Medieval English Literature 3 (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute, 1993), p.4.

26. Joan Greatrex, 'Benedictine Sermons: Preparation and Practice in the English Monastic Cathedral Cloisters', in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. by Carolyn Muessig, Brill's Studies in Intellectual History 90 (Leiden: Brill, 1998), p.260.

27. Jennings, p.127.

28. Pantin, p.27.

29. A. J. Piper, 'The Monks of Durham and Patterns of Activity in Old Age', in The Church and Learning in Later Medieval Society: Essays in Honour of R. B. Dobson, ed. by Caroline. M. Barron and Jenny Stratford, Harlaxton Medieval Studies 11 (Donington: Shaun Tyas, 2002), p.53; Dobson, Church and Society, pp.8-9.

30. Dobson, Church and Society, pp.51, 57.

31. Calendar of Liberate Rolls: Henry III Vol. I A.D. 1226-1240 (London: H. M. S. O., 1916), p.428; Little, p.228.

32. 'Gaufridi Sacristae de Coldingham, Historia de Statu Ecclesiae Dunelmensis ab anno MCXLIV as annum MCCXIV', in Anglia Sacra, sive, Collectio Historiarum Partim Antiquitus, Partim Recenter Scriptarum, de Archiepiscopis & Episcopis Angliae, a Prima Fidei Christianae Susceptione ad Annum MDXL, ed. by Henry Wharton (London: Impensis Richard Chiswel, 1691), pp.726-27; VCH Durham II, p.109.

33. This reference is found in the late sixteenth-century Rites of Durham. Rites of Durham: Being a Description or Brief Declaration of All the Ancient Monuments, Rites, & Customs Belonging or Being within the Monastical Church of Durham Before the Suppression, Written 1593, ed. by J. T. Fowler, Surtees Society 107 (Durham: Andrews, 1903), p.46; G. R. Owst, Preaching in Medieval England: An Introduction to Sermon Manuscripts of the Period c. 1350-1450, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought (New York: Russell and Russell, 1965), p.52; Jennings, pp.125-26; Greatrex, p.259.

34. The entry in the VCH Yorkshire Vol. III for the Grey Friars in Scarborough provides an excellent summary of this material, to which I am much indebted. Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters Vol. I A.D. 1198-1304, ed. by W. H. Bliss (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1893), p.120; VCH Yorkshire III, pp.274-75.

35. The allusion to the incident in Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora suggests that the ejection of the friars may have been a cause celebre amongst monastic circles. Calendar of the Liberate Rolls: Henry III Vol. I A.D. 1226-1240 (London: H. M. S. O., 1916), p.447; Roberti Grosseteste Episcopi Quondam Lincolniensis Epistolae, ed. by Henry Richards Luard, Rolls Series 25 (London: Longman, 1861), pp.321-23; Monumenta Franciscana Vol. I, ed. by J. S. Brewer, Rolls Series 4 (London: Longman, 1858), pp.642-43; Calendar of Patent Rolls: Henry III AD 1232-1247 (London: H. M. S. O., 1906), p.459; Calendar of Close Rolls: Henry III Vol. V AD 1242-47 (London: H. M. S. O., 1916), p.334; Matthaei Parisiensis, Monachi Sancti Albani, Chronica Majora Vol. IV, A.D. 1240 to A.D 1247, ed. by Henry Richards Luard, Rolls Series 57 (London: Longman, 1877), p.280; Matthew Paris's English History. From the Year 1235 to 1273 Vol. I, trans. by J. A. Giles (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1852), pp.475-76.

36. The Franciscans had returned to Scarborough by 1257. 'Old Wills from Harpham', ed. by William Brown, Transactions of the East Riding Antiquarian Society 21 (1915), 70; Episcopal Registers, Diocese of Worcester. Register of Bishop Godfrey Giffard, September 23rd, 1268, to August 15th 1301, Vol. II, ed. J. W. Willis Bund, Worcestershire Historical Society (Oxford: James Parker, 1902), pp.126, 135; Registrum Epistolarum Fratris Johannis Peckham, Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis Vol. I, ed. by Charles Trice Martin, Rolls Series 77 (London: Longman, 1882), pp.214-16, 246-48, 284-85; Historical Papers and Letters, p.79.

37. The papal letters state that although the church of Scarborough had formerly been valued at one hundred and sixty marks, it was now declared to be worth only sixty marks - enquiries were to be made to establish its real value. Foedera, Conventiones, Litterae et Cujuscunque Generis Acta Publica Vol. I Pars II, ed. by Thomas Rymer (London, 1816), p.661; Calendar of Entries in the Papal Registers Relating to Great Britain and Ireland, Papal Letters Vol. II A.D. 1305-1342, ed. by W. H. Bliss (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1895), pp.177, 189-90.

38. Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786. Tomus II: Ab anno 1221 ad annum 1261, ed. by Joseph Maria Canivez, Bibliotheque de la Revue D'Histoire Ecclesiastique Fasc. 10 (Louvain: Bureaux de la Revue, 1934), p.428; Statuta Capitulorum Generalium Ordinis Cisterciensis ab anno 1116 ad annum 1786. Tomus III: Ab anno 1262 ad annum 1400, ed. by Joseph Maria Canivez, Bibliotheque de la Revue D'Histoire Ecclesiastique Fasc. 11 (Louvain: Bureaux de la Revue, 1935), p.3. .

39. Calendar of Patent Rolls: Edward III AD 1327-1330 (London: H. M. S. O., 1891), p.27.

40. VCH Cumberland II, pp. 163, 167; Register of John de Halton, I, pp.161-62.