Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Norwych, George
NORWYCH, GEORGE (d. 1469), abbot of Westminster, succeeded to that office upon the resignation of Abbot Keyton, 1462 (not upon his death, as Stanley says, Memorials of Westminster, p. 334). By 1467 he had so thoroughly mismanaged the affairs of the convent that he was obliged to consent to the transference of his whole authority, spiritual as well as temporal, to a commission, consisting of the prior, Thomas Millyng [q. v.], and several monks, and to live until his debts should be paid in some other Benedictine house, with a chaplain and a few servants, on a pension of one hundred marks a year. The debts amounted to nearly three thousand four hundred marks, due in part to the convent at large, in part to individual monks; and, in addition to extravagant expenditure, Norwych had sold the monastic woods and encumbered the revenue with promises of pensions. Moreover, if his other offences can be inferred from the restrictions laid by the commissioners upon his future action, he had heaped offices and money upon an unworthy monk, Thomas Ruston, had taken perquisites contrary to his oath, had interfered with justice, and presented to benefices before they fell vacant.
He died in 1469, but his place of burial is unknown.
[Widmore's Hist. Westminster Abbey, p. 116, and Appendix vii. from the archives of the abbey; Neale's Westminster Abbey, i. 90; Willis's Hist. of Mitred Parliamentary Abbeys, i. 206.]