A HISTORY OF NORFOLK Priory, according to the Valor of 1535, was £140 Ss. Ad. Thomas was prior in 1199 and 1200.^ The removal of this prior from his office by the abbot of St. Albans provoked considerable dispute, which is recited at length by Matthew Paris. Robert Fitzwalter, a powerful baron, was a friend of Prior Thomas. Resenting his dismissal, the baron asserted his claim to be patron of the cell, and alleged that he possessed a deed from the parent abbey by which it was stipulated that no prior could be removed without the patron's assent. He therefore impleaded the abbot in the king's court," charging him with coming to the priory of Binham to lodge there with more men and horses than he ought to have, and also with increasing the number of monks there resident, and extorting much money from the men of the priory, from which he ought only to receive one mark yearly. Finally he alleged that the abbot had infringed his rights by re- moving the prior during his absence with the king in Ireland (in i2io). The defence was apparently a denial of Fitzwalter's claim to the patronage, and seems to have been successful. Having therefore obtained no satisfaction from the law he assembled his retainers, and so closely beset the priory that the monks then in residence could not get anything to drink save rain water, or anything to eat save bread made of bran. When King John heard of this outrage he sent an armed force to relieve Binham, and Fitz- walter fled the kingdom. He died some years later, in the reign of Henry III, but to the last persisted in retaining the deed by which he claimed a right over the appointment of the prior. On his death, his friend and fellow- soldier, Adam Fitzwilliam, having learnt where the forged deed had been concealed, delivered it up to the abbot of St. Albans, and presented a silver-gilt pix for the high altar in expiation of his share in the crime, having been privy to the transaction.' It is difficult now to gather the nature and origin of the serious dispute that arose almost immediately after the nomination, by Abbot Hugh, of William de Somerton to the priory in 1 3 1 8, but it was sufficiently grave to cause the king to write to the pope on the subject in April of that year. The prior appealed to the sheriff of Norfolk to supply him with a lay force suffi- cient to resist the intrusion of the abbot of St. Albans into the priory, and the application was granted ; but on 28 May the king ordered the sheriff, on the appeal of the abbot of St. Albans, immediately to withdraw the force, as the abbot could lawfully exercise jurisdiction there as ordinary by apostolic authority.* The dispute ' Cott. MS. Claud. D. XIII, fol. 125*, z6b, 131. ' Cur. Reg. R. 68, m. i J. ' Matt. Paris, Chron. Mojora (Rolls Ser.), vi. 390.
- Close, 12 Edw. II, m. d d.
continued, and the abbot removed Prior Williarr* from his office ; but the prior, supported by all his monks, refused to leave the house. There- upon, on 28 October, 1320, the king ordered the sheriff to proceed to the priory of Binham to arrest Brother William de Somerton, who called himself prior, and thirteen other monks, and tcv deliver them to the abbot of St. Albans, to whom they are subject, by him to be corrected accord- ing to the rule of St. Benedict. In the letter to- the sheriff it was recited that Simon, abbot of Ramsey, recently presiding over the general chapter of the Benedictines of Canterbury Province held at Northampton, had informed the king that the chapter had found that the monks of Binham were living in disobedience and insolence, had taken up arms and made assemblies of aiders to foment their boldness, and paid no heed to the canonical censures of the abbot of St. Albans, and that consequently the chapter prayed the aid of the secular arm to repress the malice of the offenders.' Meanwhile the priory of Binham appealed to Rome, and on 16 July, 1 32 1, Pope John XXII addressed a letter to the English primate on the subject. It was therein recited that Nicholas de Wimundham, sub-prior, and the convent of Binham had complained to the pope that William de Somerton, their prior, who had appealed to the pope on a matter at issue between them, the priory, and the abbey of St. Albans, had his cause committed to Arnold, the king's chaplain and papal auditor, who sent his letters of commission to the abbot. Whereupon the abbot caused the messenger and a notary who accompanied him to be so grievously beaten that their blood was sprinkled on the walls of the church, and the letters were taken from them. The prior was also ejected, and some monks who appealed to the pope were imprisoned and kept without food for six days. The pope ordered the archbishop of Canterbury' to inquire into the matter, and if the allegations were true, to cite the abbot to appear before the pope.* Among the Ormsby-Gore MSS. at Brogyntyn is a letter from Edward II to the pope saying that bad men on the side of the prior of Binham had tried to get the abbot of St. Albans summoned before the pope on a charge of treating the papal nuncios with violence. The king espoused the cause of the abbey, and lauded the abbot, alleging that William Somerton, whom the abbot had made prior, had tried to subtract the cell from its obedience, and for that cause visited the papal court. Edward asked for the pope's support of the abbot.' It does not now seem possible to trace the eventual issue of this disturbance, but in about 1322 the king placed William de Leycester, ' Close, 14 Edw. II, m. 17. ' Cal. Papal Reg. ii, 213-14. ' Hist. MSS. Com. Rep. iv, 384. 344
