A HISTORY OF NORFOLK 34. THE PRIORY OF WALSINGHAM An anonymous ballad from the press of Richard Pynson, circa 1460, of which there is a unique copy in Pepys Library, relative to Our Lady of Walsingham, thus opens : — Of thys Chsppel see here the foundatyon Builded the yere of Christ's incarnatyon A thousand complete sixty and one. The tyme of Saint Edwarde, Kinge of this region.' It proceeds to relate how the noble widow Lady Rychold de Faverches was favoured by the Virgin with a view of the Santa Casa at Nazareth, and commissioned to build its counterpart at Wal- singham. Eventually Our blessed La)-die with blessed minystrys, Herself being here chief Artificer Arrered thys sayde house with Angells handys. And not only rered it but sette it there it is. That the chapel was founded in the time of Edward the Confessor is also confirmed by Le- land.^ The earliest deeds in the chartulary of Walsingham Priory name Richeldis, the mother of Geoffrey de Favraches, as the founder of the chapel ; but the term founding in this case refers to the re-establishment or re-building of the chapel by that lady after the Conquest. About the year 1169,^ in the episcopate of William Turbus, Geoffrey de Favraches, on the day he set out for a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, granted to God and St. Mary and to Edwy his clerk the chapel of Our Lady which his mother had founded at Walsingham with all its appur- tenances, together with the church of AH Saints, Little Walsingham, to the intent that Edwy should found a priory. Shortly afterwards these gifts, with slight additions, were confirmed to the Austin Canons of Walsingham by Robert de Bru- curt and Roger, earl of Clare.^ It is clear that the chapel of Our Lady of Walsingham was of no small repute ere the priory ■was established, for it was very unusual in the twelfth century to find a mere chapel in the possession of lands, tithes, and rents. The chapel ■was enclosed within the priory precincts, and from its earliest establishment a continuous stream of pilgrims found their way to this sanctuary. The offerings speedily enriched the priory, and though fluctuating much at different periods, produced a considerable income for the four cen- turies of its existence. Roger Ascham, when visiting Cologne in 1550, remarked : ' The Three ' Jrci. Journ. xiii, 115. ' Leland, Collectanea, iii, 26. ' This date is arrived at from a careful study of the years of the different priors' rule, as given subsequently from the dateless chartulary list. It is highly improb- able that Geoffrey, of an age to make a pilgrimage in 1 169, was the son of a lady who founded the chapel in 106 1 ; possibly he was grandson.
- Walsingham Chart. Cott. MS. Nero E. vii.
Kings be not so rich, I believe, as was the Lady of Walsingham.' Among kingly pilgrims may be named Henry III (1241), Edward I (1280 and 1296), and Edward II (1315). Edward III, in 1 361, granted £c) towards the expenses of John duke of Brittany, for his expenses in this pilgrimage, and licence of absence from London, to his nephew, the Duke of Anjou (one of the French hostages) for a like reason. The same king, in 1364, gave safe conduct to King David of Scotland and twenty knights to make pilgrimage to Walsingham.^ But it was not merely offerings in money that made the priory prosperous ; gifts of lands, rents, and churches were bestowed on the canons soon after its foundation. A confirmation charter of Henry III in 1255, confirmed the substantial benefactions of eight different donors,* and Edward I, when at Walsingham in 1281, con- firmed to the priory the churches of St. Peter, Great Walsingham, St. Clement, and St. Andrew, Burnham, St. Andrew, Bedingham, Tymelthorp, and Owelton.' The taxation of 1291 shows that the priory had then possessions in eighty-six difi'erent Norfolk parishes, and that its annual income from such sources was ^•]C) 2s. 6^d. Clement V, in 1306, sanctioned the appro- priation by the priory of the church of St. Peter, Great Walsingham, value ;i^i O, of their patronage ; the church was to be sen'ed by one of their canons.* Royal sanction to the appropriation of the church of St. Peter, Great Walsingham, was not granted until 1314.^ On 5 May, 1309, at the instance of Queen Isabella, licence was granted to the priory of Walsingham for the acquisition in mort- main of lands and rents to the yearly value of £4-0. This instrument was vacated on 9 May, 9 Richard II, because the priory had by then acquired lands and tenements to that amount.^* In May 1385, the priory paid the king the heavy fine of ;^ioo to secure the alienation to them in mortmain of considerable lands and manors in Norfolk, including the manors of Great and Little Ryburgh, of the value of ;^40 yearly, to find four chaplains, canons or secular, to cele- brate daily in the newly-built chapel of St. Anne within the said priory for the good estate of Joan, widow of Thomas de Felton, knight, and for her soul after death, and for the souls of the said Thomas, Thomas his son, and others, and to find a light to burn daily therein at high mass.^' Prior Thomas and his convent obtained licence in mortmain, in 1465, for the acquisition of lands, ' Nichol, Pilgrimages of Erasmus (1875), Ixvi, 79 ; Rymer, Focdera (Rec. Com.), vi, 315, 324. "• Chart. R. 39 Hen. Ill, m. 5. ' Ibid. 9 Edw. I, m. 75. » Cal. Papal Reg. ii, 19. ' Cal. of Pat. 8 Edw. II, pt. i, m. 11. '» Ibid. 2 Edw. II, pt. 2, m. 9. " Ibid. 8 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 15. 394
