RELIGIOUS HOUSES Peter, son of Peter de Nerford, granted in 1280, to the abbot and canons of St. Mary of Dereham, Richard de Ayssepele, Simon le Wodewide, and Simon the carter of Saham, with their tenements, belongings, and services, and I2d. of rents ; to hold the same in free alms for the sustentation of one canon to celebrate in the abbey of Dereham for the souls of the faithful departed.^ The abbot and convent obtained leave in 1285 to enclose eight acres of land in West Dereham, adjoining the abbey on the west side, to wit from the stone bridge of West Dereham to the end of their close called Fishercroft, for the enlargement of their site.^ Other grants of lands and rents were made by various benefactors so that by 1291, when the ecclesiastical taxation roll was drawn up, the endowments of this abbey were considerable, being of the clear annual value of £i6() 3;. 8^1?. Their chief possessions were in Norfolk, scattered over thirty- three parishes, but they had also property in the dioceses of York, Ely, and Lincoln. Elizabeth de Burgo, the king's kinswoman, had licence in 1336 for alienation in mortmain of 7 messuages, 112 acres of land, 8 acres of meadow, 10 acres of pasture, and los. %d.of rent in West Dereham and adjacent towns of Norfolk, together with the fair of Wynwale, to the abbey of Dereham, to find a chaplain to celebrate daily in the chapel of St. Wynwale for the soul of Gilbert de Clare, late earl of Gloucester, and for the souls of herself, her ancestors, and heirs.^ Boniface IX, in 1399, sanctioned the appro- priation to this abbey of the church of Grimston, value not exceeding 90 marks, and that of the monastery, not exceeding 400 marks. On the resignation of the rector the church might be served by one of their canons.* In the same year the pope confirmed the decision made by the late bishop of Ely with regard to a dispute between the abbey and the priory of Barnwell as to the tithes of the sheaves of ' Nunne Court fee ' pertaining to the church of Holy Trinity, Cambridge. The decree ordered the priory to pay 30i. yearly to the abbey for these tithes. The pope completed the ordinance by enjoining the priory to keep the chancel of Holy Trinity in repair and to pay synodals.^ Two years later, September, 1 40 1, this Cambridge church was fully appropriated to the abbey, by sanction of Boniface. At the same time the two parishes of St. Peter and St. Andrew, West Dereham, situate close together in one churchyard, were united. It was stated that St. Peter's was so diminished in income that a priest could not be maintained. The convent and the parishioners of St. Peter's were freed from the repair of the church and chancel, and considered parishioners of St. Andrew's.* Another church about the possession of which the abbey had some little trouble and litigation at an earlier period, was that of Holkham, which had been given them by Aymer de Valence, who had made good his claim to it against the abbot of Viterbo. In 1341 the latter abbot en- deavoured to reclaim it from the abbot of West Dereham, and the king ordered the prior of Walsingham to do justice in the case,' which was evidently decided in favour of the Norfolk house as they are found in possession of the rectory in 1535. When the abbey was visited in 1478 by Richard Redman, bishop of St. Asaph and abbot of Shap, and by Hubert, commissary-general of the abbot of Pr^montr6, it was reported that the abbey held five churches, the cures of which were sometimes held by canons in perpetuity, some- times by seculars, and sometimes by canons removable at pleasure.* When the Valor Ecclesiasticus was taken in 1535 the clear annual value was declared to be
- ^228 OS. o%d.
On 20 September, 1323, Canon Geoffrey de Driffield, from the abbey of Egleston, was sent to Dereham by the king, with the request that he might stay with them for a time, as the house of Egleston had been so destroyed by the Scotch rebels that the canons could no longer live there. At the same time, seven other canons of Egleston were distributed among the like number of Premonstratensian houses, in- cluding the Norfolk abbey of Langley.^ In May, 1325, the county escheator was ordered not to further intermeddle with this abbey, which he had taken into the king's hands on the death of the last abbot on the plea that the lands that belonged to Aymer de Valence, late earl of Pembroke, were in the king's hands. The king had learnt by inquisition that the abbey was of the advowson of the earl as of the inheritance of Monchesney, and that from the time of its foundation until then the patrons of the abbey, when it was vacant, had no custody there, and that the convent did not seek licence to elect from any patron, and did not present him whom they had elected to the patron before the in- stallation. It was further ascertained that the patron did not receive any profit at the time of voidance, but that whenever a patron died, the abbot and convent celebrated mass and dis- tributed alms for his soul on the same scale as at the death of an abbot, namely each canon-priest of the house celebrated three masses, and each canon not a priest said a psalter, and each lay Bodl. Chart. 169. Cal. of Pat. 13 Edw. I, m. 25. Ibid. 10 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 22. Cal. Papal Reg. v, 196. ' Ibid. 197.
- Cal. Papal Reg. v, 197.
' Chanc. Misc. bdle. 18, file 4, No. 7. ' Stowe MS. 4935, fol. 9. ' Cal. of Close, 17 Edw. II, m. 37 a'. 415
