RELIGIOUS HOUSES There was a house standing between their priory and the street, and in 1408 they obtained the crown licence to pull it down and enlarge the site of their church and cloister, and to build a hermitage at the west end of the church, adjoining the street, where they received alms.* In 141 3 Henry V granted licence to hold in mortmain a messuage chapel and hermitage, with a fair on the west or St. John's side of Thetford.^ Margaret, wife of Sir John Puddenham, was buried in the church of the Austin Friars in 1 4 1 1 , by the tomb of her daughter, Elizabeth Hen- grave ; she left 40X. to the priory. John Potche was prior of this house, and English provincial of the order in the time of Edward IV. In 1469 he admitted Thomas Hurton and his wife Margaret to be full partakers of all the masses and other devotions of the order throughout England, and that at their deaths the same offices should be performed for them as for their deceased brethren. Martin enumerated several small bequests made by will to the Austin Friars during the last part of the sixteenth century. On 26 September, 1538, Thetford was visited by John Hilsey, the ex-Dominican friar whom Henry VIII had made bishop of Rochester, and in whom he found a ready tool for the suppres- sion of the friars. In a letter to Cromwell from Thetford on the following day he stated that he had found ' the Austin friars so bare that there was no earthly thing at all but trash and baggage.' He therefore at once proceeded to discharge them from their house and take their surrender. He apologised to the Lord Privy Seal for meddling with this house and that of the Dominicans without express order, ' but they were so far gone that if they had continued all had been spoiled.' ' The house was afterwards named in a list of those friaries which had no lead on the roofs, save the gutters.* The surrender into the king's hand of their house, church, hermitage, and chapel of St. John, was signed by Nicholas Pratt, prior, and Thomas Parmynter and Roger Shyrwodd, two of the brethren.' This was always a small house, the full complement of friars being only six. The site of their house and their poor posses- sions were granted to Sir Richard Fulmerston.^ 62. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF WALSINGHAM Licence was granted by Edward III on I February, 1347, to Elizabeth de Burgh, coun- ' Pat. 9 Hen. IV, pt. ii, m. 24. ' Ibid. I Hen. V, pt. i, m. 19. ' L. and P. Hen. Fill, xiii (2), 167.
- Ibid. 480.
- Dep. Keeper's Rep. viii, App. 2, 44.
- Mins. Accts. 32 Hen. VIII, pt. ii, Norf.
tess of Clare, to found a house of Friars Minor in Walsingham.' The celebrated Austin pricry of the same town did their best to stop the countess, who was their patroness, from carrying out her intention, dreading no doubt that the poorer pilgrims to Our Lady of Walsingham would find gratis accom- modation with the friars. The soundest, per- haps, of the many arguments that they addressed to the countess was that the friars had already sufficient habitations in the district ; for there was Burnham, four miles on one side, and Snitterley not much farther off on the other ; but they omitted to state that these were Carmelite and not Franciscan settlements. But their opposition was futile, for both royal and papal sanction was obtained. Clement VI granted to the provincial of the Friars Minor of England licence, in 1347, at the request of King Edward and Queen Philippa, to acquire a site for a house in Little Walsingham, to accommodate twelve friars.* Four years later, the friars obtained licence to enclose a road in Little Walsingham, leading from North Barsham to the chapel of St. Mary, Little Walsingham, below their house. This licence was inspected and confirmed in 1384.' In 1440 Richard, duke of York, their patron, alienated to the friars a messuage, three acres of land, a garden, and four tenements adjoining their house.'" This house, with the other friaries of the county was suppressed and surrendered to Richard Ingworth, the ex-prior, towards the close of 1538." 63. THE DOMINICAN FRIARS OF YARMOUTH >= The Dominican friars were first established at Yarmouth in 1267, where they had a house by the South Gate. Henry III gave them in 127 1 a plot of land 500 ft. square, called la Sirande, and confirmed the previous gift to them of their site by William Charles.*^ Thomas Fastolf was a special benefactor to their house, which was finished in 1278 ; and Godfrey Pilgrim, another burgess of Yarmouth, erected their church, dedi- cated to the honour of St. Dominic, in 1280, at his sole cost.'^ Pilgrim, who died in 1304, was therefore esteemed joint founder with Henry III and Fastolf. ' Pat. 21 Edw. Ill, pt. i. m. 2S ; 22 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 48.
- Ca/. Papal Reg. iii, 252.
' Pat. 8 Ric. II, pt. i, m. 5. '° Ibid. 19 Hen. VI, pt. iii, m. 32. " L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiii (2), 1021. " Reliquary (new ser.), i, 139-48 ; article by late Father Palmer, " Pat. 53 Hen. Ill, m, J. " Speed, Ckron. 435
