RELIGIOUS HOUSES returned details of the annual value of the manor, yielding a total of ^^lo 2s. iod} Upon the dissolution of the alien priories in 1414 Field Dalling Priory was first granted by the crown to Epworth Priory ; then to the Spittle-on-the-Street, Lincolnshire ; then to the Carthusians of Coventry ; and lastly, in 1462, to the Carthusian priory of Mountgrace, Yorkshire. In the last grant * Fieldallying ' is described as parcel of the alien priory of Long Bennington, lately belonging to the abbot and convent of Savigny,^ 118. THE PRIORY OF HORSTEAD' William Rufus granted the manor of Horstead to the nuns of the abbey of the Holy Trinity, Caen, which had been founded by his mother. Queen Maud. The gift of Horstead was con- firmed by Henry I and again by Henry II. In 1 29 1 the taxation roll shows that the abbess of Caen held temporalities in Horstead to the annual value of ;^20 ioj. ()d., whilst smaller amounts in six other parishes brought up the total income in Norfolk to £2^ 2s. ^^d. In addition to this there was a pension or portion from the church of Horstead of ^3 13^. 413^. Horstead was amongst the dissolved alien priories of 1414, when it came to the crown and was granted for life to Sir Thomas Erpingham. It was subsequently granted by Henry VI, in 1 43 1 , to complete the foundation of his college of Saints Mary and Nicholas, now King's College, Cambridge. 119. THE PRIORY OF LESSINGHAM* The lordship of Lessingham, together with the advowson of the rectory, was given in the time of William Rufus by Gerard de Gurney to the great abbey of Bee in Normandy. The small priory of Lessingham became subject to Ogbourne Priory, Wiltshire, which was the chief English cell of Bee. In 1286 the abbot of Bee was successful, by pleading the confirmation charter of Henry III, in resisting the claim for the hundred from the manor of Lessingham.^ The taxation of 1291 gave the annual value of the abbot of Bee's possessions at Lessingham as ;^i6 1 3$. g^d., whilst the church of Lessing- ham was entered at £6 13^. ^.d. It was dissolved with the other alien priories in 141 5, and remained for some time in the ' Add. MSS. 6164, pp. 253-4- ' Pat. I Edw. IV, pt. vi, m. 14 and 13. 'Round, Ca/. Doc. France, , 143, 149, 150; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1057 ; Blomefield, Hill. 0/ Nor/, x, 442 ; Taylor, Index Monastic us, 12.
- Blomefield, Hist. o/Norf. ix, 328 ; Dugdale, Moa.
■vi, 105 I ; Taylor, Index Monastic us, 5. ' Plac. de Quo War. (Rec. Com.), 493. hands of the crown. The possessions of the priory were, however, settled by Edward IV on King's College, Cambridge, in 1462.'^ 120. THE PRIORY OF SPORLE This small alien priory was founded early in the twelfth century as a cell of the Benedictine abbey of St. Florent, Saumur, in the diocese of Angers, and the province of Anjou. The founder was Alan son of Flaald, who granted to the monks of St. Florent the church of Sporle {Sparlaicum) with all its tithes, the hold- ing of a certain man, the land of two ploughs, one in Sporle and the other in Mileham, together with wood for building and firing, and pasture everywhere for their flocks with his own. He gave them the church free from all claims, specially from that of the monks of Holy Trinity, assigning to them 20s. a year from his farm of Sporle.' Pope Calixtus II, by bull of 18 February, 1 1 23, confirmed to the abbey of St. Florent, among other English possessions, the church of St. Mary ' de Esparlaio ' or Sporle. This was again confirmed by Pope Eugenius III in 11 46. A bull of confirmation of Pope Adrian IV in 1 157 names the church of St. Mary de Sparlio with the chapel of Little Palgrave and its appur- tenances, and there is a similarly worded confir- mation in a bull of Pope Urban III of 28 De- cember, 1 1 86.* The taxation of 1 291 gives the annual value of the temporalities in four Norfolk parishes as 8/. 6d., but the priory then held also the churches of Sporle and Palgrave. An extent of the priory of Sporle, taken in 1325, certifies that the tithes of the rectory of Sporle were of the annual worth of ;^20, and the altar dues averaged 100;.; that the 617 acres of glebe of the church were worth 38^. 6d. ; rents, 13;. 4^/. ; a portion of the tithes of Hun- stanton, 40^.; of Great Ellingham, 135. ^d.; of Estworm, lbs. ; of Suchacre, lOi. ; and of Mile- ham, j^4.» When the alien priories were taken into the king's hands in 1337 Edward III allowed the prior of Sporle to have the custody of his house on payment of 5 marks a year and 40/. as custody fee." Thomas Eliot, prior, resigned in 1345, and the king (on account of the war) presented John de Breidesdale. In 1349, a vacancy occurring through the plague, William de Leke succeeded. On 17 February, 1379 William Sporle, monk of the Benedictine priory of Castle Acre, was pre- sented by the crown to the bishop of Norwich ' Pat. I Edw. IV, pt. iii, m. 23. ' Round, Cal. Doc. France, i, 414.
- Ibid, i, 402 and 404.
•Add. MS. 6164, fol. 128. " Cal. of Pat. 12 Edvir. Ill, pt. ii, m. 29. 463
