FRIARIES
19. THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF LICHFIELD (fn. 1)
From the autumn of 1237 come the first signs that
the Grey Friars were beginning the 'construction of
their dwellings and chapel' at Lichfield, (fn. 2) but no
contemporary evidence has survived to show who
gave them their site. Royal letters patent 20 years
later in date spoke of the house as 'founded by the
king's predecessors', (fn. 3) but the friars did not reach
England until Henry Ill's own reign. When Leland
made his tour of England about 1540 he found that
local tradition, probably correctly, credited Alexander Stavensby, Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield
(1224-38), with being 'the first founder' and with
having given the friars 'certain free burgages in the
town for to set their house on'. (fn. 4)
In 1237 King Henry assigned the friars ten oaks
from each of the hays of Alrewas, Bentley, and
Hopwas in Cannock Forest, (fn. 5) but he raised the
contribution from Alrewas to twenty when the
friars informed him that there was no timber in
Hopwas Hay suitable for building their church. (fn. 6) In
1239 the king made them two grants of 10 marks
and £5 from the revenues of the bishopric, then
vacant; (fn. 7) in 1241 the sheriff was authorized 'to clothe
the friars minor of Lichfield', (fn. 8) and in 1244 they
were assigned £5 'to pay their debts' from the issues
of the bishopric, once again vacant. (fn. 9) Free passage in
Whittlewood Forest (Northants.) was granted them
for five years from 1258. (fn. 10) In 1286 Edward I gave
eight oaks from Cannock Forest. (fn. 11)
Five years later 'almost all the town of Lichfield
and the habitation of the friars minor' were destroyed in a great fire. (fn. 12) This disaster roused wide
sympathy within the Franciscan order, comparable
with that which had been felt when Winchelsea
(Suss.) was destroyed by the sea in 1287. It is not
surprising therefore to find that when in 1294 the
English Franciscans accepted a sum of 60 marks
from the monks of Westminster as the settlement of
a dispute between the two, the money was assigned
to the houses of Lichfield and Winchelsea to be
paid in instalments to relieve their indigence. (fn. 13)
The next recorded benefaction was the provision
of a water-supply by Henry Bellfounder, son of
Michael of Lichfield, bellfounder, who in 1310
granted the friars for their 'use and comfort' his
springs at Fowlewell near Aldershaw south-west of
the city. The friars were empowered to erect a
conduit head there and construct pipes to convey
the water 'to their own place', but they were not to
give away even a small vessel (vasum) of the water
without the donor's special permission. (fn. 14) In 1329
Ralph Bassett of Drayton received royal licence to
assign the friars 2 acres of land adjoining their house
for its enlargement. (fn. 15) Philip de Turvill, Prebendary
of Curborough in Lichfield Cathedral (d. 1337),
included the friary among the 33 religious communities entrusted with providing 100 masses a
year for his soul and the souls of his relatives and
friends. Three of these masses were assigned to the
Lichfield friars, and as each celebrant was to receive
5 marks this made an addition of £10 a year to their
income. (fn. 16) Other legacies included £20 from
Catherine, Countess of Warwick (d. 1369), 6s. 8d.
from Isabel de Sutton (d. 1397), (fn. 17) and 10s. from
John Comberford of Tamworth by will of 1414. (fn. 18)
The Lichfield friary was one of the mendicant
houses which benefited under the will of Roger
Horton, justice of the King's Bench; for years he
was active on commissions of the peace in Staffordshire and adjacent counties, and by his will of 1422
he left 6s. 8d. to each of several mendicant houses in
the area. (fn. 19) Richard Martin, a suffragan bishop to
the Archbishop of Canterbury, in disposing of his
books in his will of 1498, allotted four to the friars
at Lichfield. (fn. 20) As late as 1537 Nicholas Rugeley,
who died that year at Dunton in Curdworth
(Warws.), left the friary 12d. (fn. 21)
Relations with the outside world were not always
good, however. In the 1320s and 1330s there occur
two cases of violent attack on Lichfield friars who
had been sent on a journey by order of their
superior. The first occurred in or before 1325. As
the friars were going on their way ad conventum
Novi Burgi — possibly the house of Austin Friars
at Newport in Shropshire — they were beaten and
imprisoned by 'sons of iniquity' unknown to them. (fn. 22)
The second assault evidently took place in or before
1338. The friars were on their way to the house at
Worcester when the assailants fell upon them,
carried off a novice in their company, stripped him
of his habit, and clothed him as a layman. (fn. 23) This
abduction and the fact that begging friars can have
offered little inducement to any ordinary robber
make it not unreasonable to suspect that some
special factors were at work on these occasions.
The Lichfield house was one of the nine friaries
forming the custody of Worcester. (fn. 24) Information
concerning the size and personnel of the house is
scanty. During the episcopate of Robert Stretton
(1360-85) over 60 candidates described as friars
minor of Lichfield were ordained, but this gives only
a rough indication of the size of the community. (fn. 25)
As to individuals, the warden of the friary was
associated in 1337 with two canons in an inquiry
into a dispute between the Archbishop of York and
his dean and chapter. (fn. 26) A Lichfield friar named
Thomas Joys was ordained deacon in 1414 or
1415; he was subsequently for some years chaplain
to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, on whose
recommendation he was dispensed from his vows
and in 1442-3 given permission to hold any benefice
with cure of souls. (fn. 27) In 1451 the warden of the Lichfield house was Richard Leeke or Leech, who
between 1430 and 1438 had been provincial
minister. (fn. 28) The Lichfield friars played their part as
confessors during the 14th and 15th centuries.
William de Otteley was appointed penitentiary for
two years to Sir John de Clinton, his wife, and his
household in 1379, and the following year William
Blunt was made a penitentiary during the bishop's
pleasure. (fn. 29) In 1392 the warden, John London, and
in 1405, another of the community, Thomas
Schawbery, received licence to hear confessions. (fn. 30)
One of the brethren was in trouble in 1531 for
having preached a sermon which many people in
Lichfield interpreted as an attack on tithes and
oblations. He and the warden, Richard Mason,
came before the cathedral chapter to apologize and
were rebuked. The chapter took the opportunity to
order the removal of the seats which were in the
nave of the friars' church, hoping to stop the friars
from attracting the inhabitants of the city into their
church. (fn. 31)
An early case of burial in the precincts of a person
outside the order desiring it was that of Richard the
merchant. His coffin lid, believed to date from
the late 13th century and bearing an inscription in
Latin verse, (fn. 32) is built into a wall of the Friary School.
There used also to be an epitaph in the friary
recording the death in 1464 of John Harpur, lord of
Rushall. (fn. 33) Sir William Dugdale during his Staffordshire visitation of 1663 and 1664 saw at Lichfield a
tombstone which showed a man in a surcoat
kneeling before Christ and St. Francis; an inscription over his head asked for prayers for the souls of
'Master Roger Illari and the Lady Mar . . .', probably Sir Roger Hillary and his wife Margaret, who
was sister and coheir of Nicholas, Lord Audley, and
who died in 1410-11. (fn. 34)
On 7 August 1538 Richard Ingworth, Bishop of
Dover, received the surrender of the house in the
presence of Richard Wetwode, a warden of the
town guild, and of the two constables; to suit the
accepted formula the surrender was certified as made
'voluntarily, without any counsel or constraining,
for very poverty'. (fn. 35) Ingworth gave the friars letters
permitting them to visit their friends and left the
house and goods in the keeping of Wetwode and the
two constables. He also gave them the inventory of
the property, sending a copy of it to Cromwell next
day when reporting to him. According to this report
the warden, hideously disfigured in the face by a
skin disease — 'whether of a canker or a pock or a
fistula I know not' — had been little at home of late,
but now having returned he was loath to give up his
house, 'though it is more in debt than all the stuff
that belongs to it will pay, chalice, bells, and all, by
20 nobles'. Debts included 20s. due to the bishop
for 5 years' rent and 30s. borrowed 'for building of
the choir'. The warden, Richard Mason, received a
pension of £5 which was evidently still being paid
at his death in 1558. (fn. 36)
Bishop Lee and Dr. Thomas Legh tried to secure
the house for Wetwode, who had 'formerly shown
great pleasure' to both of them. (fn. 37) Their attempt,
however, was unsuccessful, and in October the
house and its contents were put up for sale. (fn. 38) The
items ranged from a friar's mass book, sold for 4d.,
and a holy water stoup, which went for 1s. 8d., to
the entire stock of copes, vestments, and tunicles,
which fetched £2. The household furnishings were
of the simplest; for instance, a press, a bedstead, and
a door, sold as a single lot, went for 4d. Such things
as timber, stone and tiles from the structure and
pavements found ready buyers. 'The glass that is
loose in the new lodging' was sold for 3s., but 'the
long new house' on the east side of the inner cloister
with the church and choir, the cloister quadrangle,
the frater, and 'the chambers stretching to the
kitchen' went for £42 13s. 4d. to a group of eight
purchasers; lead, bells, paving (except that in the
church), and gravestones were reserved. It was
stipulated that unless the purchasers secured a
licence to the contrary they must deface tower,
cloister, 'and choir forthwith the church' within 4
months and pull down the rest of the buildings in 3
years. In 1544 the site and certain lands were sold
by the Crown to Richard Crumbilhome of Dutton
near Blackburn (Lancs.); the church and the
conventual buildings were excluded from the sale,
but 'an inn called le Bishop's Lodging or le Great
Chamber' was included. Crumbilhome was evidently a middleman for a few days later he received
licence to sell the property to Gregory Stonyng and
his wife, who were already in occupation. (fn. 39)
The friary stood in the south-west part of the city
on the west side of Bird Street and St. John Street.
The site is crossed by Friary Road, built in the
1920s, (fn. 40) but the portion formerly occupied by the
church and some of the conventual buildings is
preserved as an open space. The references in 1538,
already noted, to 'the new lodging', to 'the long
new house' on the east side of the inner cloister, and
to the debt of 30s. contracted in the building of the
choir indicate that building was in progress on the
eve of the dissolution. The church was large: the
nave was of five bays and measured 110 × 60 feet,
while the chancel was 95 × 28 feet. The tower was
probably at the crossing. The cloister, 80 feet square,
lay on the south side of the church, and Friary Road
follows the line of its south wall. The Bishop's
Lodging on the southern part of the site was enlarged by Gregory Stonyng, in 1545 and is now
incorporated in the Friary School.
Wardens
John London, occurs 1392. (fn. 41)
Richard Leeke or Leech, D.Th., occurs 1451. (fn. 42)
Dr. David Rules, occurs 1470. (fn. 43)
John Eton, occurs 1484. (fn. 44)
John Wyllnall, occurs 1525. (fn. 45)
Richard Mason, occurs 1531, warden at the
dissolution. (fn. 46)
No seal is known.