HOUSE OF GILBERTINE CANONS
12. NEW BIGGING PRIORY, HITCHIN
The priory of St. Saviour, New Bigging,
Hitchin, (fn. 1) was founded by Sir Edward de
Kendale, kt., at the end of 1361 or beginning
of 1362 (fn. 2) for three canons of the Gilbertine
order, of whom one was to be prior. (fn. 3)
Tanner and others have called this house a
nunnery, but as there had to be at least seven
canons in a double establishment (fn. 4) of the
Gilbertine order, there could have been no
women there at the foundation, and there is no
trace of any afterwards. (fn. 5)
Kendale received the royal licence in February
1362-3 (fn. 6) to give to the prior and canons in
order that they might celebrate for the souls of
Robert and Margaret de Kendale, his father and
mother, and of King Edward II, the advowson
of the church of Orwell (co. Cambridge) and
some land there which Margaret had intended
to assign for this purpose to the warden and
chaplains of the chapel of St. Peter in the
church of Hitchin. The canons at the same
time had leave to appropriate Orwell Church to
their own uses.
From William Rous, chaplain, the convent in
1372 obtained eight messuages, 63 acres of land
and 3s. rent in Willian and Hitchin in aid of
their maintenance. (fn. 7) The resources of the house,
no doubt still very small, were augmented
thirty years later by other means. On 22 September 1402 the pope empowered the canons
to choose eight priests, seculars and regulars, to
hear the confessions of and absolve penitents who
on the feast of the Annunciation between the
first and second vespers visited and gave alms
for the conservation of the priory church, and
granted to such penitents the same indulgence
as to persons visiting on 1-2 August the church
of St. Mary of the Portiuncula, Assisi. (fn. 8)
The grant was perhaps made to meet a special
emergency, for the statement in 1400 that Sir
Robert Turk, kt., held a free chapel in Hitchin
called 'le Bygynge ' (fn. 9) may mean that he had
a mortgage on the place.
The house, the net annual value of which was
returned in 1535 as £13 16s., (fn. 10) figured in 1536
among the smaller monasteries marked out for
suppression, (fn. 11) and in that year Rauf Morice was
petitioning Cromwell for a farm of the priory. (fn. 12)
As, however, the first Ministers' Accounts (fn. 13) of
the place date from Michaelmas 1538, and the
prior was not granted a pension (fn. 14) until December of that year, the priory appears to have
escaped dissolution (fn. 15) until the surrender of the
parent-house of Sempringham in September
1538. (fn. 16)
John Mounton, the last prior, (fn. 17) is the only one
recorded.