18. THE PRIORY OF BROMHOLM
The priory of Bromholm, dedicated to the
honour of St. Andrew, was founded in 1113 by
William de Glanvill, and was made subordinate
to the Cluniac house of Castle Acre. Bartholomew de Glanvill, son of the founder, confirmed
and increased his father's endowments. The
charter enumerates the lands of Stanard, the
priest of Keswick together with the church,
the churches of Bromholm, Dilham, and Paston,
with the tithes of many neighbouring estates.
He also bequeathed to the priory, after his death,
Gristcombe and all he possessed in the fields
there, with his villeins. (fn. 1)
Henry III granted the priory, in 1229, a fair
on Holy Cross Day and two days after, and a
Monday market. (fn. 2) The same king in 1234
granted them rights of tumbrel and pillory, and
relieved them of various tolls and duties. (fn. 3) An
indult was granted to the prior and convent of
Bromholm in 1239 to hold to their uses the
church of Haninges, value under 20 marks, the
patronage of which they already possessed.
This grant was to take effect on the next voidance of the rectory, and a vicar's portion was to
be reserved. (fn. 4)
The taxation of 1291 shows that this priory
was then valued at £109 15s. 11d., and owned
property in fifty-six Norfolk and sixteen Suffolk
parishes. Pope Celestine in 1295 confirmed to
the priory the appropriated churches of Bacton,
Keswick, Paston, Witton, and Dilham. (fn. 5)
The Valor of 1535 estimated the clear annual
value at £100 5s. 3¼d. The endowment at that
time comprised the impropriation of seven Norfolk and two Suffolk churches, and the manors,
pensions, lands or interests in fifty-eight parishes.
The offerings at the cross of Bromholm amounted
that year to £5 12s. 9d.
As early as 1195 Bromholm was relieved by
Pope Celestine of most of its subjection to
Castle Acre. (fn. 6) In 1225 a dispute arose between
the priories of Bromholm and Castle Acre as to
the right of the latter to impose a prior on the
former, and next year Pope Honorius III issued
his mandate to commissioners with power to summon both parties and to adjudicate in the dispute
between the two priories. Castle Acre asserted
that Bromholm was subject to them, and that
they had in the past obtained papal letters with
regard to the election of a prior of Bromholm,
when it was decided that the prior of Acre
should nominate three monks of Acre, one of
whom was to be chosen prior. The convent of
Bromholm had, however, petitioned the pope to
allow them on the death of their present prior to
have a free election notwithstanding the previous
composition. (fn. 7) The dispute now became further
complicated by the interference of the prior of
Lewes, of which house Castle Acre was in its
turn a cell. In 1229 Gregory IX referred the
matter to the judgement of the abbot of Olveston
and the deans of Stamford and Rutland, with
the result that the prior of Castle Acre was for
the future, on a vacancy arising, to nominate six
monks, three of Acre and three of Bromholm,
out of whom the convent of Bromholm should
elect one for their prior. (fn. 8) During these four
years the office of prior had been in abeyance,
but on an election being held on the basis of the
compromise of 1229, Vincent was chosen prior.
All grievances were not, however, healed at once;
for ten years later Prior Vincent was writing to
the abbot of Cluni on the differences between
himself and the priors of Lewes and Castle Acre. (fn. 9)
In 1275-6, Yves de Chassant, twenty-eighth
abbot of Cluni, ordered a visitation of the English
houses, and appointed for that duty John, prior
of Wenlock, and Arnulph, the lord abbot's
equerry. The visitors reached Bromholm on
12 March, 1276. They reported that the number of the brethren was sixteen, who lived sufficiently well and regularly. The debts amounted
to £120. The same orders were issued by the
visitors as are detailed under Castle Acre. (fn. 10)
In February, 1285, Roger, prior of Bromholm, wrote to, the abbot of Cluni excusing
himself from personal attendance at the chaptergeneral at Cluni in consequence of his having
legal business to attend to before the justices
on circuit in Norfolk. In 1293 the same prior
again excused himself from attendance at the
chapter-general on the ground of his serious
ill-health. (fn. 11)
In May, 1313, a royal grant was made to
the monks of Bromholm to put them in the
same position which they had held during previous voidances. Upon the voidance of their
house by the death of their late prior, William
de Tutingdon, the king, believing that the temporalities belonged to him during such voidance,
caused the priory to be taken into his hands
and placed in the custody of John de Norton,
king's clerk, and John Pike. Afterwards it
was found, by inquisition, that William
de Glanvill, the first founder of the priory,
and his heirs, and also Ralph and Edmund,
earls of Cornwall, to whom the advowson of
the priory successively fell, did not during voidance receive anything out of the issues of the
priory, but that on each voidance there had
been a porter appointed, who was accustomed
to have his sustenance out of the goods of the
priory during voidance as a sign of dominion.
Whereupon the king commanded John de Norton and John Pike not to interfere with the
custody of the priory, and to deliver without
diminution to the sub-prior and convent all the
issues they had levied or received. (fn. 12)
Adam Lumbard, who had long served the
king and his father, was sent to the priory in
1319 to receive life sustenance in the place of
Adam Pullehare, deceased. (fn. 13)
In 1350, John de Karleton, monk of St. Andrew's, Bromholm, obtained an indult to choose
a confessor for plenary remission at the hour of
death. (fn. 14)
Early in the reign of Richard II, the priory
was in much distress. They paid 50 marks to
the king, in 1385, to secure the appropriation of
the church of Berdwell, of their own advowson,
valued at 26 marks yearly; it is stated in the
licence that the priory lands had been much
wasted by the sea, and their house recently
burned, and that if not relieved they would
shortly have to cease divine service. (fn. 15)
The brethren of.Bromholm in 1298 numbered
twenty-five, but they were reduced to eighteen
by the time of a visitation held in 1390. At
the latter date the house is described as directly
subordinate to the mother house of Cluni. There
were five masses celebrated daily, three were
sung and two were said throughout. The
visitors found that all statutes and monastic duties
were well and thoroughly observed. (fn. 16)
On 15 April, 1418, John Paston was collated
to the priory of Bromholm, vacant by the resignation of Clement Chandellier. (fn. 17) This was apparently a papal appointment, and meanwhile
Nicholas had been elected by his own convent.
Prior Nicholas is the first witness to the will of
Clement Paston, dated June, 1419. An undated
letter, probably somewhat later than this, from
Prior Nicholas to William Paston, states that
John Paston had posted letters on Christchurch
gates summoning the writer to Rome. (fn. 18) There
can be no doubt that Nicholas, after a brief rule,
was deposed in favour of the papal nominee.
This prior was of some notoriety because
of his connexion with the celebrated judge
William Paston. Paston Hall was about a mile
from the priory, and the Paston family regarded
it with special interest. This John Paston
claimed to be a kinsman of the lawyer, but the
claim was never admitted, William Paston
always maintaining that his true name was
Wortes. He was originally a monk of Bromholm, and Prior Chandellier took action against
him as an apostate, engaging William Paston as
his counsel in the prosecution. John retaliated
by bringing the matter before the Roman court,
and proceeded against both the prior and William
Paston, with the result that the former was called
upon to resign his office, and the latter condemned in the heavy penalty of £205. Contrary to the advice of his friends William Paston
contested the validity of the sentence, but only
with the result of being for a time excommuni
cated. In 1426 John Paston or Wortes, who
seems to have had great influence at Rome, was
appointed, by papal provision, bishop of Cork;
but a private letter of William Paston of that
year, writing of him as ' this cursed bysshop for
Bromholm,' states that there were two other
persons ' provided to the same bysshopricke yet
lyvyng,' and that Prior John being still apostate
would be unable to hold it. When the bishopric did become vacant, in 1430, Jordan chancellor of Limerick obtained the see; Prior John
and others in vain endeavoured to oust him. (fn. 19)
In 1430 John Paston resigned Bromholm; it
seems that he had not resided there for many
years. In that year Judge Paston wrote to the
English vicar-general of the abbot of Cluni, who
alone had power over the profession of Cluniac
monks in this country, stating that there were
divers virtuous young men in the garb of monks
but unprofessed at the priory of Bromholm,
some of whom had been there for nine or ten
years, and praying that the prior of Thetford
might be empowered to receive their profession. (fn. 20)
John Tyteshall succeeded as prior in 1460.
Among the Paston Letters are two from this prior,
one of the year 1461, and one circa 1480. (fn. 21) The
great event during his rule was the burial at the
priory, of John Paston, the son of Judge Paston.
He died in London on 21 or 22 May, 1466, and
everything connected with his obsequies was
carried out on a sumptuous scale. The interment at Bromholm took place on 29 May.
£5 13s. 4d. was spent as a dole, and immense
quantities of food and drink were supplied. A
London chandler received £5 19s. 4d., and
another chandler 55s; 11¼d., in addition to many
torches of local supply; it is not therefore wonderful that a glazier had to be paid 20d. for
taking out, and afterwards resetting, two panes
of the windows of the conventual church ' to
late owte the reke of the torches.' (fn. 22) By his will
John Paston left to the prior 40s., and to each
of the nine monks 6s. 8d.
Sir John Paston, by will of 1477, left his
body to be buried in the conventual church of
Bromholm by the founder's arch on the north
side, near his father's tomb; an altar and tomb
were to be erected at a cost of £20, and a like
sum to be spent on ' a closette made at my cost
over my father's body.' His desire for his father's
memorial was that there should be none like it in
Norfolk. (fn. 23)
Prior John Tyteshall ruled for many years.
Shortly before his death he was engaged in rebuilding the dorter of his house. At that time
he wrote to John Paston, begging for his good
offices with the duchy of Lancaster to obtain him
a grant of timber; his special desire was to have
'viii princypall beemys everych on (sic) in length
xj yerds.' (fn. 24)
Prior Tyteshall was succeeded by John
Macham, who was followed in 1509 by John
Underwood, who became suffragan to the see of
Norwich under the title of bishop of Chalcedon.
William Lakenham, who was the last prior,
occurs in 1530.
That which made this remote Norfolk priory
celebrated throughout England, and through
many parts of continental Christendom, for upwards of three centuries, was its possession of
a famous cross made from fragments of the true
cross. It was brought to England in 1223, and
its story is told with some detail by Matthew
Paris. (fn. 25) An English priest who served in the emperor's chapel at Constantinople, having in his
charge a cross made of the wood of our Saviour's
cross, absconded on the emperor's death and
brought it to England, and made it a condition
of bestowing it on any monastery that he and
his two sons should be admitted as monks. To
this condition the sceptical monks of St. Albans
and other great houses demurred, but at last the
monastery of Bromholm, poor in worldly goods
but rich in faith, believed the priest's story and
agreed to his terms, and the cross was set up in
their church. Its fame rapidly spread, and it soon
became a place of pilgrimage. In the 'Vision
of Piers Plowman ' occur the lines—
And bidde the Roode of Bromholm,
Bryng me out of dette.
In the ' Reeve's Tale ' of Chaucer is the pious
ejaculation:—
Helpe, holy cross of Bromeholme.
The miracles associated with this pilgrimage
were numerous. It is mentioned in the annals
of Dunstable and Tewkesbury, and by other
early chroniclers.
About 1313 Edward II visited this monastery,
on account of his special devotion to ' the glorious
cross' of Bromholm, and granted them the
manor of Bacton, worth £12 9s. 7¼d. a year, for
an annual payment of 20s., (fn. 26) but it had a royal
pilgrim at a far earlier date in the daughter of
Margaret countess of Kent, sister of Alexander
of Scotland, who visited Bromholm in 1233,
when her mother and Henry III were at Bury
St. Edmunds.
Boniface IX, in August, 1401, granted an
indult to the prior of Bromholm and his successors, and other fit priests, religious or secular,
deputed by them, to hear the confessions of and
grant absolution to (saving reserved cases) the
multitude who resort from afar to their church,
on account of a certain notable piece of the
wood of the true cross. The reason for this
piece of the cross being ' notable ' is explained
by the statement that some, their sins it is
supposed being the cause, are unable to look
perfectly upon the said piece, thereby sometimes
incurring infirmities of divers sorts. At the
same date the priory received the papal confirmation of the appropriation of the churches
of Bardwell, Crostwick, and Tuttington, with
leave for one of the monks to serve Crostwick
as it was near the monastery. The priory, in
asking for this confirmation, assured the pope
that they had suffered grievously through the
sea irrevocably absorbing many of their lands
and tenements, through long pestilences, and
through fire. (fn. 27)
In order to still further help the priory of
Bromholm in this their special distress, Boniface
took the unusual step of granting indulgence
equal to that of the church of St. Mark's of
Venice to penitents who, on Passion Sunday, or
on the three days preceding and following, visit
and give alms for the conservation of this Cluniac
house in England. This grant also authorized
the prior of Bromholm to nominate six priests,
secular or religious, to hear the confessions of
such penitents. (fn. 28)
Fox gives a curious account of the alleged
burning of this cross at the beginning of the
fifteenth century. He states that one Sir Hugh
Pie, chaplain of Ludney, was accused before the
bishop of Norwich on 5 July, 1424, for holding
that people ought not to go on pilgrimage or to
give alms save to beggars at their doors, and that
the image of the cross and other images ought
not to be worshipped. He was also accused of
having ' cast the cross of Bromholm into the fire
to be burned, which he took from one John
Welgate of Ludney.' However Sir Hugh
utterly denied these articles, and purged himself
by the witness of three laymen and three
priests. (fn. 29) At any rate the cross was not burnt,
for it is in evidence more than a century later.
There is a peculiarly interesting memorial of
the subject of the Bromholm pilgrimage in a fourteenth-century 'Hours of Our Lady' in Lambeth
Library. (fn. 30) To one of the pages an illuminated
leaf has been attached; upon it is painted a
heart, containing within it a crucifix having the
two transverse beams of the patriarchal shape.
Above the heart is written ' Jesus Nazarenus
Rex Judeorum,' and on each side one of the two
lines forming this couplet:—
This cross yat here peyntyd is
Signe of ye cros of bromholm is.
Beneath the heart in a later hand, the concluding
line being partly erased:—
Thys ys the holy cros that yt so sped
Be me ... in my need.
Within the outline of the heart and round the
cross is written, in minute and much contracted
characters, the following hymn, which is also
given in full on an adjacent page:—
Oracio Devota de Cruce,
O crux salve preciosa,
O crux salve gloriosa,
Me per verba curiosa
Te laudare, crux Formosa
Fac presenti carmine
Sicut tu de carne Christi
Sancta sacrata fuisti
Ejus Corpus suscepisti,
Et sudore maduisti,
Lota sacro sanguine
Corpus, sensus, mentem meam,
Necnon vitam salves ream
Ut commissa mea fleam,
Ne signare per te queam
Contra fraudes hostium.
Me defendas de peccato,
Et de facto desperato,
Hoste truso machinato
Reconsignas Dei nato
Tuum presiduum.
V. Adoremus Te Xpe. Quia per crucem, etc.
Oratio. Adesto nobis, Domine Deus noster, et
quos sancte crucis letari facis honore ejus quoque
perpetuis defende subsidiis. Per Christum Dominum
nostrum. Amen.
Dominus dedit, Dominus abstulit, sicut Domino
placuit ita factum est. Sit nomen Domini benedictum.
The so-called visitation of Legh and Leyton,
undertaken early in 1536, noted a cross called
' The Holy Cross of Bromholm,' the girdle and
milk of the Virgin, and pieces of the crosses of
SS. Peter and Andrew. They also alleged that
Prior Lakenham and three of his monks had
confessed to them their incontinency.
The county Commissioners for Suppression,
later in the same year, described Bromholm as
a head house of the Cluniac order, of the clear
yearly value of £109 0s. 8d. They found four
religious persons, all priests and requiring dispensations, adding that ' they bene of very good
name and fame.' There were thirty-three other
persons having a living there,' namely, four
waiting servants, twenty-six labourers and hinds,
and three almoners. The house was in good
repair, and the bells and lead valued at £200.
The movable goods, cattle, and corn were
valued at £49, and a hundred acres of wood at
£66 13s. 4d. (fn. 31)
On 2 February, 1537, Richard Southwell
wrote to Cromwell that he had in his charge
the cross of Bromholm, which he would bring
up after the suppression was finished, or sooner
if Cromwell wished it. On 26 February he
wrote again to Cromwell, saying that he had
delivered the cross of Bromholm to the late prior
of Pentney, the bearer of both letter and relic. (fn. 32)
On 20 February Robert Southwell, solicitor
to the Court of Augmentation, had a grant made
to him by royal warrant of Bromholm Priory
with all its manors, lands, advowsons, and pensions. (fn. 33)
Prior Lakenham obtained a pension of twenty
marks. (fn. 34)
Priors Of Bromholm
Vincent, temp. Hen. I. (fn. 35)
Philip, c. 1210
Vincent, (fn. 36) 1229
Clement, (fn. 37) occurs 1258
John, (fn. 38) occurs 1268, 1272
Roger, (fn. 39) occurs 1285, 1293
William de Tutington, (fn. 40) died 1313
William de Witton, (fn. 41) elected 1313
John de Hardingham, (fn. 42) elected 1334
Clement Chandellier, (fn. 43) resigned 1418
John Paston, (fn. 44) elected 1418
Nicholas, (fn. 45) occurs 1419
John Paston, (fn. 46) resigned 1430
Robert York, (fn. 47) elected 1430
John Tyteshall, (fn. 48) elected 1460
John Macham, (fn. 49) elected 1504
John Underwood (fn. 50) (bishop of Chalcedon),1509
William Lakenham, occurs 1530, last prior.
The thirteenth-century fine circular seal
(3 in.) of this priory bears the priory church;
in the centre, under a round-headed arch is
St. Andrew seated, with a patriarchal cross in
right hand (the holy cross of Bromholm), and
a book in the left. In the pediment overhead,
in a sunk trefoiled opening, is the half length
Virgin and Holy Child. Over the roof is a
pierced sixfoil. Legend:—
. . . M ✠ SANCTI ✠ ANDREE ✠ DE ✠
BROMHOLM (fn. 51)