HOUSES OF PREMONSTRATENSIAN CANONS
12. THE ABBEY OF COCKERSAND
The Premonstratensian abbey of Cockersand
was originally founded as a small hospital of that
order of canons. William de Lancaster, second
baron of Kendal and lord of Wyresdale, who
died in 1184, gave the site (fn. 1) and was usually
considered the founder, but the foundation seems
to have been really due to the efforts of Hugh
Garth, a hermit ' of great perfection,' who is
said to have collected the alms of the neighbourhood for the erection of the hospital and to have
become its first master. (fn. 2) The canons came from
Croxton Abbey, Leicestershire, (fn. 3) which, probably
about this time, established a cell at Hornby.
The site, bleak and exposed, consisted of mossland forming the seaward portion of the township of Cockerham to the north of the Cocker
sands; the house was at first styled St. Mary of
the Marsh on the Cockersand. (fn. 4) Some richer
land in the adjoining township of Thurnham
was added by William de Furness, lord of
Thurnham from 1186. (fn. 5)
In 1190 Pope Clement III took the ' monastery hospital' under his protection, confirmed
gifts of land by various donors, some of which
were in Cumberland, Westmorland, and South
Lancashire, and bestowed upon it the privileges
which the popes were accustomed to confer on
fully established religious houses; among them
free election of their priors and exemption of
their demesne lands from tithe. (fn. 6)
The hospital benefited by the widespread connexions of the Lancaster family, but was presently
involved in a serious dispute with the Austin
Canons of Leicester Abbey. The Cockerham
manor, which included the site of the hospital,
had been given with the church to the Leicester
canons by William de Lancaster I, but resumed
by his son before his grant to Hugh the Hermit. (fn. 7)
Between 1189 and 1194 the abbey recovered the
manor in the court of John, count of Mortain,
then lord of the honour of Lancaster, against
Heloise widow of William de Lancaster II and
her second husband Hugh de Morvill. (fn. 8) This
decision introduced a defect into the hospital's
title, and though Leicester Abbey may not have
been disposed to press this to the utmost it
resisted the ambition of the canons to have the
priory promoted to abbatial status, and even contested some of the privileges granted by
Clement III. Under these circumstances the
canons seem to have contemplated removal to
another site if they did not actually remove for
a time. Theobald Walter, who obtained a grant
of Amounderness from John, count of Mortain,
about 1192, issued a charter within the next few
years bestowing Pilling Hay in free alms on ' the
abbot and canons of the Premonstratensian order
there serving God . . . for the erection of an
abbey of the said order.' (fn. 9) The canons undoubtedly
had an abbot before 1199, and the style 'abbas et
conventus de Marisco' without mention of
Cockersand, which seems confined to this period
of uncertainty, may have been adopted in deference to the Leicester objections. (fn. 10) It suited a
site on the verge of Pilling Moss even better
than the original one.
That no abbey of Cockersand was recognized
until Leicester withdrew its opposition seems
fairly clear from the terms of the settlement
arranged apparently in the sixth year of John
(1204-5). Abbot Paul and the convent of
Leicester granted to the canons of Cockersand
'locum in quo domus hospitalis de Kokersand
sita est,' with permission to build an abbey and
have an abbot. (fn. 11) No tithes to Cockerham
church were to be exacted from the site of the
house, but this exemption was not to extend to
any other land it might acquire within the
parish. Cockersand undertook also not to acquire
any further land within the manor of Cockerham. (fn. 12)
Subsequent disputes between the two abbeys
over boundaries, tithes, pasture and pannage, and
the administration of sacraments at Cockersand
to parishioners of Cockerham, were the subject
of compositions in 1230, 1242-5, 1340, and
1364. (fn. 13) King John showed some favour to the
canons. While the dispute with Leicester was
still undecided he confirmed them (1201) in
possession of the site of the hospital together with
the pasture of Pilling. (fn. 14) On 28 July, 1215, he
granted them two plough-lands of his own
demesne at Newbigging near Singleton in
Amounderness, and freed them and their tenants
from suit to shire and hundred courts, from pleas
of murder, theft, hamsoken and forestel, and
from every kind of tax, toll, and due. (fn. 15) Three
weeks later he confirmed some important gifts
by Gilbert son of Roger FitzReinfred, the
husband of the founder's daughter Heloise de
Lancaster. (fn. 16) These comprised Medlar in
Amounderness, (fn. 17) and the advowson of the parish
church of Garstang. (fn. 18) William, who became
archdeacon of Richmond in 1217, gave permission for its appropriation to the abbey, reserving
the power to ordain a perpetual vicarage. (fn. 19) John
le Remain, archdeacon of Richmond, ordained a
vicarage (fn. 20) apparently in 1245. (fn. 21) In the bishop
of Norwich's Taxation (1254) the rectory was
assessed at £22, the vicar's portion at £5 6s. 8d. (fn. 22)
Thurstan Banaster gave to the canons the valuable advowson of Wigan between 1213 and
1219, but his gift does not seem to have taken
effect. (fn. 23) The advowson of Claughton was
acquired in two moieties between 1216 and 1255
by grant of Godith of Kellet and her niece's son
Roger of Croft, but though the abbey's right of
presentation was successfully maintained against
the widow of Roger's son in 1273, (fn. 24) the advowson went back to the Crofts in the fourteenth
century. (fn. 25)
The only advowson except Garstang which
the abbey held till the Dissolution was obtained
in the same period. Between 1206 and 1235
Robert son of Hugh, lord of Mitton, granted
the right of presentation to its church, which
stood on the Yorkshire side of the Ribble, part
of the parish, however, being in Lancashire. (fn. 26)
In 1314 the abbey secured from Edward II at a
cost of £40 licence to appropriate the church
to their own uses. (fn. 27) Permission to serve the
church by a secular or a regular priest, appointed
or removed at the abbot's pleasure after the death
or resignation of the existing vicar, was granted
by Pope Boniface IX in 1396. (fn. 28)
During the thirteenth century down to the
passing of the Mortmain Act in 1279, the
abbey received an unusually large number of
grants of land. It is calculated that on an average they amounted to forty or fifty a year, but
they were mostly small parcels.
Cockersand was one of the forty-eight houses
whose abbots were summoned to the famous
parliament of Carlisle in January, 1307, (fn. 29) but
this was probably a solitary summons and its head
did not become a mitred abbot. The abbey
suffered severely in the Scottish raid of 1316.
Its assessment for tenths was reduced shortly after
by five-sixths. (fn. 30)
Robert of Hilton, canon of the house, received
a pardon in 1327 for the death of one of his
brethren. (fn. 31) In 1347 Robert of Carlton, then
abbot, was accused of using violence to one John
de Catterall. Catterall alleged that the abbot
with four of the canons, a lay brother, and fourteen other persons had assaulted and maimed him;
at Lancaster, and a commission of oyer and:
terminer was granted. (fn. 32) No record of its inquiry
seems, however, to have survived.
Troubles of another kind assailed the abbey
from the middle of the fourteenth century. In
1363, owing to the ravages of the plague, a dispensation had to be obtained for several of the:
canons to be ordained priests in their twenty-first
year. (fn. 33) Half a century later (1412) a permanent:
dispensation to this effect for all their canons was.
granted in consideration of the remote situation
of the house, which at times made it difficult
to find men prepared to receive the regular
habit there. (fn. 34) The sea continually wore away
the walls which protected its buildings. In 1378
the abbot and convent begged Richard II to confirm their charters without fine, in view of their
poverty and the fact that ' each day they are in-,
danger of being drowned and destroyed by thesea.' (fn. 35) There is no evidence that their request
was acceded to, but Pope Boniface in 1372.
granted a relaxation for twenty years of a year
and forty days of penance to all almsgivers to
Cockersand, (fn. 36) and in 1397 the king granted them
the farm of the alien priory of Lancaster during
the war with France at a rent of 100 marks a.
year. With some difficulty and at an expense,
as was afterwards alleged, of 500 marks they
obtained possession, only to be turned out on the
arrival of Henry IV. (fn. 37) Their representations
procured on 4 November, 1399, a grant of
restitution of the profits for the year just ended,
but a fortnight later it was revoked. (fn. 38)
Fear of violence from parties with whom they
were in litigation induced them to obtain letters
of protection from Henry in 1402. (fn. 39)
The three quarters of a century following is
a blank in the history of the house. Fresh light
comes with the election of a successor to Abbot
Lucas in 1477; this was not accomplished without dissension, one of the canons being charged
with inviting lay intervention. (fn. 40) The state of
the abbey during the last quarter of the fifteenth
century is recorded with some fulness in the
extant visitations of Richard Redman, bishop
successively of St. Asaph, Exeter, and Ely, and
visitor of the English province of the Premonstratensian order. These inquisitions were as a
rule triennial and the records of eight such
visitations of Cockersand between 1478 and
1500 are preserved. (fn. 41) Until 1488 Redman
detected nothing more reprehensible than some
laying aside of the claustral mantle (capa) at
meals, and garments girded high like those of
travellers and labourers. (fn. 42) The house was £100
in debt in 1478, but this had been paid off by
1484.
Some relaxation of discipline was disclosed at
the next. visitation in April, 1488. Redman
excommunicated two apostate canons, forbade the
brethren to reveal the secrets of the order and
the plans of the house to great lords, or to use
their influence to obtain promotion, and enjoined
them to be satisfied with the food provided,
attend all the hours, and refrain from wandering
about the country. (fn. 43) In December he was recalled to deal with two of the canons, William
Bentham the cellarer and James Skipton the
cantor and grain master (granatorius) who were
accused of breaking their vow of chastity. Bentham admitted his guilt, and Skipton, who denied
the truth of the charge, could get none of his
brethren to support him. The visitor imposed
forty days' penance on both, and ordered Bentham to be removed for three years to Croxton
Abbey, and Skipton for seven to Sulby Abbey in
Northamptonshire. (fn. 44) The term of banishment
must have been relaxed in Skipton's case, for at
the next visitation in 1491 he was cellarer,
Bentham being sub-prior. (fn. 45) Skipton afterwards
became abbot.
To prevent similar scandals in future Redman
forbade drinking after compline, and the employment of women to carry food to the infirmary or
refectory. The evil of evening drinking was
not, however, rooted out, for in 1500 the
bishop attributed various diseases from which a
number of the brethren were suffering, to inordinate potations and sitting up after compline. (fn. 46)
In 1494 Thomas Poulton, who had been cantarist at Tunstall, was found guilty of two cases
of incontinence, (fn. 47) and in 1500 Robert Burton
and Thomas Calet were removed from their
stalls for some offence not stated. (fn. 48) Burton was
afterwards restored. (fn. 49) The visitations reveal a
number of minor disorders—disobedience to the
abbot, lingering in bed during mattins, neglect of
services on pretext- of illness, frequenting of weddings, fairs, and other secular assemblies, and the
wearing over the white habit of a black garment
with black or various-coloured ' liripipes' or
streamers, and (in 1491) the use of ' istos volubiles sotulares nuper inter curiales usitatos, Anglice
vocatos slyppars sive patans.' (fn. 50) In 1497 the
canons were forbidden to exchange opprobrious
or scandalous charges or to draw knives upon
one another. (fn. 51) There are no means of deciding
how general such derelictions were, but comparison with the visitations of 1478 and 1481 leaves
a decided impression that the tone of the community had altered for the worse in the interval.
In the reign of Henry VII Edward Stanley,
Lord Monteagle, held its stewardship with
those of Furness and Cartmel, and the office
passed to his son and successor. (fn. 52) The pressure
brought to bear upon the monasteries by the
crown and its agents for some time before the
Dissolution is illustrated by a letter in which
Abbot Poulton excuses himself to Cromwell
from preferring his nominee Sir James Layburn
to certain lands in the manor of Ashton on the
ground that the heirs of the late occupants
claimed to hold by tenant-right. (fn. 53)
Doctors Legh and Layton made a serious
charge against two of the canons, (fn. 54) but this was
not corroborated by the royal commissioners
under the Act of Suppression, who visited the
abbey at the end of May, 1536. (fn. 55) They reported that the prior and twenty-one canons, all
of them priests, were of honest conversation and
desirous to continue in religion. Two of them
served chantries at Tunstall and Middleton, and
two others acted as proctors for the abbey at its
appropriate churches of Mitton and Garstang,
but all four could be recalled to the monastery.
No mention is made of the lay brothers (conversi) who occur at an earlier period, unless they
were the five, 'poor aged and impotent men'
whom the foundation required to be kept at the
abbey.
Ten other poor men were provided with bed
and board daily for charity. The total cost was
£22 7s. 4d. a year. There were two persons
living in the house by purchase of corrodies;
one of these, bought in 1507 for ten marks, cost
the abbey half that sum yearly. Its staff of
servants numbered fifty-seven, of whom nineteen
were officers of the household, ten waiting servants, and eleven hinds of husbandry. The
wages bill for a year was £46 16s. 8d. The
income of the abbey as ascertained for the purposes of the tenth in 1535 (fn. 56) was well under the
limit of £200 fixed by the Act of February,
1536, which empowered the crown to dissolve
the smaller monasteries. But the Commissioners
raised the valuation to not far short of £300, and
this, coupled with their report of the good state
of the house, doubtless induced the king to use
the discretion conferred upon him by the Act of
Suppression and allow Cockersand to continue. (fn. 57)
It was not until 29 January, 1539, that the
house was surrendered by Abbot Poulton and
his twenty-two canons. (fn. 58) Two months later the
site, with the demesne lands and the rectory of
Garstang, was leased for twenty-one years to
John Burnell and Robert Gardiner at a rent of
£73 6s. 8d. (fn. 59) John Kitchen of Hatfield, Hertfordshire, farmer of the monastery from 1539,
bought the site and demesne from the crown on
1 September, 1543, for £700. (fn. 60) By the marriage of his eldest daughter Anne to Robert
Dalton of Thurnham Hall it passed to that
family, in whose possession it still .remains. (fn. 61)
The abbey was dedicated to St. Mary. As
already stated its original endowment was largely
augmented during the thirteenth century by
numerous gifts of land and rents. A considerable portion of these were in Amounderness, but
extensive acquisitions were made in the other
Lancashire hundreds, and in the adjoining
counties of Cumberland, Westmorland, Chester,
and York. The donations usually consisted of
small parcels, but there were some important
exceptions. In the early years of the abbey
Adam de Dutton gave it a moiety of the vill of
Warburton with other lands in Cheshire for the
foundation of a cell in connexion with the
church of St. Werburgh at Warburton. (fn. 62) Abbot
Roger, before 1216, resigned to Geoffrey son of
Adam all but eight oxgangs of land in Warburton, for confirmation in which latter he undertook to find a chaplain to minister for Adam's
soul. There seem still to have been canons there
in the middle of the century, but in 1271 the
abbey sold all its rights to the second Geoffrey
de Dutton for the sum of eighty marks. (fn. 63) Among
its Westmorland grants was one of half the
township of Sedgewick by Ralph de Beetham
between 1190 and 1208. (fn. 64) In Amounderness
Gilbert son of Roger Fitz Reinfred granted the
vill of Medlar, one plough-land; (fn. 65) Adam de Lee
before 1212 gave a moiety of the vill of Forton;
and the remaining moiety, with the lordship of
the whole, was acquired prior to 1272. (fn. 66) William de Lancaster III bestowed four oxgangs of
land in Garstang on his deathbed in 1246. (fn. 67)
South of the Ribble Elias son of Roger de
Hutton gave the whole township of Hutton,
comprising three plough-lands in the parish of
Penwprtham, between 1201 and 1220, (fn. 68) and
about the middle of the century Westhoughton
in Salford Hundred was conveyed to the abbey in
several portions. (fn. 69) Sir Edmund de Nevill, kt.,
gave a third of the manor of Middleton in
Lonsdale in 1337 to endow a chantry there,
which was served by one of the canons. (fn. 70)
These estates were managed by eleven bailiffs
and the stewards of Hutton and Westhoughton,
in addition to the abbey steward, a post occupied
by Thomas Stanley, Lord Monteagle, a receiver
and a court steward. (fn. 71) The rent-roll of the
house in 1535 was estimated at £145 5s. 11½d.
and the total annual value of its temporalities at
£182 8s. 8½d. (fn. 72) From spiritualities a revenue of
£45 16s. 8d. accrued. The expenses were
£70 11s. 4d., leaving a net income of
£157 14s. 0½d. (fn. 73) But the commissioners of
1536 must have thought this estimate unduly
low, for they raised it far higher than in the case
of any other monastery they visited. (fn. 74) They
put the net income at £282 7s. 7½d. The
indebtedness of the house was £108 9s. 8d. Its
bells and lead were worth £126 13s. 4d. and its
movable goods £217 5s. 1d. (fn. 75)
In common with the other English houses of
the order Cockersand was subject to visitation by
the abbot-general of Prémontré or his commissary,
and until the beginning of the fourteenth century
its abbots were required to attend the annual
general chapter held at the mother house and to
pay their share of any tax imposed for the benefit
of the order in general and Prémontré in particular. (fn. 76) It was placed in the northern of the
three circuits (circariae) into which the English
abbeys were divided for purposes of visitation and
taxation. (fn. 77) The Statute of Carlisle, however, in
1307 forbade the payment of tallages to foreign
houses, (fn. 78) and the English abbots demanded relief
from the burden of annual attendance at
Prémontré, (fn. 79) and its abbot's yearly visitations of
their province. After a lengthy dispute, which
was carried to Rome, Abbot Adam de Crecy in
1315 absolved the abbots from personal attendance at the general chapter, consented to reduce
the burden of visitation and to limit the calls for
contributions to necessary collections approved
by their representatives at the chapter. (fn. 80) Henceforth the abbot of Prémontré seems to have
executed his visitorial powers at longer intervals
through a commissary who was one of the abbots
themselves.
In 1496 Bishop Redman, abbot of Shap, who
was then the abbot's visitor, informed the abbot
of Cockersand that he intended to visit his
monastery, arriving on 3 April if the tide served.
He asked that someone should be sent to Lancaster the day before to provide lodgings for him
and safe conduct inter maris. pericula to the
abbey. (fn. 81) The visitor of 1506 spent a night at
Kendal at the expense of Cockersand, and his
visitation lasted two days. (fn. 83)
More frequent visitations were made by the
local visitors in each circuit. (fn. 83) The abbot was
expected to attend the provincial chapters of the
order, which were usually held in some town in
the Midlands. (fn. 84)
Abbots of Cockersand
Hugh (Garth) the Hermit, (fn. 85) said to have been
Master of the Hospital before 1184
Henry, (fn. 86) occurs as prior before and in 1190
Th[?omas], (fn. 87) occurs as ' Abbas de Marisco'
between 1194 and 1199
Roger, (fn. 88) occurs as ' Abbas de Marisco,' and in
1205-6 as 'abbas de Kokersand '
Hereward, (fn. 89) occurs 1216 and May, 1235
Richard, (fn. 90) occurs 1240
Henry, (fn. 91) occurs 1246 and April, 1261
Adam de (? le) Blake, (fn. 92) occurs July, 1269, and
1278
Thomas, (fn. 93) occurs September, 1286 and
1288
Robert of Formby, (fn. 94) occurs 1289 and 10 September, 1290
Roger, (fn. 95) occurs 1300
Thomas, (fn. 96) occurs August, 1305, and 22 March,
1307
Roger, (fn. 97) occurs 1311 and 1331
William of Boston, (fn. 98) occurs 1334 and 10 October, 1340.
Robert of Carleton, (fn. 99) occurs July, 1347, died
20 March, 1354
Jordan of Bosedon, (fn. 100) elected 4 May, 1354,
and occurs 30 November, 1364
Richard, (fn. 101) occurs 21 November, 1382
Thomas, (fn. 102) occurs 1386-7 and 1388-9
William Stamford, (fn. 103) occurs 1393
Thomas of Burgh, (fn. 104) occurs 1395 and 1403
Thomas Green, (fn. 105) elected 6 July, 1410,
occurs 1436-7
Robert Egremont, (fn. 106) elected 1444, occurs
1474
William Lucas, (fn. 107) died 1477
William Bowland, (fn. 108) elected 1477, died 1490
John Preston, (fn. 109) elected 16 December, 1490,
occurs 1500
James Skipton, (fn. 110) elected 20 December, 1502
Henry Stayning, (fn. 111) elected 7 October, 1505
John Croune, (fn. 112) elected 11 May, 1509
George Billington, (fn. 113) occurs 1520-1 and
27 September, 1522
John Bowland, (fn. 114) occurs 22 January, 1524,
and 20 May, 1527
— Newsham (fn. 115)
Gilbert Ainsworth, (fn. 116) elected 25 March, 1531
Robert Kendal, (fn. 117) elected 16 October, 1531
Robert Poulton, (fn. 118) elected 27 May, 1533, surrendered 29 January, 1538-9
The common seal of the abbey is pointed oval
and represents three niches one above another;
in the upper one God the Father in the attitude
of benediction, on each side a demi-angel swinging a censer; in the centre one the Virgin
crowned with the Child on her left arm; in the
lower one the abbot in prayer. (fn. 119) Legend:—
+ s' BĒ MARIE ET AVGVSTI CŌVĒT D' COK'SĀD
A seal of Abbot Henry (c. 1242-50) is attached to a deed among the Trafford muniments
printed in the chartulary (p. 723). It is vesicashaped (1⅞ in.× 1⅛ in.), much rubbed and worn,
apparently bearing the right fore-arm and hand
of a canon outstretched, holding a crozier. Legend in Gothic characters hardly discernible:—
SIG . HENRICI . ABBATIS . DE . COKIRSAND