FRIARIES
14. THE HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS, LANCASTER
The house of the Black Friars at Lancaster
was founded about 1260 by Sir Hugh Harrington, kt. (fn. 1) In September, 1291, the archbishop
of York instructed them to have three brothers
preaching the Crusade on Holy Cross Day, one
at Lancaster, another in Kendal, and a third in
Lonsdale. (fn. 2) Master William of Lancaster in
1311 received licence to give a rood of land for
the enlargement of their site, and a few years
later they took out a pardon for the acquisition
without licence of a further two acres. (fn. 3)
In 1371 William of Northburgh, one of the
brethren, was licensed as penitentiary in the
wapentakes of Blackburn and Leyland. (fn. 4) Brother
Richard Pekard, recluse of this house, received
a licence in 1390 to hear confessions. (fn. 5)
The house was probably surrendered in 1539 (fn. 6)
and the crown on 18 June, 1540, sold it with
the friaries of Preston and Warrington to
Thomas Holcroft, esquire of the body to the
king, for £126 10s. (fn. 7)
There was a chantry in the chapel of the
friary founded (so the Chantry Commissioners
reported in 1547) by the ancestors of Sir Thomas
Lawrence of Ashton near Lancaster. Robert
Makerell, the last priest of the chantry, continued
to celebrate masses 'at his pleasure' in other
places after the dissolution of the friary. (fn. 8)
Footnotes
| 1 |
The royal licence to acquire a site is dated
27 May, 1260; Pat. 44 Hen. III, m. 9. A prior
of the house is mentioned in 1269; Dugdale, Mon.
On the division of the English province of the order
into four 'visitations,' Canterbury, London, Oxford,
and York, it was assigned to the last-named; Worc.
Cath. Lib. MS. 93, fly-leaf. |
| 2 |
Let. from Northern Reg. (Rolls Ser.), 95. |
| 3 |
Cal. of Pat. 1307-13, p. 387. |
| 4 |
Lich. Epis. Reg. Stretton, fol. 26. |
| 5 |
Ibid. Scrope, fol. 126b. |
| 6 |
In Feb. 1539 one of Cromwell's agents mentions
this as one of twenty or more friaries still standing in
the north, most of which he hoped to see suppressed
before Easter; L. and P. Hen. VIII, xiv (1), 348,
413. A royal commissioner was on his way to
Lancaster on 10 March; ibid. 494. |
| 7 |
Ibid. xv, 831, g. 43. The site was alienated in
2-3 Philip and Mary to Thomas Carus of Halton
and his son Thomas; Dugdale, Mon. vi, 1486. |
| 8 |
Lance. Chant. (chet. Soc.), 225. The clear annual value or the chantry in 1335 was £3 18s.; valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), v, 263. |