HOUSE OF GRANDMONTINE MONKS
6. THE PRIORY OF ALBERBURY
Alberbury Priory was the smallest of the three
English dependencies of the abbey of Grandmont
and the last to be founded. (fn. 1) Fulk Fitz Warin (III)
originally intended to erect a house of Arrouaisian
canons; he began to build a priory between 1221
and 1226 and invited Alan, Abbot of Lilleshall, to
establish a full convent there but the provision he
made was inadequate to support them. The next
abbot, William, declared that the charge was too
onerous and renounced all claims in the priory. (fn. 2)
Fulk, influenced perhaps by the recent Grandmontine foundation at Craswall by Walter de Lacy,
then turned to the Order of Grandmont and before
1232 placed the house directly under the authority
of the abbey of Grandmont in Limousin. His
foundation charter granted the brethren the site of
the priory with its appurtenances, land, and common
rights in Alberbury and Pecknall, a fishery in the
Severn, the right to construct mills, and the manor
of Whadborough (Leics.): (fn. 3) it was confirmed by
Henry III in 1232. (fn. 4) The dedication was in honour of
St. Mary, and the priory was known during the
Middle Ages as the 'New Abbey', or the 'Black
Abbey' from the habit of the brethren. Only since
the time of Leland has it sometimes been called the
'White Abbey', from the colour of the stone. (fn. 5)
St. Stephen of Muret, the founder of the order,
had laid down rules of poverty for his brethren and
insisted on renunciation of many forms of property,
but by the time that Alberbury was founded some
of the stricter observances of the rule had been
relaxed. In 1223 the pope allowed the brethren to
hold land outside the sites of their houses, to breed
animals, attend markets and fairs, and receive
charters giving them legal security. (fn. 6) Alberbury was a
foundation of the new pattern. The distant Leicestershire manor of Whadborough was leased from a very
early date. The Shropshire estates were built up
piecemeal during the 13th century: as early as 1239
the corrector and brethren were lending money and
securing small parcels of land on mortgage. (fn. 7)
Mortgages occured most frequently in the Welsh
lands of Bausley; other properties in Pecknall and
Eyton were purchased outright with cash or cattle. (fn. 8)
Many small holdings were given in free alms in
return for spiritual benefits, (fn. 9) sometimes explicitly
for the upkeep of the buildings or the other needs of
the community. (fn. 10) These properties included lands
in Loton and a substantial part of one of the manors
of Eyton, (fn. 11) as well as land in Eyton newly reclaimed
from the waste. (fn. 12) The most substantial part of the
priory's endowment, however, consisted of the
church of Alberbury, originally a minster church
with four portions. The brethren had acquired the
advowson and one of the portions by 1259, when
they secured the appropriation of the church and the
reversion of the remaining three portions, which
were all in their hands by 1262. (fn. 13) They did not,
however, effectively enjoy the tithes until after the
settlement of boundary disputes in 1289. (fn. 14) In 1291
the church was valued at £25, (fn. 15) while the remainder
of the prior's taxable property in Shropshire,
consisting of two carucates at Pecknall, three nokes
at Eyton, small rents at Great Wollaston and Eyton,
and a stock of 6 cows and 60 sheep, was assessed at
£3 16s. (fn. 16)
Very little property was acquired thereafter. In
1343 Robert Corbet, lord of Wattlesborough,
renounced all the rights he had in lands in Bausley
and Pecknall granted to the priory by his tenants in
return for a perpetual chantry to be served by one
of the brethren in the priory of Alberbury. (fn. 17) In
1370, when it was seized by the Crown as an alien
priory, Alberbury's estate was said to comprise a
carucate in Alberbury, where there was meadow
land worth 6s. 8d. and a water mill, a carucate at
Pecknall grange, and rents of £1 14s. in Eyton and
Great Wollaston. (fn. 18) The small Shropshire demesnes
appear to have been kept in hand to that date, but
in 1373 the prior leased the demesne at Pecknall to a
group of peasants. (fn. 19)
All three English dependencies of Grandmont
were administered for the benefit of the mother
house. (fn. 20) The correctors or priors in charge of each
house were appointed by the Prior of Grandmont
and required to attend general chapters every two
years, bringing with them the annual pensions owed
by their houses. They were not allowed to sell or
alienate anything without the permission of the
Prior of Grandmont. (fn. 21) The pensions paid by them
amounted to much more than the token apport
owed by many dependent priories to their mother
houses. Alberbury's pension did not in practice
amount to all the surplus after the needs of the
brethren had been met, since the community had
money to buy new land, but the division of revenues
from Alberbury rectory indicates the scale of the
demand. In 1259 half the profits were reserved for
Grandmont; in fact nothing was received at first,
because of tithe disputes, and in 1287 the mother
house agreed to accept £6 13s. 4d. (fn. 22) Although
approximately only a quarter of the assessed value,
it was a heavy burden for a small and poor house.
Priors appointed centrally were unlikely to have
been local men and this is confirmed by the names of
two 13th-century priors, (fn. 23) but there was some local
recruitment; in 1256 a brother of the house who was
accidentally drowned bore the Welsh name Cadugan. (fn. 24) While there are no explicit references to lay
brethren, these played a prominent part in the early
days of the order, tilling the soil and taking charge of
the money and all the business of the priories,
while the monks devoted themselves to prayer and
contemplation. (fn. 25) It is inconceivable that there were
none at Alberbury, but even in the early days of
this house some duties that would once have fallen
to lay brethren were performed by laymen
associated with the monastery in the looser bonds of
confraternity.
Richard clericus, son of Matthew of Eyton, who
made gifts of land on several occasions to the
priory, (fn. 26) bound himself in 1267 to undertake all the
business of the house and to travel anywhere except
overseas: the brethren were to provide food for him
and fodder for his horse when he was in Alberbury,
but he paid 20s. to build a chamber for his own use
there and was to find his own clothing and shoes. On
his death all his movables were to fall to the priory
and he was to be buried in its graveyard 'as if he had
been a professed brother'. (fn. 27) Llywelyn ap Tuysscan,
who gave 8 acres in 1270, possibly became a lay
brother: he was received in confratrem et familiarem
and was to be provided for life with sufficient food
and shoes and clothing of the standard he had worn
when he entered the house; on his death he was to
be buried 'in his habit and among the brethren'. (fn. 28)
Apart, however, from the form of burial, the
language suggests an honoured corrodiary rather
than a true lay brother. By 1344, when the community consisted only of the brethren and their
servants, (fn. 29) the estates were being tilled by paid
labour; evidently here as in most Cistercian houses
the supply of lay brethren had dried up.
The priory's history was a troubled one. The
scattered parish of Alberbury lay on both sides of
the Welsh border and in addition the diocesan and
parochial boundaries were ill-defined. A boundary
dispute between the bishops of Hereford and St.
Asaph was not settled until 1289 and before that date
a number of Welsh rectors and their parishioners
supported tithe claims with violence, carrying off
corn and cattle and even snatching bodies from the
graveyard. (fn. 30) Moreover there were internal difficulties in the order: Grandmont was too far away
for the strict control that the rule required. To meet
the difficulty one of the English correctors was
empowered to act as delegate of the Prior of Grandmont, with spiritual and temporal authority over all
three houses; for over half a century from 1252 this
office was held by the Prior of Craswall, but two
14th-century priors of Alberbury were appointed
priors of the order in England. (fn. 31) The Prior of
Grandmont, however, sometimes exercised his
authority directly and rival priors made conflicting
appointments in England after a disputed election at
Grandmont in 1315. After the order was reconstituted in 1317 the mother house was raised to the
status of abbey and the correctors of the dependencies
were called priors. This brought no real change in
the relations of Grandmont with its English cells
and the priors continued to be nominated by the
abbot, even when it was impossible to receive
pensions or send visitors because of the wars with
France. (fn. 32) Grandmont itself was in the county of
La Marche, at one time part of the Angevin domains;
its priories, not being technically of the power of the
king of France, thus escaped seizure during the wars
of Edward I and Edward II. In 1337 Edward III
ordered the seizure of all alien priories and the
three Grandmontine cells were included for a few
years. It was reported in 1344 that the Prior of
Alberbury was not of the lordship of the king of
France, but of the king of England, and was dative
at the will of Fulk Fitz Warin, patron of the priory;
that the lands and rents in Shropshire were worth
£2 1s. 2d. yearly, the church 20 marks, and stock
£9 6s., which altogether did not suffice for the
maintenance of the prior, 6 brethren, and their
servants. (fn. 33) The prior had leased the Leicestershire
manor of Whadborough for 3 years in 1341, for
cash paid in advance. (fn. 34) As a result the priory's
lands and goods were restored, the king retaining
only the advowson of that church. (fn. 35) Notwithstanding the inference in 1344 that Fulk Fitz
Warin had the right to nominate the prior, Grandmont continued to make appointments directly.
When the prior was charged with violence, murder,
and dissipation of the priory's goods in 1357,
Edward III, acting as guardian of the young Fulk
Fitz Warin, ordered an investigation, (fn. 36) but it was
the Abbot of Grandmont who removed the prior
from office for his misdeeds. (fn. 37) In 1364 the Abbot of
Grandmont again intervened in a dispute between
two rival priors. Richard of Stretton had been outlawed on a charge of murder and had fled from the
priory until he could obtain pardon and absolution:
meanwhile the abbot had appointed Richard of
Hatton. (fn. 38) Stretton's attempt to recover the priory
probably failed, for Richard of Hatton occurs as prior
from at least 1365 onwards, (fn. 39) but by this time the
abbot's control was ceasing to have any practical
effect. When war with France was renewed in 1369
Alberbury was seized again and committed to a
succession of farmers, clerical and lay, who supplied
the brethren with the bare necessities of life and
rendered a yearly farm of 20 marks to the Exchequer. (fn. 40) The farm was assigned from about 1414 to
Queen Joan, widow of Henry IV, and after her death
to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. (fn. 41) In 1391 the
king presented John Colle, monk of Shrewsbury, as
prior, claiming that the priory was in his hands by
reason both of the war with France and of the
minority of the son of Fulk Fitz Warin. (fn. 42) Finally, in
1441, Henry VI granted the priory to All Souls'
College, Oxford. (fn. 43)
In spite of the grant monks from Grandmont
attempted to regain possession of the priory in
1473 and had some local support. (fn. 44) After the failure
of this attempt the vicar and parishioners complained that no proper service was provided in the
church for the souls of founders and benefactors,
and the bishop required All Souls' to maintain a
chantry in the priory chapel of St. Stephen and the
choir of the church. (fn. 45) The ecclesiastical use of both
buildings necessarily ended with the suppression of
these chantries in 1547 and in 1578 they were
converted into a house. When the square east end
of the former church was pulled down in 1857-8
five bodies which had been buried before the presbytery steps were discovered. (fn. 46)
The site, which occupied about four acres, lay
within a bend of the River Severn about 1¼ miles
north-east of Alberbury village. An Elizabethan
plan (fn. 47) shows the precincts entirely surrounded by a
moat and a partly moated inner enclosure, each
enclosure having a gatehouse; to the south-east was
a mill supplied by a small tributary of the Severn.
Parts of the moats and the site of the mill pool are
still visible. (fn. 48) The only surviving buildings are
incorporated in the farm-house at White Abbey
Farm. They consist of part of the church with St.
Stephen's chapel adjoining it, both dating from the
early 13th century. Excavations in 1925 established
further details of the layout. The church, unlike the
normal Grandmontine churches, was squareended and was never vaulted in stone, an indication
that it may have been built at the time of the
foundation for the canons of Lilleshall and that the
parish church of Alberbury was never used by the
brethren. (fn. 49) The church was a simple rectangle
about 109 feet by 22 feet, with the cloister to the
south of it. The southern half of White Abbey Farm
consists of the central portion of the church which
originally projected further east and west. In the
south wall a doorway to the cloister, with a pointed
arch and foliated capitals to the former jamb-shafts,
survives. Further east is the rear arch of the doorway to the sacristy in the east range of the cloister
and traces of the springing of the sacristy vault.
St. Stephen's chapel was evidently built for the
monks of Grandmont soon after the church was
completed. It is 38 feet long by 15 feet wide and
stands against the north wall of the former choir;
the doorway leading to it has moulded jambs and a
pointed arch. The whole chapel is incorporated in
the northern half of the farm-house although an
inserted floor divides the structure horizontally.
The roof is vaulted in three bays with ribbed quadripartite vaults springing from grouped shafts
between the bays and single shafts in the angles;
carved bosses at the intersection of the ribs depict
an Agnus Dei, a man's head, and a winged monster.
Other features of the original chapel include a
double piscina on the south side, parts of the east
window, and a doorway in the north wall. In the
early 19th century traces of a rood-loft stair were
recorded. (fn. 50) In the north-west corner there are
remains of a staircase which may have given access to
the space between the vault and the roof, apparently
converted into a room in the late 15th century by
the insertion of doors and windows. (fn. 51)
The cloister, of which nothing survives, measured
47½ feet by 45 feet. The normal plan of a Grandmontine priory suggests that the east range contained
the sacristy next to the church with the chapter-house
beyond it, and that the frater was in the south range.
One characteristic of the order was that the clerics
and the lay brethren shared the same quarters. The
Elizabethan plan shows a block which may have
been the infirmary to the east of the claustral
buildings and various barns and out-buildings
elsewhere on the site.
Correctors or Priors of Alberbury
Lambert, occurs before 1245. (fn. 52)
Geoffrey, occurs 1245. (fn. 53)
Peter of London, occurs 1247 and 1248. (fn. 54)
John, occurs 1255. (fn. 55)
Ranulf, occurs 1259 and 1267. (fn. 56)
Peter de Corcellis, occurs 1286 and 1289. (fn. 57)
Gerard, occurs 1298. (fn. 58)
Roger, occurs 1299. (fn. 59)
Arnold Rissa, appointed 1315, (fn. 60) occurs 1338. (fn. 61)
Stephen, occurs 1346. (fn. 62)
John of Cublington, occurs 1357, (fn. 63) deposed
1359. (fn. 64)
Robert Newton, appointed 1359. (fn. 65)
Richard of Stretton, occurs before 1363. (fn. 66)
Richard of Hatton, occurs between 1365 and
1388. (fn. 67)
John Colle, appointed 1391. (fn. 68)
Robert, occurs 1421. (fn. 69)
No impression of a conventual seal is known but
one of the oval seal of prior Arnold Rissa is attached
to a lease of 1317. (fn. 70) It measures 1¼ × ¾ in. and shows a
Grandmontine brother in prayer to the right, below
the canopied figures of the Virgin and Child.
Legend, lombardic:
. . . ARNALDI . . . DE ALB . . . BUR . . .