HOUSE OF DOMINICAN FRIARS
18. THE DOMINICAN FRIARS OF SHREWSBURY
A little before 1232, probably in obedience to an
order of the provincial chapter held in 1230 at
Oxford, a community of Dominican Friars settled
in Shrewsbury. (fn. 1) Their earliest known benefactor was
the king: he visited Shrewsbury in May 1232 and
the friars secured shortly afterwards a grant of 30
oak trees and the stone which lay in the Severn under
the bailey of Shrewsbury castle to build their church. (fn. 2)
They were the first friars to reach Shropshire and
were certainly welcomed with gifts by local benefactors, though traditions about their 'founders'
current in the 16th century are confused and unreliable. Camden's statement that one of the Charltons was their founder and that Richard, burgess of
Shrewsbury, built their church (fn. 3) may arise from
confusion with certain benefactors of the Franciscans. (fn. 4) There is more substance to Leland's assertion
that it was of 'Lady Genevil's foundation'; (fn. 5) Maud,
granddaughter and coheir of Walter de Lacy, may
have been a benefactress about 1250 before her
marriage to Geoffrey de Geneville, and her descendants in the 14th and 15th centuries certainly made
gifts to the house. (fn. 6) But there was probably no formal
founder.
Royal gifts and favours continued, particularly
during the thirty years when the friars were completing their essential buildings and then enlarging
their site and extending their precinct wall. The house
stood outside the town walls on the bank of the
Severn, between St. Mary's Water Lane and the
English Bridge. (fn. 7) In 1241-2 the friars received
permission to join their precinct wall to the town
wall (fn. 8) and during the rebuilding of the town walls
Henry III ordered the bailiffs and sheriff to give the
friars two hundred cartloads of the surplus stone (fn. 9)
and a hundred loads of lime from the lime kilns
under the Wrekin. (fn. 10) He also provided 10 marks in
1244 for the church fabric. (fn. 11) The town too gave
money for the buildings: £3 13s. was paid in
September and October 1259. (fn. 12) The ground sloped
sharply down from the town to the convent and when
the friars complained in 1258 that a lane running
under their church from the north caused flooding
in times of heavy rain they were permitted to have it
stopped up. (fn. 13) Shortly afterwards they extended their
site towards the English Bridge (fn. 14) and secured royal
permission to approve their property in the waters of
the river itself. They appear to have built some kind
of embankment to protect their site on the riverside
and this brought them into conflict with the monks
of Shrewsbury Abbey, who destroyed a stank which
the friars had made in the river. A compromise
agreement between the parties in 1265 seems to have
been completely superseded in 1269 when, at the
instance of Prince Edward, the king confirmed all
the friars' claims to land which they had been able
to acquire on the Severn. (fn. 15) Relations with their other
ecclesiastical neighbours, the dean and canons of
St. Mary's, appear to have been better. In 1263 the
latter granted them a garden outside the town walls
to round off their site, for which Andrew, lord of
Willey, agreed to pay St. Mary's an annual rent of
6s. 8d. (fn. 16) After this date only minor enlargements took
place. In 1346 the friars acquired and enclosed with
a wall a small plot of ground by their churchyard. (fn. 17)
Some of their land lay within the town walls and in
1380 they were allowed to have a postern in the wall
for their private use to join the two parts of their
property. (fn. 18) They appear to have had difficulty in
procuring a satisfactory water supply from within
the town and finally sought one across the river. In
1365 royal permission was given for them to
acquire a small plot of land in a field by Monkmoor wood, where there was a well called 'Flegwell', and to build a well-house and conduit. (fn. 19) At
the Dissolution the site itself, including and orchard
(4 a.), the churchyard (one rood) and half a rood west
of the church, was valued at 20s.; they had in addition
a little town property, rented for 14s. 4d. (fn. 20)
The house was of some importance and the provincial chapter of the order met there in 1299 and
1345. (fn. 21) As in all Dominican houses, the priors were
elected annually, though re-election was not uncommon. (fn. 22) Only a few of their names are known;
one at least, John Richard, was a preacher of note,
who preached before Richard II in 1383, 1393, and
1396 (fn. 23) and was prior in 1399. (fn. 24) All the evidence
suggests that the house maintained good discipline
and enjoyed the favour of wealthy and powerful
patrons to the last. The descendants of Maud de
Geneville included Joan, Countess of March, whose
daughter Catherine, Countess of Warwick, bequeathed £20 to the Dominicans of Shrewsbury in
1369. (fn. 25) Among royal visitors was Henry, Prince of
Wales, who heard mass in the church on several
occasions when he stayed in Shrewsbury during the
Percy rebellion. (fn. 26) Edward, Earl of March, kept
Christmas in the friary in 1460, just before he seized
the throne, and the borough bailiffs provided a pipe
of ale 'for the honour of the town'. (fn. 27) Edward may
have had a special regard for the house, for in 1473
he sent Queen Elizabeth to the friars' guest-house
for the birth of their second son. (fn. 28) Inevitably there
was some minor friction with the town. In 1431-2 the
friars were accused of keeping ferrets and setting
snares for rabbits within the liberties of the town
and of enclosing a parcel of common land at the end
of St. Mary's church. (fn. 29) They were seriously inconvenienced by the garbage thrown out by the
townspeople and carried into their church by pigs;
they appealed to the Prince of Wales c. 1480, and
secured a letter from him demanding a remedy. (fn. 30)
From time to time the corporation made grants to
the friars: in 1531 the borough chamberlain was
ordered to pursue the debts of the town and grant
the friars preachers 40s. of such debts as could be
recovered. (fn. 31) If the Dominicans received less from
the corporation than the other two houses of friars
at this time it was probably because their house was
more prosperous and their need less. The first
convent of friars to be established in Shropshire, it
was also the last to go, for it was the only one of them
able to resist the royal commissioners by refusing to
surrender in August 1538. The Bishop of Dover,
writing to Cromwell on 13 August, stressed that he
had no commission to suppress any house and dared
suppress none but those that gave their houses into
the king's hands for poverty: he had left the black
friars of Shrewsbury standing because he could find
no cause for them to give up. He had therefore given
certain injunctions, examined their accounts and left
them to keep good order. (fn. 32) On 23 August he reported
that great suit would be made to Cromwell for the
continuance of the house and on 27 August he was
openly urging suppression. (fn. 33) He had his wish before
Michaelmas; in October the superfluous buildings
were pulled down and the materials sold for £23 14s.
2d. The debts of the community for victuals and
other articles amounted to only 64s. (fn. 34) The site was
leased to William Penson in 1541 (fn. 35) and granted to
Richard Andrews in 1543. (fn. 36) The church was evidently a large one with a substantial steeple, for one
of the two bells weighed 6 cwt. and the other 1 cwt. (fn. 37)
In 1610 Speed described the site as bare, except for a
single dwelling-house between the town wall and the
river, and this too disappeared in time. In 1823,
when the site of the convent was levelled to build a
new wharf, the foundations of three chambers were
exposed: all were 31 feet long, one being 20 feet
and another 18 feet wide. Masonry remains found at
this time included many fragments of mullions, said
to be of a very handsome late Gothic style, and many
small, elegant, octagonal pillars. (fn. 38) There are no
traces of the house above ground.
Priors
Gregory of Shrewsbury, occurs 1325. (fn. 39)
John Richard, occurs 1399. (fn. 40)
William Peplow, occurs 1407-8. (fn. 41)
William Eyre, occurs 1451-2. (fn. 42)
Edmund Bewno, occurs 1473. (fn. 43)
Robert Ellesmere, occurs 1484. (fn. 44)
Richard Roc, occurs 1495. (fn. 45)
Roger, occurs 1508-10. (fn. 46)
Roger Fenemere, occurs 1513, 1514, 1519, 1524,
1527. (fn. 47)
John Eynesworth, occurs 1534, 1537. (fn. 48)
No seal known.