FRIARIES
11. THE GREY FRIARS OF READING
The Franciscans or Grey Friars were first
established at Reading in the year 1233. By a
deed dated 14 July, Abbot Adam de Lathbury
and the convent granted to these friars a piece of
waste ground by the king's highway leading to
Caversham Bridge, 33 perches in length and 23
in breadth, with permission to build and dwell
there so long as they should be content to be
truly mendicant and hold no property of their own,
and abstained from interfering with the rights of
the abbey. The friars also bound themselves
never to seek any other land or extension of site at
the hands of the abbey. (fn. 1)
In 1282 Archbishop Peckham, himself a
Franciscan friar, addressed a letter to the abbot
and convent of Reading, on behalf of the friars
of that town, asking that they might be permitted
to enlarge the site of their house, although they
had unadvisedly covenanted never to make such
a request, as their buildings were so often inundated with flood water in the winter season. (fn. 2)
It was a long time before the prayer of the
archbishop was granted; but in 1285 he wrote
to Brother Allot, the minister general of the
Friars Minor, asking him to confirm the change
of site of the dwelling of that order at Reading.
He therein told the head of the order that the
simplicity of the friars in the province of England
had caused them to show more ignorance than
prudence in the choice of situation, and in the
erection of buildings, to the inconvenience of
posterity. That at Reading, compelled by the
monks who owned the town, they had accepted
a marshy site so subject to floods that at times of
inundation they had to leave or be subject to
much danger; also that their distance outside the
town made it inconvenient to procure necessaries.
Being solicited by many persons of consequence,
the monks had at last given permission to the
friars to place their buildings on higher ground
within the town, but that their consent had been
surrounded with many restrictions. The archbishop had consented thereto in the hopes they
might be remedied in process of time by royal
benevolence, or possibly by the authority of his
own office, the protection of which the Benedictines of Reading were sometimes under the
necessity of imploring. The archbishop therefore hoped that the superior of the order would
confirm the agreement thus made, and now
forwarded to him with the seal of his office. (fn. 3)
The new covenant whereby the somewhat
niggardly monks granted the friars a new though
smaller site was fortified by even stronger safeguards than those of the grant of 1233. In this
deed the abbot and convent of Reading stated
that they had unanimously received as guests the
Franciscan friars in the town of Reading, upon
a piece of ground between the house of the rector
of Sulham on the east and the sandy ditch on the
west, and extending from the common way
called New Street, the use whereof the friars
should continue to have, of the grace of the
abbey and convent, saving the following conditions: It should be lawful for the friars to build
and dwell upon this additional plot of land
(16½ perches by 16 perches) so long as they
remained without property and, in accordance with
their profession, observers of the deepest poverty.
The friars promised, for themselves and their
successors, that they would never seek any other
dwelling on the land of the abbey, or extend
their boundaries, and that they would never ask
alms from the abbey as a due, but only out of
mercy and by special grace. Further the friars
promised that, whatever liberty of sepulture they
enjoyed or hereafter should enjoy, they would
never receive for burial the bodies of deceased
parishioners of the monastery or of the churches
appropriated to the abbey in Reading, or outside,
without the special licence of the abbot and convent; and that they would never receive tithes
or offerings or legacies due of certain knowledge
or by custom to the abbey. The friars granted
that if they failed in any of these particulars the
abbot was to have power to expel them of his
own authority, all appeal or obstacle being waived.
In case the abbot and convent desired to expel the
friars from their dwelling on this land for any other
causes, the king and his heirs had free power to
house them there, all appeal being waived, so that
they should have of royal grace what they had
previously had of the convent's grace. To this
deed the seals of the abbey on the one part, and
of the minister general and provincial on the
other, were appended, together for corroboration
with the seal of the king and of the archbishop
of Canterbury. (fn. 4)
The only property these mendicant friars were
allowed to hold was the site of their friary and
its extensions, and in 1288 Robert Fulco bequeathed to them certain other void plots of
ground in New Street, adjoining the land granted
to the abbey. (fn. 5)
Edward I, when the Franciscans were on
their old flooded site, had granted them from the
forest of Pamber, in 1280, three oak trunks for
fuel (fn. 6) ; and he now came to their help, just at
the end of his reign, with the handsome donation
of fifty-six oaks out of the forest of Windsor for
their new buildings then in progress. (fn. 7)
Certain works were still in progress in 1311,
for in that year Alan de Banbury bequeathed 5s.
operi fratrum minorum in this town. (fn. 8)
In 1320 Bishop Mortival licensed Warner,
warden of the Franciscans of Reading, to hear
confessions in the diocese. (fn. 9)
Margaret Twynho, a Reading widow, by will
proved in 1501 left her body to be buried in
the chapel of St. Francis in the Grey Friars of
Reading, near the tomb of her father and
mother. (fn. 10)
Dr. London, writing to Cromwell from Oxford on 31 August, 1538, as to 'capacities' or
licences to give up their vows for the friars,
says:—
A friend of mine, the warden of the Grey Friars
in Reading, also wishes license for them to change
their garments; most of them are very old men. (fn. 11)
The surrender of the house was made on
13 September, 1538. There is a comparatively
modern copy of this surrender at Lambeth. It
is signed 'Per me Petrum Schefford guardianum,
ac S.T.B.; per me Egidium Coventre, S.T.B.,'
and by ten others. (fn. 12)
On the following day London wrote to
Cromwell telling him of the surrender, and that
that day they should change their coats; he
adds, 'of friars they be noted here honest men.'
He further reported that
in the house there were three pretty lodgings, one
kept by the warden, another by Mr. Ogle the King's
servant, and the third by an old lady called my Lady
Saynt Jane. There is a goodly walk in their back
side, with trees, pond, and an orchard, in all 20
acres. Household stuff coarse; what little plate and
jewels there is I will send up this week. There is a
great trough of lead at their well, and another in
their kitchen, and the bell turret is covered with lead.
Church ornaments slender. The inside of the church
and windows decked with grey friars I have defaced,
and yet made some money out of these things. On
Monday I will pay their debts to victuallers and rid
the house of them all. (fn. 13)
A few days later London wrote to Cromwell:—
'As soon as I hadde taken the Fryers surrender the
multytude of the Poverty of the town resorted thedyr
and all thing that myght be hadde they stole away,
insomuyche that they had conveyed the very clapers
of the bellys. And saving that Mr. Fachell (Vachell)
wich made me great chere at hys house and the Mayor
dydde assist me, they wold havd made no litell spoyl.
In thys I have done as moche as I cowde to save
everything to the King's Graces use, as shall appear to
your Lordeschippe at the begynnyng of the terme,
Godde willing, who wt increse of moche honor long
preserve yor gudde Lordeschippe.
At Redinge, xvii Septembris.
'I besyt your gudde Lordeschippe to admytt me a
pour sutar for theis honest men of Redinge. They
have a fayre town and many gudde occupiers in ytt;
but they lacke that house necessary of the wiche for
the mynystration of Justice they have the most nede
of. Ther Town Hall ys a very small Hous and
stondith upon the ryver, wher ys the commyn
wassching place of the most part of the Town, and in
the cession days and other court dayes ther ys such
betyng with batildores as noe man can nott here
another, nor the guest here the chardg givyng. The
body of the Church of the Grey Fryers wiche is selyd
with laths and lyme wold be very commodoise rowme
for them. And now I have rydde all the fasschen of
that Churche in pardons, ymages and awtters it wolde
make a gudly Town Hall. The Mayor of that
Town, Mr. Richard Turner a very honest gentill
person with many other honest men hath expressyd
unto me ther gref in thys behalf and have desyred me
to be an humble sutar unto your Lordeschippe for the
same if it shoulde be solde. The wallys, besyd the
coyne stonys, be but chalk and flynt and the coveryng
butt tile. And if it please the King's grace to bestow
that house upon any of hys servants, he may spare
the body of the churche, wich standith next the
strete very well; and yet have roume sufficient for a
great man.
Your most bounden orator and servant,
John London. (fn. 14)
Being friars, the inmates were of course ejected
after their surrender without a farthing of pension;
but in the troubles of the next year the king
found accommodation for two of their number.
In a list of prisoners in the Tower on 20 November, 1539, appear the names of Peter Lawrence
(alias Schefford), late warden of the Reading
Friars, and Gyles Coventry, a friar of the same
house. (fn. 15)
The house and site were granted to a groom
of the king's chamber; but the body and side
aisles of the church (fn. 16) were granted by Henry VIII,
at last mindful of London's entreaty, in April,
1544, to the mayor and burgesses of Reading, to
serve as a new gild hall, the town paying for the
same a yearly rent of one halfpenny.