27. THE ABBEY OF ROCHE
The abbey of Roche derived its name ' de
Rupe ' from a supposed miraculous sculpture of a
crucifix, found by one of the monks on a rock,
adjacent to which the monastery was afterwards
built. (fn. 1) It was the joint foundation of Richard
de Buili and Richard Fitz Turgis, who gave
two adjoining sites, divided by a small stream,
agreeing with each other that both should be
accounted founders, irrespective of the position
selected for the abbey buildings.
The site actually selected was that granted by
Richard de Buili on the Maltby side of the
stream, and the monks who colonized it came
from Newminster, the abbot of which, in consequence, became the pater abbas of Roche. (fn. 2)
On 7 April 1186 Pope Urban II confirmed
to Osmund, the fifth abbot, and his monks
some twenty gifts of land, in addition to the
sites given for the building of the abbey by the
two co-founders.
John de Warenne, Earl of Surrey, regarding
the magnificence of the stonework of the abbey,
and also the paucity of its monks, gave the
church of Hatfield to the abbey for the main
tenance of thirteen additional monks, (fn. 3) and on
13 May 1346 (fn. 4) Archbishop Zouch made a
formal appropriation of Hatfield Church to the
abbey, and ordained a perpetual vicarage in the
church. Hatfield Church was the only spirituality
which the abbey of Roche possessed. (fn. 5) The
abbey also obtained many other gifts of land
and other properties, which are set out alphabetically in detail by Burton. (fn. 6)
Not much is known of the internal affairs of
the house until the period of the Dissolution.
The patronage, which had descended to John
son of William Lyvett of Hooton Levitt, was
sold on 20 February 1377-8 to Richard Barry,
citizen and merchant of London. (fn. 7) In 1380-1
the abbot was taxed at 45s. 0¼d., Hugh Bastard
was prior, and he and twelve other monks
forming the convent were taxed at 3s. 4d. each;
there was one conversus taxed at 12d. At the
time of Pope Nicholas's taxation, a century
earlier, the only spirituality was Hatfield Church,
valued at £46 13s. 4d., while the temporalities
amounted to £138 11s. 10d. In the Valor
Ecclesiasticus, the church of Hatfield was set
down at £41 14s. 8d., and the temporalities at
£220 4s. 8d., making a total of £260 19s. 4d.
Among the ' Elemosina' was £1 distributed every
Maundy Thursday, 29s. for wax daily burnt before
the sacrament of the altar, of the foundation of
Richard Furnival, and 5s. yearly on the obit of
Thomas de Bellewe.
Drs. Layton and Legh reported in 1536 that
pilgrimage was made to the image of the
crucifix discovered (as it was believed) in the
rock, and that it was held in veneration.
Charges of gross immorality, as usual, were
brought against five of the monks, (fn. 8) and another
monk, John Robynson, suspected of treason, was
imprisoned at York, but his signature is appended
to the deed of surrender with those of the other
seventeen monks, who with their abbot were
supposed to have signed the document in the
chapter-house on 23 June 1538. (fn. 9)
The abbot was assigned £33 6s. 8d. as his
yearly pension, and was to have his books, the
fourth part of the plate, the cattle and household
stuff, a chalice and vestment and £30 in money
at his departure. The sub-prior (Thomas Twell)
received a pension of £6 14s. 8d. and the
bursar (John Dodesworth), one of the monks
charged with gross misconduct in the notorious
comperta, £6. Eleven other monks who were
priests received £5 each; and four novices 66s. 8d.
each. (fn. 10)
By far the most important and interesting
document relating to Dissolution times is a
graphic account of the despoiling of the monastic buildings, written in 1591. (fn. 11) No doubt it
describes scenes which, with varying details,
took place all over the country after the dissolution of the religious houses.
So soon [the account reads] as the Visitors were
entred within the gates, they called the Abbot and
other officers of the House, and caused them to
deliver up to them all their keys and took an inventory of all their goods both within doors and without;
for all such beasts, horses, sheep, and such cattle as
were abroad in pastures or grange places, the Visitors
caused to be brought into their presence: and when
they had done so, turned the Abbot with all his convent and household forth out of doors.
Which thing was not a little grief to the Convent,
and all the servants of the House departing one from
another, and especially such as with their conscience
could not break their profession; for it would have
made a heart of flint to have melted and wept to have
seen the breaking up of the House, and their sorrowful departing, and the sudden spoil that fell the same
day of their departure from the House. And every
person had every good thing cheap, except the poor
Monks, Friars, and Nuns, that had no money to
bestow of anything: as it appeared by the suppression
of an Abbey hard by me, called the Roche Abbey, a
House of White Monks: a very fair builded House,
all of freestone; and every house vaulted with freestone and covered with lead (as the Abbeys was in
England as well as the Churches be). At the breaking up whereof an Uncle of mine was present, being
well acquainted with certain of the monks there . . .
But such persons as afterward bought their corn and
hay or such like, found all the doors either open, or
the locks and shackles plucked away, or the door
itself taken away, went in and took what they found,
filched it away. Some took the Service Books that
lied in the Church, and laid them upon their wain
coppes to piece the same: some took windows of the
Hayleith and hid them in their hay; and likewise
they did of many other things: for some pulled forth
the iron hooks out of the walls that bought none,
when the yeomen and the gentlemen of the country
had bought the timber of the Church. For the
Church was the first thing that was put to the spoil;
and then the Abbot's lodging, Dorter, and Frater,
with the cloister and all the buildings thereabout
within the Abbey walls; for nothing was spared but
the oxhouses and swinecoates, and such other house of
office, that stood without the walls; which had more
favour showed them than the very Church itself:
which was done by the advice of Cromwell, as Fox
reporteth in his Book of Acts and Monuments. It
would have pitied any heart to see what tearing up
of lead there was, and plucking up of boards, and
throwing down of the sparres: when the lead was
torn off and cast down into the Church, and the
tombs in the Church all broken (for in most abbeys
were divers noble men and women, yea and in some
Abbeys, Kings, whose tombs were regarded no more
than the tombs of all other inferior persons: for to
what end should they stand, when the Church over
them was not spared for their cause), and all things
of price either spoiled, caryed away, or defaced to the
uttermost.
The persons that cast the lead into the fodders,
plucked up all the seats in the choir, wherein the
monks sat when they said service, which were like to
the seats in minsters, and burned them and melted
the lead therewith all: although there was wood
plenty within a flight shot of them; for the Abbey
stood among the woods and the rocks of stone: in
which rocks was pewter vessels that was conveyed
away and there hid; that it seemeth that every person bent himself to filch and spoil what he could:
yea, even such persons were content to spoil them,
that seemed not two days before to allow their
religion and do great worship and reverence at their
Mattins, Masses, and other Service, and all other
their doings: which is a strange thing to say, that
they that could this day think it to be the House of
God, and the next day the House of the Devil; or
else they would not have been so ready to have spoiled
it. For the better proof of my saying, I demanded of
my father, thirty years after the Suppression, which
had bought part of the timber of the Church, and all
the timber in the steeple, with the bell-frame, with
others his partners therein (in the which steeple hung
viii, yea ix bells; whereof the least but, one could not
be bought at this day for xxli, which bells I did see
hang there myself more than a year after the Suppression), whether he thought well of the Religious
persons and of the Religion then used? And he told
me, Yea: for, said he, I did see no cause to the contrary. Well, said I, then how came it to pass that
you was so ready to destroy and spoil the, thing that
you thought well of? What should I do? said he.
Might I not as well as others have some profit of the
spoil of the Abbey? for I did see all would away; and
therefore I did as others did.
Abbots Of Roche
Durand (first abbot), 30 July 1147, ruled
twelve years
Denis (1159), ruled twelve years
Roger de Tickhill (1171), ruled eight years
Hugh de Wadworth (1179), ruled five years
Osmund (1184), ruled twenty-nine (?) years
Reynold (1213?), occurs 1223, (fn. 12) ruled fifteen
years
Richard (1228?), occurs 1229, 1240-1,
ruled sixteen years
Walter (1244?), occurs 1246-7, ruled fourteen years
Alan (1258?)
Jordan
Philip, occurs 1276-7 (fn. 13)
Robert, (fn. 14) occurs 1280-1, 1282
Thomas, (fn. 15) confirmed 1286
Stephen, (fn. 16) confirmed 3 November 1286, occurs
1293 (fn. 16a)
Robert, (fn. 17) confirmed 18 December 1299
John, (fn. 18) confirmed 30 May 1300
William, (fn. 19) confirmed 9 December 1324
Adam de Gykeleswyk, (fn. 20) confirmed 4 November 1330
John, (fn. 21) occurs 1341
Adam, (fn. 22) confirmed 1347 (?)
Simon de Bankwell, (fn. 23) confirmed 25 October
1349
John de Aston, (fn. 24) confirmed 1358
John de Dunelmia, (fn. 25) occurs 1364
Robert (fn. 26) de Kesseburg, (fn. 27) elected 1396, occurs
1404 (fn. 28)
William, (fn. 29) occurs 1413, 1438
John Wakefield, (fn. 30) confirmed 1438
John Gray, (fn. 31) confirmed 1465, resigned 1479
William Tykell, (fn. 32) 1479
Thomas Thurne, (fn. 33) 1486
William Burton, (fn. 34) confirmed 29 February
1488
John Merpath, (fn. 35) confirmed 1491
John Heslington, (fn. 36) confirmed 1503
Henry Cundal, last abbot
The 15th-century seal (fn. 37) is a vesica, 2 in. by
1¼ in. It is much damaged. The device
appears to be a figure of our Lady, the patron
saint. The legend cannot be read.
A seal (fn. 38) of a 13th-century abbot is a vesica,
15/8 in. by 11/8 in., with a full length figure of him,
holding crozier and book, between on either
side a crescent and two stars. The legend is:
✠ SIGILLVM ABBATIS DE RVPE