FRIARIES
THE FRANCISCAN FRIARS OF
CHESTER (fn. 1)
The Grey Friars were settled in Chester by Albert of
Pisa, the minister of the English province, in 1237 or
1238. According to Thomas of Eccleston their settlement met with considerable opposition and it seems
that Alexander Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and
Lichfield (1224-38), feared that there would be
insufficient alms forthcoming from the citizens of
Chester to support both the Franciscans and the
Dominicans, who were already settled there. (fn. 2) Robert
Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, the leading ecclesiastical patron of the English Franciscans, rebuked
Stavensby for his insulting behaviour towards the
friars in front of the people of Chester and pointed out
the beneficial effects of the Franciscans' presence;
experience had shown that the presence of both orders
in the same city tended to stimulate the flow of alms. (fn. 3)
Early in 1240 Henry III gave his approval for the
construction of a house for the Grey Friars in Chester;
the site was to the north of Watergate Street, opposite
the Dominican convent and conveniently placed for
the collection of alms from travellers entering Chester
through the Watergate. (fn. 4) The custodes of the county of
Chester were ordered to help with the building and in
the following years the king made several contributions towards the cost of constructing the church and
other buildings: £10 in 1241, £5 in 1245, and 10 marks
in 1247. (fn. 5) In addition, in 1245 the friars were permitted to take as much stone as they required from the
castle fosse and in the following year they were
allowed to breach the city wall in order to bring in
stone and timber for their building operations. (fn. 6) The
approval of the citizens of Chester was necessary for
the latter favour and also for the removal, in 1245, of a
lane which the friars claimed harmed them and their
buildings. (fn. 7) Just over a century later the friars acquired
a plot of land 103 feet by 32 feet from the prioress and
nuns of St. Mary's for the enlargement of their house
and there was a further extension of the buildings in
1360. (fn. 8)
Royal generosity and support in the early days of the
establishment of the house were sufficiently remarkable for the friars to address the king as their founder
in a petition of 1331. (fn. 9) As a result of the petition the
members of the house were taken into the king's
protection and were granted a licence to construct two
hand-mills in their house and freely to grind corn and
malt there and at other mills in the city. (fn. 10) There is little
other evidence of royal support during the 14th century, although the Black Prince made grants of money
to the Grey Friars and to the other houses of friars in
Chester in 1353 and 1358 and also bought back for
the Grey Friars a Bible which had been stolen from
them. (fn. 11) The Franciscans, however, seem to have
remained popular with the citizens of Chester and the
surrounding areas during the later Middle Ages,
although the size of bequests tended to diminish. (fn. 12) An
examination of 53 surviving local wills for the period
from 1400 to 1540 has shown that the Grey Friars
were mentioned as beneficiaries in 30 and in three or
four they received larger legacies than the other mendicant orders. (fn. 13) It seems that at the end of the 13th
century the house was being used as a safe-deposit;
when John of Barrow, chaplain, lay dying in 1293 he
gave £33 10s. which he had on deposit there to the
friars to employ a chaplain to pray for his soul and to
pay their debts and supply their needs. The friars had
some difficulty recovering the money, when it was
seized with other sums of money deposited in Chester
and sent to the Exchequer. (fn. 14) It is possible that two
friars minor of Chester who were imprisoned and then
pardoned in 1392 for seizing and concealing £100
worth of the goods and chattels of Thomas Moston,
approver of the royal mills of the Dee, were attempting
to secure a generous legacy from a benefactor who had
died heavily in debt to the king. (fn. 15) Among the larger
bequests was the gift of an annual rent of 10s. from
three houses in Chester for the celebration of two obits
for John Chamberlain and his family; in 1403 the
warden, William Seggesley, petitioned the prince of
Wales that the rent should be held in trust for the
convent by the mayor of Chester. (fn. 16) Only one burial in
the church is recorded, that of Robert Grosvenor of
Hulme c. 1286. (fn. 17) In the earlier 16th century the Grey
Friars attracted fewer gifts and legacies than the
Carmelites and the occasional legacy for repairs to the
church and convent, such as 6s. 8d. from Margaret
Hawarden in 1521 and 3s. 4d. from Dr. Thomas
Sparkes in 1527, proved insufficient to maintain the
buildings. (fn. 18) In 1528 the warden and convent confirmed an arrangement by which the merchants and
sailors of Chester had been given unrestricted use of
the nave of the church, 'which they have built', and of
the three aisles for the storage of their sails and tools in
return for repairing the church. (fn. 19)
The Chester house was one of the nine friaries
forming the custody of Worcester. (fn. 20) Very little is
known about its size and personnel. In the 1280s it
was smaller than the Dominican convent and it
appears never to have been large. (fn. 21) Names appearing
in ordination lists in one diocese are not a reliable
guide to the size of houses but during the episcopate of
Robert Stretton (1360-85) only ten candidates in
Lichfield diocese were identified as from the Chester
friary, compared with over 60 from Lichfield; (fn. 22) the
numbers taking orders from the house seem to have
decreased further in the 15th century. (fn. 23) The names of
those receiving orders indicate that many members of
the convent come from the Chester region but Harmon
de Colonia and Gerald de Frisia may have come from
further afield. (fn. 24) During the 15th century three or four
members of the house were licensed to hear confessions. (fn. 25) In one of the poems attributed to Iolo Goch,
the friend of Owen Glendower, there is some abuse of
the Grey Friars of Chester, their poor clothing, bare
feet and denunciations of immorality, which redounds
to the credit of the house. (fn. 26) The Grey Friars seem to
have been less involved in local disorder in the 15th
century than the other mendicant houses in the city,
although the warden was beaten up in 1427, perhaps
during a private quarrel. (fn. 27) The last warden, Dr. William Wall, a local man, improved the water supply
of Chester by beginning to build the conduit at
Boughton. (fn. 28)
It was William Wall who surrendered the house to
Richard Ingworth, bishop of Dover on 15 August
1538. (fn. 29) There were then seven friars living in the
convent, (fn. 30) and it was the poorest of the three Chester
friaries. The furnishings of the church, vestry, kitchen,
brewhouse, and bulting house were sold for £3 4s. 8d.
and two alabaster tables, service books, glass, iron,
and a 'poor' pair of organs in the church were sold for
a further £2 10s. The total of £6 3s. 8d. raised by the
sale did not meet the debts of £12 8s. 11d. (fn. 31) Ingworth
removed a chalice, a mazer, and six spoons before
handing the property over to the mayor and he noted
'no lead nor rents but their gardens'. (fn. 32) The warden had
anticipated the dissolution by making long leases of
parts of the precinct to citizens of Chester; property
leased included a house 'called the ostrye', a chamber
'called the bysshopp chamber', the convent garden, an
orchard to the east of the chancel and a walled pasture
used by the friars 'for the maintenance of their hospitality'. Richard Ingworth suspected that there was
'craft' in some of the leases and it was later claimed
that one indenture dated 6 April 1538 was in fact
sealed three days before the surrender. (fn. 33) The buildings
and gardens were initially leased for 21 years at a rent
of 45s. 8d. to Richard Hough, a Cheshire man related
by marriage to Thomas Cromwell, and it appears that
Hough was sold the site for £12 in 1540. In 1544,
however, it was sold once more, together with the sites
of the other two friaries and other property, to John
Cokkes, a London salter, for a total of £358 6s. 10d. (fn. 34)
By the early 17th century the church had been converted into a house and in 1778 a new linen hall was
built on part of the site. (fn. 35)
The friary occupied a walled, rectangular site of
approximately seven acres to the north of Watergate
Street; it was bounded on the west by the city wall and
on the east by Linenhall Street. (fn. 36) The precinct was
entered by a gate-house at the southern end of
Linenhall Street. Building operations in 1920 uncovered several sections of wall and indicated that the
friary may have been built on Roman foundations. (fn. 37)
The church seems to have been about 200 feet long
with a wide, aisled nave. It had a steeple with 'a sharpe
spyar' and two bells and also a 'crosse yle' on the
south, probably a large transeptal chapel projecting
from the nave and similar to chapels found in some
surviving Irish friaries. (fn. 38) The inventory drawn up in
1538 indicates that the cloister adjoined the north aisle
of the nave, yet a mid-17th century plan of the precinct
shows a cloister to the north-west of the church and
separated from it by a range of buildings. (fn. 39)
Wardens
William Seggesley, occurs 1403. (fn. 40)
David Bromfield, occurs 1434. (fn. 41)
— Lewis, occurs 1479. (fn. 42)
William Wall, D. Theol., occurs 1537, surrendered
the friary in 1538. (fn. 43)
The seal of the friary, (fn. 44) a pointed oval about 1½ by
1 in., depicts Our Lord crowned and wearing a long
robe, reigning from the Cross. The legend, lombardic:
SIGILLUM FRATRUM MINORUM CESTRIE.