HOUSES OF BENEDICTINE MONKS
1. ABBEY AND CATHEDRAL PRIORY OF ELY
Etheldreda, (fn. 1) daughter of Anna, King of the
East Angles, was married to Tonbert, ruler of the
South Girvii, who bestowed upon her the district
afterwards known as the Isle of Ely, and on his
death in 955 she retired to this remote spot with
a few friends to devote herself to religious meditation. After some five years she was forced into a
political marriage with Egfrith the young son of
Oswy, the powerful King of Northumbria; but as
she had with Tonbert's consent retained her virginity during the three years of their union, so she
insisted upon doing during the twelve years of her
nominal marriage to Egfrith. When Egfrith, who
had succeeded Oswy in 670, became too insistent on
his rights as her husband she fled to the monastery
of Coldingham, where she took the veil as a nun;
and in 673 she returned to Ely with a few followers to found the monastery in which she was installed as abbess by Wilfred, Bishop of York. Here
with her community of religious of both sexes she
lived a strict ascetic life until 23 June 679, when
she died during an epidemic, apparently of bubonic
plague. (fn. 2) She was succeeded by her elder sister
Sexburg, widow of the King of Kent, during
whose abbacy, on 17 October 695, the body of
St. Etheldreda was removed from its humble
wooden coffin into a marble sarcophagus discovered among the ruins of the Roman town at
Cambridge and was translated to a place near the
high altar. (fn. 3) Four years later St. Sexburg was
buried beside her sister and was succeeded as
abbess by her daughter Ermenild, widow of Wulfhere, King of Mercia. With the name of the
next abbess, St. Werburg, daughter of St. Ermenild, (fn. 4) the history of this foundation comes to an
end, except that it and the neighbouring monastery
of Soham were among the religious houses pillaged
and burnt by the Danes in 870. (fn. 5)
After the death or flight of the nuns and brethren
eight priests are said to have returned to the site. (fn. 6)
Gradually the ruined church was repaired and
there grew up round it a college or community
of secular priests, to whom King Edred in 956
gave the vill of Stapleford and other lands; (fn. 7) Ogga
of Mildenhall gave them a hide of land in Cambridge, (fn. 8) and Wolstan of Dalham the estate of
Stuntney. (fn. 9)
A few years later this Wolstan was instrumental
in dissuading King Edgar from granting his rights
over the Isle of Ely to either a foreign bishop or
a Danish noble, who were each trying to obtain a
grant of them. Instead, the king, impressed by
what he was told of the sacred traditions of the
place, encouraged St. Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, to restore the church and replace the married secular clergy by a convent of monks. (fn. 10) This
Ethelwold did with enthusiasm, buying many
estates for its endowment, amounting to 60 hides (fn. 11)
(over 7,000 acres) and including Horningsea,
where a former 'minster' (apparently collegiate
rather than monastic) had been destroyed in 870
and afterwards restored and endowed by the local
inhabitants. (fn. 12) In 970 King Edgar granted a charter to the new abbey of Ely, conferring upon it
20 hides of land in the Isle, a yearly render of
10,000 eels from the vill of 'Wyllan', the regalities or entire jurisdiction of the two hundreds of
Witchford in the Isle and of the five and a half
hundreds of Wicklow (later 'the Liberty of St.
Etheldreda') in Suffolk, and the fourth penny of
the issues of the province of Cambridge. (fn. 13) The
king also gave them a large estate in the woodlands
of Hatfield (Herts.) from which to get timber for
their buildings, but after his death Egelwin the
Alderman proved his right to it and had to be given
compensation elsewhere. (fn. 14)
Many other estates were obtained, both within
the Isle and outside, by purchase and by gift, the
most notable donation being made by Brithnoth
the Alderman. When he was leading his forces
to meet the Danes, who had invaded East Anglia,
he was refused food for his men by the Abbot of
Ramsey, but at Ely he and his troops were welcomed and feasted. Before leaving he gave certain
jewels to the monks and promised that they should
have a number of manors, including Trumpington, Fulbourn, Teversham, Pampisford, Thriplow, and Hardwick, after his death. When he fell
in battle at Maldon in 991 the monks brought
back his headless body for honourable burial in
their church. (fn. 15) His widow Ethelfled gave them
other estates and a hanging embroidered with
scenes of her husband's heroic deeds. (fn. 16) This was
one of many gifts for the adornment of the church
which are recorded. St. Ethelwold gave many
ornaments and vestments; so did King Edgar,
including his own royal robe of purple embroidered with gold, a gold crucifix, and a splendid
Book of the Gospels; (fn. 17) and Leofwin, son of
Æthulf, who in a fit of anger had slain his mother,
as part of his penance rebuilt the south side of the
church and erected an altar to the Blessed Virgin
Mary in a chapel, where he placed a life-sized
image of her and her Son in gold and silver and
gems. (fn. 18)
The church of Ely was also rich in relics. The
bodies of the sainted abbesses Etheldreda, Sexburg,
and Ermenild were soon joined by that of Etheldreda's sister St. Withburg, which the monks, by
a combination of trickery and force, stole from
Dereham, where she was buried; (fn. 19) and Ælsi, the
second abbot, by permission of King Ethelred
translated the body of St. Wendred from the
church of March to be enshrined at Ely. (fn. 20) The
shrine with St. Wendred's relics was carried by
monks of Ely with the army of Edmund Ironside in 1016 to the disastrous field of Ashingdon,
where the monks were slain and the relics fell into
the hands of King Cnut, who later gave them
to the church of Canterbury. (fn. 21) As some compensation the monks of Ely stole the body of
Ædnoth, Bishop of Dorchester and formerly first
Abbot of Ramsey, who had been killed at Ashingdon, when it was lodged for the night in the
church of Ely on its way to Ramsey. (fn. 22) A generation later, in 1045, during a scare of a Danish
invasion, the Abbot of St. Albans sent the relics
of St. Alban to Ely for safe keeping. When the
scare was over the monks of Ely were reluctantly
forced to disgorge certain bones, but subsequently
they said that these were not St. Alban's and that
they still had the genuine relics. (fn. 23)
Brithnoth, Prior of Winchester, had been
selected by Ethelwold as the first abbot for the new
community, and he at once set about restoring the
church, which seems to have been burnt by the
Danes but not destroyed and had been partly
patched up by the secular priests. It was sufficiently completed to be consecrated by Archbishop
Dunstan on 3 February 972, the high altar being
dedicated in honour of St. Peter and the south
aisle of the Blessed Virgin Mary. (fn. 24) The abbot
was ably assisted by one of his monks, Leo, to
whom he committed the control of the abbey's
temporalities. Leo laid out the estates in the
neighbourhood of the monastery, planting gardens
and orchards, and in particular defined the exact
limits of the Isle of Ely and of its two hundreds,
as well as digging the great ditch known as the
Abbot's delf, which served as a boundary and
assisted the drainage of the fenland. (fn. 25) After ruling
the abbey for eleven years Brithnoth died while
on a visit to the court of King Ethelred, and
tradition asserted that he had been murdered by
the order of the king's wicked mother Elfrida. (fn. 26)
Ælsi was then appointed abbot through the influence of King Ethelred, (fn. 27) who is said to have
subsequently shown his favour to the house by
appointing the Abbot of Ely, with those of St.
Augustine's and Glastonbury, to serve as royal
chaplain, each for a term of four months, the Ely
term beginning at the feast of the Purification. (fn. 28)
During, the thirty-five years, or thereabots, of
Ælsi's abbacy the monastery continued to prosper
and to receive further gifts of estates. (fn. 29) Athelstan,
Bishop of Elmham, who during his life had been
closely connected with the abbey, performing the
episcopal offices of professing and ordaining the
monks, at his death in 1001 (fn. 30) left his body to be
buried in the church, to which he bequeathed rich
ornaments and vestments. (fn. 31) His successor Ælfgar
resigned the see c. 1015 and retired to Ely, where
he lived for some ten years as a monk, and the next
Bishop of Elmham was himself a member of the
convent, Ælfwin, whose parents had given at his
admission the manors of Walpole and Wisbech
and other lands, (fn. 32) and he in turn resigned and
returned to Ely. In 1023 the body of Wulfstan,
Archbishop of York, was brought to Ely to be
buried on the spot which he had chosen in his lifetime. (fn. 33)
The Danish conquest did not affect the royal
favour shown to Ely. The stories are well known
of how King Canute listened to the chanting of
the monks as he was rowed to the island, and of
how he crossed the frozen mere of Soham, preceded by the stout and burly Brithmer Budde. (fn. 34)
Emma, the wife first of King Ethelred and then
of Canute, and her son Edward the Confessor
showed a specially intimate devotion for Ely and
its shrine. Emma's gifts of feretory cloths of silk
and cloth of gold with precious stones and embroidery, her great green frontal for the high altar
'with golden spangles', as well as the 'pall spotted
with small, pale green circles' in which her infant
son, the future saint, was wrapped to be offered
upon the altar of the church, (fn. 35) were among the
treasures long preserved and shown to pilgrims.
It was to Ely that Edward's elder brother
Alfred was sent to die when he had been brutally
blinded. (fn. 36) The connexion of the Confessor with
this house affords a very early glimpse of some
kind of school within the monastery. 'The
seniors of the church,' says the author of the Liber
Eliensis, 'who know and were there, are wont to
relate that he (that is the atheling Edward) was
brought up with the boys in the cloister there and
learnt the psalms with them, and the Sunday
office hymn.' (fn. 37) After he became king Edward gave
to the monks the vill of Lakingheath and issued
a charter confirming their privileges and listing
their estates. (fn. 38)
There was, however, a more unfortunate side
to King Edward's patronage, for on the death of
Abbot Leofsin in 1044 he sent his own cousin
Wlfric, Abbot of Winchester, to succeed him, and
Wlfric involved himself in a most dishonourable
scandal; for when his brother Guthmund was unable to marry a noble lady because his wealth was
not proportionate to his birth, Wlfric helped him
out by making over Livermere and other estates of
the abbey to his brother 'without consent of the
Convent'. He was forced to retire and is said to
have died 'very penitent' in 1065. Guthmund
was at last brought to agree to hold his plunder
only for life, but Stigand of Canterbury, taking
occasion, as was his custom on a vacancy, to seize
the abbey and administer its estates for his own
benefit, and the Norman Conquest further supervening, the church lost the lands, which came into
the hands of Hugh de Montfort. (fn. 39)
It is added that Stigand, to palliate his robbery
of the church, was very liberal of gifts of ornaments to those monasteries he held any considerable time in his hands: 'as particularly to that of
Ely, he gave largely both in Gold and Silver plate
for the service of the Altar; and divers ornaments
to the church, a large Crucifix overlaid with silver
with the image of our Lord as big as life; and the
images of the Virgin Mary and St. John of brass;
besides several Vestments esteemed the richest and
most costly in the kingdom'. (fn. 40)
Thurstan, the last Saxon abbot, was appointed
by Harold. He was of Witchford in the Isle and
a man of learning. For four years after the
crowning of the Conqueror nothing is heard of
him or of Ely; then came the rising of 1070, when
Hereward and his associates held the Isle against
the Normans. (fn. 41) Eventually, after the surrender of
the garrison and the Isle, the abbey was fined the
enormous sum of 1,000 marks, (fn. 42) but Thurstan
was not displaced, and the king visited and venerated the shrine of St. Etheldreda. He waited until
the abbot's death in 1072 to appoint Theodwin,
a monk of Jumièges, to be his successor, and to
seize into his own hands almost all the treasure
and ornaments of the church.
Like most of William's Norman monks
Theodwin was upright and faithful. He refused
to accept the abbacy of Ely until the king had
returned all its valuables, and, although his rule
was so short that he never received formal benediction, he did a good deal to reduce the unfortunate monastery to order. On his death in
1075 the king sent Eudo dapifer and other commissioners to make an inventory (fn. 43) of all the
movables of the church of Ely and appointed
Godfrey, one of Theodwin's Norman monks, to
adminster the monastery during the vacancy. In
1080 Odo of Bayeux was ordered by his brother
the king to call an assembly of great lords spiritual
and temporal having feudal rights in the east of
England to deal with the whole question of the
confiscated lands of the abbey. The assembly met
at Kentford and was followed by a number of
royal writs ordering the return of all the lands
which had been proved to belong to the abbey and
the confirmation of its privileges. (fn. 44) These orders,
however, were only partly complied with.
The work of Godfrey was done and in 1081
he was sent by the king to rule Malmesbury as
abbot. The new Abbot of Ely was Simeon, a
former monk of St. Ouen and Prior of Winchester. He was of the Conqueror's blood, and
his brother, Walkelin, had been appointed Bishop
of Winchester by William to replace Stigand.
Simeon, although he was 80 years old, at once set
about rebuilding the conventual church of Ely.
He was also extremely active in recovering the
possessions of the house which should have been,
but in many instances were not, returned as a
result of the council at Kentford. (fn. 45) Picot, the
Sheriff of Cambridgeshire, was the worst of those
who refused to restore the abbey lands, (fn. 46) but in
his case, as in that of others, Simeon eventually
succeeded in making him acknowledge that he
held of the abbot and convent by knight service.
King William, having appointed Simeon,
assessed his abbey at the service of 40 knights, and
the abbot at first tried to fulfil the obligation by
supporting his 40 knights within the precincts,
where they received their food from the cellarer.
The presence of these armed laymen proved disastrous to monastic discipline, so the abbot arranged
for the discharge of most of the abbey's obligation
by the render of knight service from various
tenants, including some of those who had been
most unwilling to acknowledge themselves
tenants of the monastery on any other terms. (fn. 47)
One of the first of the oppressive acts of William
Rufus was an attempt to double the knight service due from Ely, to raise it from 40 to 80
knights, (fn. 48) but Henry I restored the old quota and
in a charter dating from 1127, which is still
among the muniments at Ely, ordered that all
barons and lesser lords who held lands which were
held of the church of Ely at the time of the
Domesday Survey should acknowledge that they
held of the church by military service. (fn. 49) About
the same time the king allowed the service of
castle-ward, hitherto performed by the Ely
knights at Norwich, to be rendered 'at the castle
of the (recently created) bishopric of Ely'. (fn. 50)
It was during the abbacy of Simeon that the
great Domesday Inquest was held, and from it we
may see the wealth and wide estates of the
monastery, (fn. 51) as well as something of the disputes
in which these great possessions involved them
with neighbouring landowners. Nor was it only
over their temporalities and with lay lords that the
monks were at variance. Ely was within the
enormous diocese which centred first at Dorchester and then at Lincoln, but as the monastery was
exempt from episcopal jurisdiction the abbots had
always claimed the right to receive benediction
not necessarily from the diocesan but 'from any
Catholic bishop'. Rémi the bishop was very tenacious of the claims of his see, and the monks were
particularly jealous of admitting that any right
over the monastery, even that of blessing their
abbot, lay with Rémi. The dispute lasted almost
to the end of Simeon's life. Even the authority
of the Conqueror failed to bring it to an end, for
in spite of writs addressed to the archbishop and
others, one of which directed Lanfranc to give the
benediction himself unless the right of former
bishops of Dorchester could be proved, (fn. 52) Rémi
was as determined to assert his right as the monks
were determined to resist it. At last the Bishop
of Winchester, fearing that his brother, who was
nearly 100 years old, would die without receiving
the benediction at all, persuaded Simeon to go
secretly to Rémi and receive his blessing, on the
condition that no precedent was established. This
concession resulted in strained relations between
the abbot and his convent. Simeon was fully 100
years old when he died on St. Edmund's day in
1093. His death revealed the fact that the
Norman or 'foreign' monks whom he had brought
from Winchester had never been assimilated to
their brethren, for hardly was the abbot dead
when seven of these 'foreigners', getting their
fellow monks out of the church where they were
keeping watch by his body, broke open the shrines
of the saints (it is said that they smashed the relics
of St. Botolph in their haste), plundered the
church, and set out to return to Winchester with
their spoil. They reached Winchester safely indeed, but empty handed, for at Guildford the inn
at which they slept was burnt down—it is suggested that the monks were drunk and careless—
and their plunder was burnt with it. (fn. 53)
On the death of Simeon William Rufus sent
his notorious minister Ranulf Flambard to take
the abbey and its possessions into his hands. He
made an inventory of the treasures of the church
in the presence of the 72 monks who constituted
the convent; and it is of interest to note that these
included 287 books, of which 78 were service
books. (fn. 54) The king, as was his custom, kept the
abbacy vacant till his death seven years later,
appropriating the revenues beyond what was required for the support of the convent. The latter
sum seems to have been settled by an agreement
made by Ranulf with Abbot Simeon in which
£70 was assigned for the clothing of the brethren,
and for their food £60 and 200 pigs, as well as all
the pigs maintained in the precincts (in curia), all
the cheese and butter from their estates, and 7
measures (treias) of wheat and 10 of malt weekly.
If there was sufficient wine they should have it
for their pittance on Saturdays and feasts of twelve
lessons, but if not, half the pittance should be of
mead. For their lights were assigned the offerings
at the shrine of St. Botolph and burial fees in the
town. (fn. 55)
Henry I on the day of his coronation, 5 August
1100, filled the vacant abbacy by appointing
Richard, a monk of Bec,son of Richard de Clare. (fn. 56)
Again the claim to bestow the benediction on the
abbot was put forward by the Bishop of Lincoln,
now Robert Bloet. (fn. 57) Abbot Richard (fn. 58) stood out
against his claim and was in fact never blessed by
any bishop. At the Council of Westminster in
1102 King Henry, moved apparently by hostility
to the great families of Clare and Giffard from
which he derived, deprived him of his office and
demanded the surrender of his staff and ring. (fn. 59)
The Investiture conflict was at its height, and
Richard asserted his independence of royal investiture by laying up the insignia of his abbacy
in the church of Ely. In April 1103 St. Anselm
set out for Rome and Richard went with him to
lay his own case before the Pope. The deposition
was quashed, and Richard on his return regained
the king's favour and received at his hands investiture on his restoration. To the last years of
his life belongs a charter of February or March
1105, which survives in the original, reciting
that by a verdict of the king's court the abbey
of Ely has secured the manor of Little Hadham in Hertfordshire against Ranulf, Bishop of
Durham. (fn. 60)
Abbot Richard lived until 1107, and when he
died the great tower of the abbey church, which
fell in 1322, the transepts, three bays of the present nave, and the choir which Simeon had begun
were probably complete. (fn. 61) All his energy after
his return from Rome was devoted to the building
of the great church and to preparing for the
translation of St. Etheldreda and the three sainted
abbesses from their tombs in the old Saxon church
to shrines behind the high altar of the new. The
day, 17 October, on which this was accomplished
in 1106 (fn. 62) is still marked in the Book of Common
Prayer as the day of St. Etheldreda.
Abbot Richard had tried to get the questions at
issue with the Bishops of Lincoln settled once for
all by the elevation of Ely into a bishopric, and he
was in negotiation with the king to that end when
he died. On his death Henry sent Hervey, Bishop
of Bangor, who had been driven out of his diocese
by the Welsh, to administer the abbey, and in the
following year Hervey persuaded the convent to
agree and the king to grant permission for the
erection of the new see. The Bishop of Lincoln
was to be compensated with the rich manor of
Spaldwick (Hunts.), and the property of the
monastery equitably divided between the convent
and the bishop. Hervey was sent to Rome and
returned with letters from the Pope approving the
scheme and recommending Hervey himself for
the new see. (fn. 63) Hervey was accordingly consecrated first Bishop of Ely in 1109.
The division of the monastic estates between
the see and the convent inevitably led to complaints. The monks' share included six manors
within the Isle, another six in the county of Cambridge, twelve in Suffolk, with the jurisdiction
over the five and a half hundreds; from Stuntney
they were to receive yearly 23,000 eels and from
Dunwich 30,000 herrings; other estates were to
provide cheese, salt, and logs; they retained their
vineyards at Ely, the church of St. Mary at Ely
with its tithes, and all the offerings at the altars
in the conventual church, or cathedral. (fn. 64) The
monks grumbled that the bishop had kept all the
best manors and only given them the worst, and
that the yield of their estates would not support
more than forty instead of seventy brethren.
This need not be accepted as entirely true, but
Hervey had certainly made Ely one of the richest
sees; and William of Malmesbury, writing about
1125, puts the total revenues of Ely at £1,400,
out of which the bishop gave to the monks £300,
besides what he expended on the needs of his own
household, the servants, and guests. (fn. 65) Even this
probably exaggerates the disproportion, as in the
16th century the estates of the bishopric were
valued at £2,314 against £1,084 for those of the
monastery. (fn. 66)
The statement, often repeated, that after the
foundation of the bishopric of Ely the bishop was
abbot of the monastery, had a theoretic justification in that the monks formed the bishop's chapter. Hervey and his earlier successors undoubtedly
regarded themselves as heads of the monastic
community, and appointed the executive head,
the prior. It was not until 1198, when Ely was
left without a bishop and without a prior to conduct the canonical election of a bishop by the death
of Bishop William Longchamp and the installation of his brother, the prior, as abbot at York,
that the archbishop, by issuing a mandate to the
convent to elect themselves a new prior, in order
to proceed to the election of their bishop, (fn. 67) treats
the convent for the first time as governed by a
conventual prior who must be chosen by themselves, and not by an episcopal abbot through his
domestic prior appointed by himself. It was only
after the revenues of the priory had been seized
in 1229, in 1271, and in 1298 during the vacancy
of the see, that the prior and convent eventually,
by a fine of 1,000 marks, obtained from the king
that a vacancy in the see or in the priorate should
not result in the temporalities of priory as well as
of the see escheating to the Crown. (fn. 68) But,
though the theoretical right of the prior and convent to elect their 'abbot' was not taken from
them, every bishop after John Hotham (1316)
down to the Dissolution, except Goodrich, who
was elected by them on a royal congè d'élire
nominating him, was appointed by papal provision,
usually disregarding elections duly made by the
convent. Although Hervey was constantly
following the king's court and can have been
seldom at Ely he used his influence to obtain fresh
privileges and recover lost estates. (fn. 69) One concession gained by him shows that work was still
proceeding on the great church, for it freed the
monks from toll in all towns which they should
pass through when conveying materials for its
building to Ely. (fn. 70)
Hervey died on 30 August 1131, and the see
was taken into the king's hand for two years. In
1133 Henry I consented to appoint a bishop, but
only if the monks would elect Niel, or Nigel, (fn. 71) his
treasurer, and in October of that year Niel was
duly consecrated. That powerful and turbulent
administrator plays a great part in English
history and in the development of the monastery.
The death of King Henry in December 1135
ushered in a wretched period for the religious
houses of East Anglia, and the ghastly picture of
misery drawn by the Peterborough chronicler
must have been true of this part of England.
During Niel's support of the Empress the Isle was
twice fortified against King Stephen and captured
by his troops; but the pious king showed mercy,
and even favour to the monks. The seizure of
his estates, however, and financial difficulties
forced the bishop to raise money by stripping
the cathedral church of many of its treasures. (fn. 72)
Twenty-three of Bishop Niel's charters have
survived, five originals in the muniment room of
the dean and chapter and the rest in cartularies.
Nearly all these documents show Niel as a benefactor, but all but one date from the last ten years
of his life, when, in the reign of Henry II, order
had been restored and the powerful bishop was
able to make reparation for the plunder of his
early years.
During the four years' vacancy of the see of
Ely which followed the death of Niel in May
1169 the convent was ruled by Prior Salomon.
He probably belonged to the family who were
hereditary goldsmiths to the priory, and he and
his convent granted to Salomon the Goldsmith
and his heirs and successors in that office a rentcharge of 5 marks on the estate of Brame, or
Braham, 'que pertinet ad aurifabricacionem
ecclesie'; and this was confirmed by Henry II, (fn. 73)
who visited Ely in May 1177 and shortly afterwards promoted Prior Salomon to be Abbot of
Thorney. (fn. 74)
In September 1189 William Longchamp, the
able and detested Chancellor of Richard I, was
elected Bishop of Ely, and not long afterwards
his brother Robert became prior. When the bishop
died in 1197 the prior accepted the abbacy of
St. Mary's, York. (fn. 75) During John's war with the
Barons at the end of his reign, the Isle changed
hands several times, the keep being destroyed and
new fortifications built by Fawkes de Breauté in
1215; (fn. 76) Robert of York, whom the monks had
elected as bishop, favoured the party of Louis of
France and could not obtain either consecration
or the king's assent, and in 1220 the Pope provided John, Abbot of Fountains, to the see. (fn. 77)
Hugh Northwold, Abbot of St. Edmundsbury,
'the flower of Black Monks', was consecrated
Bishop of Ely on 10 June 1229. He spent twenty
years of his life as bishop and helped Ely to
become one of those cathedrals whose architectural glory dates from the reign of Henry III.
In 1234 the building of the new presbytery
began, and on 17 September 1252 the 'new work'
was dedicated in the presence of Henry III, the
young 'Lord Edward' his son, and a crowd of
prelates and nobles. (fn. 78) In this same year Henry
III, who visited Ely on several occasions, (fn. 79) gave
the prior and convent free warren in all their
demesne lands in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, (fn. 80)
and in 1233 the king had granted the bishops
special hunting-rights in the royal Forest of
Somersham; (fn. 81) he had also in the previous year
confirmed to the prior and convent the 120 acres
of Bluntisham assarts which Bishop Ridel had
given them to feed 1,200 poor on his anniversary (fn. 82)
and had granted an inspeximus and confirmation
of the second edition of Richard I's charter. (fn. 83)
The full establishment of monks at Ely was
nominally 70, but it is improbable that that number was ever reached after the 12th century. In
1349, just before the Plague, there were 53
monks, and immediately after the Plague there
were 28. (fn. 84) For several years about 1360 the
chamberlain's clothing accounts enable the average to be fixed at 47, and in 1378 the clerical
poll-tax was paid by the prior and 45 other
monks, (fn. 85) while in 1427 there were 44, including
the prior. (fn. 86) Seven years before the Dissolution
there were still 37 monks; (fn. 87) 24 were pensioned
after the surrender. (fn. 88)
Of the monks about 20 were obedientiars. The
earliest surviving account roll is one of the cellarer
which dates from 1278-9. (fn. 89) An unusually large
number of the Ely accounts exist, and with the
statutes of 1300 they give a picture of the life of the
house as fully developed in the later Middle Ages.
Twenty-one Treasurer's Rolls survive, 45
Sacrist's Rolls, (fn. 90) 10 of the Precentor, 39 of the
Cellarer, 53 of the Granger, 17 of the Pitancer,
34 of the Chamberlain, 7 of the Seneschal of the
Prior's Hospice; 16 are connected with the
Almonry and its school and grange; the Hostilar
and the Hostilar of monks (that is the Guest
master for religious visitors from other houses)
have separate rolls, of which 8 survive of the
former: and there are 23 rolls of the 'Roscarius'
which afford a curious sidelight on the immense
value of the sedge to these fenland monasteries;
5 rolls survive for the Guardian of St. Etheldreda's shrine, who lived in a chamber against the
north wall of the presbytery, and 15 of those of
the Guardian of the Lady Chapel, of which the
first is dated 1356-7. Only one roll has come
down from the Infirmarian. (fn. 91)
The management of the property of the prior
and convent at Ely shows much the same course
of development as at Canterbury. The obedientiary system took shape a little late because of the
upheaval which the Anarchy caused in the Isle,
but it was full fledged by the end of the 12th
century. In the 14th century it appears as an
economy in which the Sacrist alone has a considerable estate, and relies not at all on the common fund. The rest of the greater officers own
churches and lands, which they manage themselves, but receive a large grant from the Treasurers,
who administer a central fund derived from a
large rent roll. By this date a system of audit was
fully established, but full centralization of receipts
was never achieved. Archbishop Arundel's
attempt to force the monks into a central exchequer system in 1403 was a failure. (fn. 92)
The precentor at Ely was, as usual, the librarian, but his ten surviving rolls do not give much
information about the library. The armarium, or
book cupboard, which is still in place, is an
exceptionally elaborate one and occupies the usual
place to the west of the east door of the cloister.
It dates from the great 13th-century period of
rebuilding and it was not replaced by anything
more adequate, (fn. 93) so far as we know, until the
prebendaries of the new 'College' built a library.
Bishop Niel had assigned tithes in Whittlesey,
Impington, and Pampisford, and rents in Huntingdon and Ely to 'the making of books', (fn. 94) and there
appears to have been a separate scriptorium; Some
40 volumes of manuscripts from the convent
library are known to exist in various collections, (fn. 95)
but whether any of these, except those of local
historical content, were written at Ely does not
appear. That books were occasionally lent outside the monastery, appears from an entry in 1320
of the return by the executors of Roger de
Huntingfeld, late rector of Balsham, of eleven
volumes which he had borrowed, including a work
of Avicenna on Medicine. (fn. 96)
A quarter or more of the whole number of
the brethren were thus partly or wholly employed
on business which took them outside the cloister.
The obedientiars even absented themselves from
the choir-offices—the original aim and object of a
Benedictine's life—and a custom grew up of sending 'vicars' to represent the heads of departments
at the services, because the heads were too busy
with external affairs to go themselves. Those who
held no office came to be called 'cloisterers', so
that it is possible for Chaucer to draw a contrast
between 'som officer, som worthy sexteyn or som
cellarer' and a 'poore cloisterer'. Probably the
official with whom this process went farthest at
Ely was the treasurer's steward or seneschal. In
1304 (fn. 97) it is laid down that the seneschal must be a
monk, but that a secular must be associated with
him. They are to pay rents over to the treasurer,
and they are to be appointed by the prior and
convent and not by the prior alone. They should
have a sworn clerk in their office, a suitable
lodging must be provided for them, and they are
to have reasonable travelling expenses.
The mention of the 'sworn clerk' is a reminder
of the presence of paid laymen of various ranks of
life in large numbers about the inclosure of a house
like Ely. The prior had his generosi or gentlemen, (fn. 98) the great officials their clerks, there were
superior and inferior servants in every department, (fn. 99) and besides these there were various secular
office-bearers whose functions tended to become
hereditary as well as permanent. Among these
latter at Ely were the porter, the butler, and the
baker. (fn. 100) There would also be a number of corrodarians, or pensioners, receiving lodging and food;
most of these were old servants or minor benefactors of the priory, (fn. 101) but the king had the right
to have one such pensioner always in the monastery, and he not infrequently tried to impose
others upon them. (fn. 102)
The less permanent members of this large staff
possibly came under the charge of the hostilar. (fn. 103)
The provision for hospitality was unusually large
at Ely, and had been increased by Bishop Eustace's
appropriation of the church of Meldreth to the
prior and convent 'in proprios usus domus
Hospitalitatis eorum'. (fn. 104) The concern of the hostilar
was with the Guest Hall and he was responsible
not only for food for the lay people who ate
within the monastery but for light, rushes for the
floor, and other furnishings: the retinue of distinguished visitors, the reeves and bailiffs from the
farms, the clerks and any visiting tenants were in
his charge for entertainment, and the going and
coming both by water and by the causeways must,
during a great part of the monastery's later existence, have been almost incessant.
Although only seven of the Almoners' rolls
survive, (fn. 105) these accounts make it clear how large
was the distribution of gifts in kind, including
cloth, and how small a proportion of the alms of
the house is represented by the occasional casual
doles of petty cash which appear in the compoti of
other officials than the almoner. There are also
extant four accounts of the serjeant of the almonry
grange; of these the earliest covers the years 132731. These contain much the same matter as the
Almoners' rolls proper, except that they do not
show gifts of cloth and cash and they do deal with
very large quantities of mixed corn for the poor
which passed through the serjeant's hands. (fn. 106)
One of the most interesting aspects of the
almonry, however, is its use here, as in other
large religious houses, as a school. The roll of
the serjeant of the grange for 1327-8 shows 30
quarters of wheat for 23 boys and 2 masters—an
establishment unusually large for a 14th-century
monastery school. (fn. 107) The number of scholars
varies, but the boys and the schoolmaster appear
in every Almoner's roll that has survived. The
flourishing condition of the school in 1328 may
have owed something to the ordinances of 1314.
By these the almoner was not to allow any
scholar, whether introduced by a secular or a
religious, to remain for longer than four years: no
scholar might be introduced by a secular without
the leave of the prior and convent: the day and
year of the entry of every scholar was to be kept in
writing and scholars must leave when their time
expired. The same ordinances lay down that the
boys and their masters were to be provided for out
of 'the better food and drink', i.e. of the quality
provided for the monks and not that issued to the
servants or to the poor, and also that the almoner
was to be more liberal in giving alms to the poor,
and that he was to render account like any other
obedientiary and not to give money to the prior
nor to any one else for any purpose without the
consent of the convent. (fn. 108) Two appointments of
'Grammar masters', in 1403 and in 1405, (fn. 109) being
made by the bishop, were presumably to a grammar school in the town; but in 1448 John
Dounham was collated to the 'Grammar School
in the Almonry' (fn. 110) and in 1475 the Treasurer's
Roll refers to Dns. Thomas the Grammar
master, who was one of the prior's chaplains.
During Henry VI's reign a Feretrar's Roll shows
a payment of 3s. during St. Audrey's Fair to four
schoolboys 'for calling up the pilgrims and minding the candles'.
Prior John de Crauden (fn. 111) (1321-41) played an
important part in the history of Benedictine
education, for it was by his means that a hostel for
the monks of Ely was first set up in Cambridge.
This Hostel of the Prior and Convent of Ely was
built on the site of what is now Trinity Hall,
adjoining the foundation of the Lady Clare, and
there the two students from Ely, with possibly one
or two Benedictines from other houses, resided
while they proceeded to their degrees. The
monks did not, however, remain very long in this
particular spot. Prior Crauden died in 1341, and
in 1350 Bishop Bateman, in the process of founding Trinity Hall, bought it from the prior and
convent for £300 and the appropriation of the
church of Sudbourne in Suffolk. (fn. 112) About this
time—for it was while Ralph Kerdynton was
Master of Clare Hall (1342-59)—Master Robert
Spaldyng, one of the original fellows of University Hall, got into trouble with his society for
alienating Spaldyng's Inn (later Borden Hostel)
which adjoined other property of the prior and
convent of Ely in St. Michael's parish. (fn. 113) There
seems little doubt that it was to the monks of Ely
that he sold it. In 1397-8 a registrum of Peterhouse refers to a tenement belonging to the college, which was in St. Michael's parish 'next to
the Hostel of the Convent of Ely'. The Ely
monks seem to have stayed at Spaldyng's, or
Borden Hostel for nearly eighty years, and then,
about 1428, they moved once more, to the 'hostel
called Monkes Place', which was later to become
Buckingham College [q.v.]. Payments to monks
studying at Cambridge occur sporadically in the
sacrist's accounts. Thus, for example, in Alan de
Walsingham's last roll as sacrist (Michaelmas to
30 November 1340) 11s. 11d. was paid 'in pension' to Brothers John Beccles and Walter
Walsoken, scholars, and 6s. 8d. given to the same
two by way of extra gratuity. (fn. 114) Robert of Aylesham in 1345-6 pays as 'pension to the two
scholars for thirteen weeks, at the rate of a penny
in the pound 2s. 11¾d'. (fn. 115) In 1357-8 and 135960 only one Ely monk, Brother Simon of Banham, receives an allowance, 5s. 10¾d. in the
sacrist's account. (fn. 116)
The convent's purchase of the manor and advowson of Mepal in 1361, of which the detailed
accounts have been preserved, (fn. 117) is of much
interest. The manor was bought, subject to an
annuity of 20 marks payable to the widow of Sir
William de Colne for her life, for £236 13s. 4d.,
of which £30 was paid for the stock. It was
bought under a licence of 1309 to acquire in
mortmain lands to the yearly value of £40 and
was rated towards this sum at the favourable
figure of £4. Expenses, mainly consisting of gifts
to a multitude of clerks and officials, came to
£12 6s. 2½d. To the costs the prior, Alan de
Walsingham, contributed £67 13s. 4d., the subprior £6, and the sacrist £8 13s. 4d. These
amounts might have come from their official
revenues; but 20 other monks (fn. 118) are named as contributing sums mostly ranging between 10s. and
20s. That about half the convent should be in a
position to contribute in cash shows how far the
strictness of the rule against the possession of any
private property had been relaxed. As early as
1300 payments of pocket money (gracie) by the
prior or other obedientiaries were connived at, and
a monk might receive certainly as much as 4s.
during the year. Each of the brethren would also
have his own goblet, mazer bowl, and silver spoon,
which every novice had to bring with him on
entering the convent, as well as an outfit of
clothes and bed furniture named in a list (fn. 119) almost
as formidable as that for a new boy at a public
school.
During the rising in 1381 the convent at Ely
suffered comparatively little. On 15 June the
court rolls of the prior of Ely at West Wratting
were destroyed by Robert Randesson and others,
and two days later those of the bishop at Balsham
were burnt by Thomas Ixning and Thomas
Lyncoln of Littleport. (fn. 120) On the same day that
the Wratting rolls were destroyed Richard
Leycester of Ely went about Ely proclaiming that
all men were to rise and join with him 'on behalf
of the king and his faithful commons' in destroying certain traitors, to be named thereafter; and
on the next day, Sunday, 16 June, he with John
Shethe, a glover, Thomas Lister, and other
townsmen whom he had compelled to join him,
marched boldly into the cathedral church, and
mounting into the pulpit again denounced 'the
said traitors' in the king's name. (fn. 121) On the Monday there was a riot in which the bishop's prison
was broken, the prisoners released, and Edward de
Walsingham, a Justice of the Peace, murdered; (fn. 122)
but an attempt to seize the sacrist at his manor
house at Wentworth was unsuccessful. (fn. 123)
That Richard II came over to Ely, probably
during the sitting of the parliament at the Black
Friars 9 September to 17 October 1388, is shown
by a note that a dung-heap was removed from the
door of the hostelry 'because of the coming of the
king' sometime in the year 1387-8. (fn. 124) It is possible that he only visited the shrine and did not
spend the night at Ely, or more probably he stayed
with his friend and supporter Bishop Fordham
and the hostelry was hastily required for some of
his retinue. Henry VI when he visited Ely from
Cambridge in 1446 stayed with William Welles,
the prior, for a day and a night, as is shown by a
roll of the seneschal of the Prior's Hospice for
24 Henry VI, and in 1476-7 the treasurer
bought wine for the coming of the queen, then
Elizabeth Woodville.
The high status of the prior of Ely is shown by
his being summoned to the parliament of Simon
de Montfort in 1265, (fn. 125) the Model Parliament of
1295, (fn. 126) and that of the following year, (fn. 127) and by
the fact that in 1401 William Powcher, who had
been abbot of Walden since 1390, accepted the
post of prior in his old convent—he had been
sacrist of Ely before his election to Walden.
Powcher, twelve years later, petitioned for, and
obtained, the logical papal recognition of his
position. In 1413 John XXIII granted to him
and his successors the mitre and pastoral staff. (fn. 128)
Powcher, who probably died early in 1418, had
in December 1417 seen brought to a decision the
great controversy over their relative jurisdictions
which had raged between the bishop on one
hand and the prior and convent on the other
since 1400; a piece of litigation which is said to
have cost the bishop 3,000 marks and the priory
2,000. (fn. 129)
In 1446 the decayed priory of Molycourt, in
the Norfolk portion of the parish of Outwell, was
acquired by Ely. (fn. 130) Three years later the Cambridgeshire priory of Spinney (q.v.) (fn. 131) was similarly acquired. The latter became definitely a cell
of Ely. (fn. 132) Molycourt is called a cell in a valuation
of c. 1540, (fn. 133) but it may be doubted if it was more
than a grange.
During the last century of its monastic existence there is little to record of the priory. The
obedientiary accounts show life continuing
normally, and the death of each bishop as a rule
brought bequests of plate and ornaments and vestments to enrich the treasures of the church. (fn. 134)
Even as late as 1534, when licence was granted
for the acquisition of lands to the value of £30, (fn. 135)
additions were made to the estates of the priory;
but of the internal life of the convent we know
nothing and can only assume that it was at least
free from notorious scandals.
Thomas Goodrich was elected bishop of Ely
by the prior and convent on 17 March 1534, and
consecrated by Cranmer at Croydon on 19 April. (fn. 136)
On 10 September he made an episcopal visitation
of Ely, having summoned the whole community
individually by name on the 8th. The summons
is enrolled in his register, (fn. 137) and shows 33 names,
of whom 23 besides the prior are called dominus,
showing that they were professed monks and probably in priests' orders, and 10 are not so described,
being either novices, or only in minor orders, or
both.
Of these 34 persons, 10, including prior Robert
Wells, had taken part in the election of prior
John Cottenham in 1516, (fn. 138) and most can be
traced at the dissolution of the monastery on
18 November 1539. (fn. 139) Ten of the professed are
certainly among those who were 'appointed to
remain in the said monastery' and form the
nucleus of the king's 'New College' there, (fn. 140) while
three more can probably be identified among
these: prior Robert was not the only monk
who used his paternal name (Steward) after the
Dissolution instead of his place of origin (Wells)
used as a surname 'in religion', and Nicholas Ely
may well be the same as Nicholas Duxford,
Edmund Denter as Edmund Coots, while 'John
Bury' may be a clerical error for 'William' Bury
—if so, it is not the only slip of the kind. The
three—possibly four—last of the professed monks
on the list, who appear in this case to have been
those who had been the least time in religion, and
five of the ten who were not domini in 1534
appear in the list of those 'removed and departed',
together with the two whose names appear next
after the prior's and who, in 1539, are both described as sick and very old: of these 'removed and
departed' juniors two priests, including Thomas
Wilberton (who was one of the two students) and
the senior novice, were nevertheless among the
appointments to the new college in 1541. Only
four of the fully professed priests are left unaccounted for in the two 1539 lists, and just half
the others: there are no new names which did not
appear in 1534.
A curious glimpse of two of the younger priests
who were 'appointed to remain' is given in two
complaints lodged by Thomas Dale of Yorkshire,
one against Robert 'Willis', Prior of Ely, and one
against Robert Dereham and Richard Denys,
monks at Ely. (fn. 141) They are in almost identical
words. The complainant states that he, being but
a child and going to the Grammar School at Ely,
was passing the monastery gates in the evening on
12 September 1527, when a number of monks—
Dereham and Denys among them—rushed out
'not lyke any men of god relegyon, but lyke furyous persons', knocked him down and seriously
hurt him. The complainant had applied to the
prior for compensation, but the prior 'nothing
regarded the said approbrious demeanour of his
said monks'. No answer to either charge is
recorded. It is rather interesting to note that
of the monks who were 'appointed to remain'
in 1539 only these two—and that although
Robert Dereham was 'a good choirman'—received no appointment under the constitution of
1541.
Priors of Ely (fn. 142)
Vincent, c. 1109, died in or before 1131
Henry, until 1133
William, appointed 1133
Tombert, c. 1144
Alexander, appointed c. 1154
Salomon, occurs 1163, resigned 1177 (fn. 143)
Richard, appointed 1177, occurs 1189
Robert Longchamp, occurs 1194, resigned
1198 (fn. 144)
John de Strateshete, (fn. 145) elected 1198
Hugh, occurs 1200, 1206
Roger de Brigham, occurs before 1210, (fn. 146) died
1229
Ralph, elected 1229, occurs 1235
Walter, occurs 1241, died 13 May 1259
Robert de Leverington, occurs 1260, died
Sept. 1271
Henry de Bancis, elected 1271, died Dec. 1273
John de Hemmingston, elected Jan. 1274,
died 9 Nov. 1288
John de Shepreth, elected 1288
John Salomon, (fn. 147) occurs c. 1291, resigned 1299 (fn. 148)
Robert de Orford, elected 1299, resigned
1302 (fn. 149)
William de Clare, elected and died 1303
John de Fresingfield, occurs 1303, resigned
16 Feb. 1321
John de Crauden, elected May 1321, died
25 Sept. 1341
Alan de Walsingham, elected 25 Oct. 1341,
died 1363 or 1364
William Hathfield [?]
John Bucton, occurs 1366, died 1397
William Walpole, elected 1397, resigned 1401
William Powcher, elected 1401, occurs Dec.
1417
Edmund Walsingham, occurs Aug. 1418, Oct.
1424
Peter Ely, elected 1425, occurs July 1429
William Wells, elected 1430, occurs May
1460
Henry Peterborough, occurs July 1462,
resigned 26 July 1478
John Westminster, elected 28 July 1478,
occurs Nov. 1499
Robert Colvyle, occurs Oct. 1500, Aug. 1510,
resigned
William Wittlesey, occurs Sept. 1510, resigned (fn. 150)
William Foliott, resigned March 1516
John Cottenham, elected 29 March 1516,
died c. 1522
Robert Wells alias Steward, elected 1522, surrendered 1539
The 12th-century seal of the priory bears the
figure of St. Etheldreda, veiled, seated on a throne
the sides of which terminate in animals' heads and
feet, holding in her right hand a pastoral staff, in
the left an open book. Legend: SIGILL . . .
ELDRYDE. (fn. 151)
The seal used by the priory as chapter of the
cathedral dates from the 13th century and is
circular, 3¼ inches in diameter. Obv. In a shrine
of three niches, with canopy and tabernacle work
at the sides, St. Etheldreda, crowned and holding
a pastoral staff and a book, between her two husbands: dexter, Tonbert, as a youth holding a
falcon by its jesses; sinister, King Egfrid, with
crown and sceptre. Over the canopy two censing
angels; in base an arcade of trefoiled arches.
Legend: SIGILLVM : CAPITVLI : ECCL'IE : SCE :
ETHELDREDE' DE ELY. Rev. In a similar shrine
St. Peter, with keys and book, between a bishop
[?St. Ethelwold], holding staff and book, and St.
Etheldreda, crowned, with sceptre and book. In
base, under an arch, a boat, riding on waves, with
five persons in it. Legend: S'SB;I : PETRI : ET SBE :
ETHELDRIDE : VIRGINIS : ET REGINE. On the edge
was inscribed : PETRVS : ET O ELDREDA : MOLLIS :
SVB : O TEGMINE : CERE : ELY : S O ECRETA : CELARE :
SIMVL : O STATVERE:—with four gaps for attaching the appending cords. (fn. 152)
A pointed oval seal ad causas of the 13th century shows St. Etheldreda standing on a carved
corbel, crowned and holding a staff and a book.
Legend: . SIGILLVM : PRIORIS : ET : CONVENTVS :
ELYENSIVM : AD : CAVSAS. (fn. 153)