22. AUSTIN FRIARS, CAMBRIDGE
The Order of Friars of St. Augustine was
constituted in the middle of the 13th century to
bring under one rule various congregations of
hermits, and they were therefore sometimes known
as Friars Hermits. Although the Order did not
obtain full equality with the other three great
Orders of Friars until 1241, (fn. 1) a house of Austin
Friars was established at Clare in Suffolk apparently about 1248. (fn. 2) In June 1290 Sir Geoffrey de
Picheford, who was Constable of Windsor and
active in the service of Edward I (fn. 3) but is not known
to have had any connexion with Cambridge,
obtained licence to alienate to the Austin Friars a
messuage in Cambridge, subject to a rent of 7s. to
the Crown. (fn. 4) This was evidently the nucleus of
the site which they subsequently occupied on Peas
Hill. Sir Geoffrey, who apparently founded the
house in memory of his son Arnulf, intended to
enlarge the site, (fn. 5) but died early in 1299 (fn. 6) before he
had done so. On 7 April 1292 the prior and
convent had licence to enclose a strip of ground
200 ft. long by 30 ft. wide, extending from their
wall to the King's Ditch, provided that they made
a gate at each end with a way between for the
defence of the town. (fn. 7) Two messuages adjoining
their site were granted to the friars in 1305, (fn. 8) and
in 1319 the king remitted, in support of the lights
and ornaments of their church, the rent payable
to the Exchequer for their site, here stated to be
3s. 4d. (fn. 9) In 1335, in belated fulfilment of the
founder's intention, Robert de Comberton, a burgess of Cambridge, and Thurstan, bedell of the
University, gave to the king two more messuages
for the use of the friars, (fn. 10) to whom he promptly
granted them. (fn. 11) Two years later, in 1337, they
had licence to acquire another 1½ acres, (fn. 12) under
which they acquired four more messuages. (fn. 13)
Finally, in 1376 they were pardoned, on condition
of praying for the souls of Edward III and
Queen Philippa, for having acquired without
licence a messuage and toft in Lurteburgh Lane (fn. 14)
(now Free School Lane).
The Friary had now apparently reached its full
extent, and occupied, as it did at the Dissolution,
the whole space lying between the modern
thoroughfares of Peas Hill on the north, Pembroke Street on the south, Free School Lane on
the west, and Corn Exchange Street on the east. (fn. 15)
Probably some of the messuages were retained as
received, with their dwelling-houses upon them,
and let to selected tenants. (fn. 16) The site being within
the parish of St. Edward, and the friars having
papal exemption from all forms of tithe, they
agreed in 1290 to pay 4s. a year to the vicar, and
to increase the amount proportionately as they
increased their bounds; they also undertook not
to receive any parishioner to the sacraments, but
to send their own secular servants who received
wages to St. Edward's, and to see that they paid
their dues there. (fn. 17) In 1289 the Pope had given to
the Austin Friars an indulgence of 100 days for
those who visited their churches on certain feasts, (fn. 18)
and in 1302 the right of burial, (fn. 19) as well as that of
preaching and hearing confessions, was given them.
The Austin Friars of Cambridge had thus spiritual
advantages to offer to their benefactors in the
church. That the right of burial was used is
shown by the female skeletons—four in number,
with, apparently, the remains of two children—
found when the church was excavated in 1908. (fn. 20)
The friars' own cemetery lay to the south of the
church, on the other side of the main roadway to
the domestic buildings, (fn. 21) of which a part, reputed
to have been the refectory but more probably
either the infirmary or guest hall, existed until
1746. (fn. 22) On the south, in the wall by the King's
Ditch, one of the two gates ordered in 1292 was
to be seen towards the end of the 16th century,
and in the 18th Cole remembered 'good old gates'
with a larger and a smaller wicket, opening upon
Peas Hill. (fn. 23) The church, which in the 15th
century and perhaps earlier, played an important
part in University functions, (fn. 24) as did that of the
Austins at Oxford, (fn. 25) occupied the north range of
the cloister. It was apparently repaired, and perhaps enlarged, in the middle of the 14th century,
as in 1356 protection was given to the servants
of the friars employed with a cart and three horses
in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon
fetching victuals and stone and timber for the
repair of their church. (fn. 26)
That their system resembled that of the Franciscans is shown by Bishop Montacute's licence to
seven limitors among the Austin Friars of Cambridge in 1340. These were Robert atte Lee, the
prior; the sub-prior Peter de Wisbech, Hugh de
Over, Hamo de Hythe, William Braughing,
Henry de Kingston, and Nicholas de Parys. (fn. 27)
The two first were appointed surrogates, and all
seven, with five other friars, were licensed as
penitentiaries on 2 November 1340, (fn. 28) their licences
being renewed for a further 3 years on 10 March
1342. (fn. 29) Of the five other penitentiaries four—
William Walcote, John de Lynne, Simon de Lynne,
and Walter de Berewyco—were Bachelors of
Divinity. On 3 February 1387 Arundel, as Bishop
of Ely, manumitted John, son of William Gybbe
of Wivelingham, an Austin Friar of Cambridge,
his nativus. (fn. 30)
The Austin Friars were deeply involved in
trouble between town and gown which became
acute about 1413. In 1417, when John de
Rykinghale, the Chancellor, was at the Council
of Constance, and Henry Stokton his Vicechancellor was acting for him, the differences
were laid before Henry V at Southampton. (fn. 31) The
townsmen alleged that Thomas Cressale, Prior of
the Friars Hermits, Henry Stokton his friar, Vicechancellor of the University, with the proctors,
bedell, and sub-bedell, had encouraged riotous
scholars to insult and threaten the mayor, and had
themselves imprisoned Thomas Hierman, a servant of the commonalty who had a suit for debt
against a servant of the Prior of Barnwell, and a
burgess named Henry Dunmowe. The affair
dragged on, and Bilney, the ex-mayor, when he
was summoned, on Rykinghale's return, to appear
before him in the church of the Austin Friars,
offered to fight the Chancellor and threatened to
resist arrest with 100 armed men. He himself had
arrested Cressale, the prior, and another friar
named Nicholas Swafham, both Doctors of Divinity, with two scholars' servants and had kept
them all in prison pending the payment of fines
which the University alone had the right to demand. Bilney was also accused of a false plea that
the Prior of the Austin Friars had attempted his
life while he was mayor and had entered Hierman's house illegally. (fn. 32)
In 1494 Archbishop Morton wrote to the
Bishop of Ely that the Austin Friars of Cambridge
'with intent to make money by fraud' have, under
cover of a confirmation of their privileges recently
obtained from the Pope, proclaimed that they have
the right to grant plenary remission to all who
resort to them. He bade the bishop inhibit them
until the instrument on which they based their
claims had been examined. (fn. 33)
It is probable that Cambridge was in touch
with the reformation movement in Germany
from its inception there in 1493. If 'Erasmus laid
the egg that Luther hatched', its nest was the
Austin Friary. The reforming friars in Germany
obtained a bull giving them self-government under
their own Vicar-General Staupitz, an intimate
friend of Luther: while Staupitz was Dean of the
Faculty of Theology at Wittenberg an English
Austin Friar, Robert Barnes, (fn. 34) was studying at
Louvain. He returned to England, was incorporated B.D. at Cambridge, and took his degree
of D.D. there in 1522-3: in the same year
Luther's these were adopted by the Provincial
Chapter of the Austin Friars of Saxony at
Wittenberg. Soon after this Barnes was made
Prior of the Cambridge convent, and at once
began to read Terence, Plautus, and Cicero in the
friary with the assistance of his pupil, Thomas
Parnell, whom he had brought from Louvain.
He collected a group of like-minded scholars,
most of them Austin Friars, who met at the
White Horse Inn, near the friary, nicknamed
'Little Germany' from their activities. Academically, the members were not the most prominent
friars of their time, and little is heard of them in the
University records, possibly because the group was
broken up while most of them were still young.
In 1515 Thomas Swillington, D.D., who describes himself as 'Vicar of the Order of Friars
Hermit of the Order of St. Augustine of Cambridge', presented four friars to the bishop for
ordination, (fn. 35) of whom one, Thomas Cambridge,
was probably the 'Master Cambridge' who, with
Miles Coverdale, Christopher Coleman, and
'Masters Feld and Burley', formed the circle
within his convent which actively supported
Barnes. Of these Coverdale alone is known to
have attained distinction, but Christopher Coleman, or Foster, was preaching to a non-conforming congregation in London in 1567, and still
agitating for Puritan reforms in 1570. (fn. 36) John
Stokes, (fn. 37) the predecessor of Barnes as prior, incepted with him, and went to Norwich where, as
prior, he tried in 1531 to persuade Bilney to recant.
He preached against the changes and was imprisoned, but submitted and sought from Cromwell permission to 'leave his habit'. In 1525
Erfurt, Martin Luther's friary, ceased to exist as
such, and on Christmas Eve of that year Dr.
Barnes preached his famous sermon in St. Edward's, which broke up 'Little Germany' and
caused him to be brought before Cardinal Wolsey,
charged with heresy. He was condemned to 'bear
a fagot' at Paul's Cross, which he did on the following 11 February, and to perpetual prison at
Northampton, from which he escaped and went
abroad. He was taken back into favour and had
a part in negotiating the marriage of the king with
Anne of Cleves, but he was condemned as a
relapsed heretic and burnt in 1540.
Miles Coverdale, (fn. 38) who later took an important part in the translation of the Bible into English, and became Bishop of Exeter under Edward
VI, is perhaps the best known of the frequenters
of 'Little Germany'. He was ordained priest in
1514, and was Barnes's secretary at the time of
his trial for heresy in 1526. During 1527 he was
in correspondence with Cromwell, and, having
preached a sermon against images in 1528, left
his Order and fled the country. He returned to
England when the lesser monasteries were dissolved and became one of the most prominent of
the Reformers who lived into Elizabeth's reign.
The Austin Friars of Cambridge, having been
the moving spirits in the Reformation there,
practically dissolved themselves. The surrender is
signed only by John Hardyman, the prior, and
three other friars, whose names are not found in
the Grace Books and who had taken no prominent
part in the White Horse group. The surrender,
like those of the Franciscans and Dominicans,
has a blank left for the date and is unsealed. (fn. 39)
Of the signatories, Thomas Norley was probably
identical with the vicar of that name presented to
Harston 12 September 1539 by the patron to
whom Barnwell 'conceded' the living; (fn. 40) he was
still vicar in 1547; John Barber may be the John
Barber, priest, who witnessed a will in Trumpington in 1542, (fn. 41) but apparently held no preferment; of Thomas Watson nothing is known.
'Dr. Hardyman, late prior', was left in charge of
the house after the Dissolution, and when the
commissioners came in 1539 they found it in his
custody. (fn. 42) The Visitors had sold the bells, but
there was still some lead, in spite of earlier sales by
Hardyman and George Browne. A good deal of
slate from the 'late Austin Friars' was used for the
new steeple at Great St. Mary's in 1545 and at the
same time much of the friary was demolished. (fn. 43)
When Leland visited the convent shortly before
its dissolution he noted in the library five works of
William Ockham and two of John Capgrave, the
famous Austin Friar of Lynn, and a volume of
sermons by Ralph the Almoner of Westminster. (fn. 44)
The only book known to have survived from this
library is now at Trinity College, Dublin (MS.
115), a volume of miscellaneous tracts, some
written by Adam de Stockton at Cambridge in
1375. (fn. 45)
Priors of Austin Friars
Robert atte Lee, occurs 1340 (fn. 46)
Richard de Walpole, occurs 1337 (fn. 47)
John de Comberton, occurs 1343, 1348 (fn. 48)
John Tuylet, occurs 1350 (fn. 49)
John Blyclyng, occurs 1375 (fn. 50)
Thomas Cressale, occurs, 1417 (fn. 51)
Thomas Swillington, D.D., occurs 1520 (fn. 52)
John Stokys, D.D., occurs 1521, (fn. 53) 1522 (fn. 54)
Robert Barnes, D.D., c. 1523-5 (fn. 55)
John Hardyman, D.D., (fn. 56) occurs 1536, surrendered 1538.