RELIGIOUS HOUSES: Introduction

THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF KENT

INTRODUCTION

Kent had the distinction of being the only English county with two mediaeval sees and cathedrals, and in St. Augustine's at Canterbury it possessed an abbey of the first rank; but the remaining monasteries proper were hardly as numerous or as important as might have been expected in consideration of its size and the fact that it was practically the birthplace of Christianity in England. The Danish raids may have had something to do with this, and they are probably the principal cause of the fall of three abbeys, Reculver, Lyminge, and Minster in Thanet, before the Conquest.

These houses all belonged to the Benedictine order, as also did the abbey of Faversham, founded in 1147. Dover was founded in the seventh century as a house of secular canons, but was changed into a Benedictine priory after the Conquest. The nunnery of Minster in Sheppey, also founded in the seventh century, was of the same order; and so were those of St. Sepulchre at Canterbury and Mailing, founded about the end of the eleventh century, and Davington and Higham, half a century later.

The Cluniac and Cistercian orders, branches of the Benedictine, had each a single house in the county, dating from the middle of the twelfth century, at Horton and Boxley respectively. There were six houses of Austin canons; the priory of St. Gregory at Canterbury appearing first as a house of seculars at the end of the eleventh century, Leeds, Comb well, Lesnes, and Tonbridge belonging to the twelfth, while Bilsington was not founded until 1253. The Premonstratensian canons, a reformed branch of the Austins, corresponding to the Cistercians among monks, had abbeys at Langdon and St. Radegund's, founded towards the close of the twelfth century. Several foreign houses also owned possessions in the county, and though some of them appear merely as absentee landlords, others had dependent priories at Folkestone, Lewisham, Patrixbourne, Romney, and Throwley. Of these Folkestone obtained a grant of denization, but the other four came to an end early in the fifteenth century, and passed into the possession of religious houses in other counties.

The Knights Templars were settled at Ewell, and the Knights Hospitallers at West Peckham, Sutton at Hone, and Swingfield.

There were colleges of secular canons at Bredgar, Cobham, Maidstone, Wingham, and Wye.

The most noteworthy point about the religious houses of the county was certainly the great number of friaries and hospitals. The Grey Friars had houses at Canterbury, Maidstone, and Romney; the Carmelites at Aylesford, Lossenham, and Sandwich; The Austin Friars, Black Friars, and Friars of the Sack at Canterbury; the Observants at Greenwich; the Trinitarian Friars at Mottenden; and the Dominican Nuns at Dartford; making a total of twelve in all. There were not less than twenty-five hospitals, several of which survive to the present day, though a few vanished before the general Dissolution.

The Kentish monasteries do not appear to advantage near their end. The reports on the two Premonstratensian abbeys made by visitors of their own order were distinctly unfavourable. Archbishop Warham's visitations in 1511 do not reveal any great immorality, but they certainly show that the early high monastic ideal had completely vanished; and Warham was no enemy of monasticism, nor was Bishop Fisher, who suppressed Higham with good reason in 1522. No more glaring imposture was exposed at the Reformation than that of the Rood of Boxley; and no worse instance of superstition and fraud than that of the Nun of Kent, backed by monks of Canterbury.

After Higham the next houses to fall were Lesnes and Tonbridge, suppressed by Wolsey in 1525, by authority from the king and pope, for the foundation of his college at Oxford. Davington came to a very uncommon end, being deserted in 1535. Not much is known of the visitation made by Layton and others in that year, but the reports appear to have been unfavourable, and it was probably on this account that Langdon, Folkestone, and Dover were surrendered in November. Bilsington was surrendered on 28 February, 1536, just before the Act of Dissolution came into effect; and under this the remaining smaller monasteries fell.

St. Augustine's, Faversham, Mailing, Boxley, and Leeds had net incomes of over £200, and so survived as 'greater monasteries,' but yielded to pressure and fell in the next two or three years; and the two cathedrals were likewise surrendered, but were reconstituted as secular establishments. Under a later act, the colleges and most of the hospitals came to an end.