-----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
| Churches | and | Alms |Education
| | Chantry | |
-----------------------+----------+----------+----------+----------
| £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d. | £ s. d.
Church of Burton | | | |
Manor of Burton | | | |
Town of Burton | | | |
Mickleover, etc. | | | |
Allestree | 1 0 0 | 2 0 | 3 4 |
Anslow | | | |
Bromley Hurst | | | |
Stapenhill | 3 6 8 | | |
Sallow, Chantry Chapel | | 5 0 0 | |
Abbots Bromley | | | |
Ilam | | | |
Abbey of Burton | | | 23 0 11 | 12 0 0
Branstone, etc | | | |
Withington and Pothlac | | | |
| £4 6 8 | £5 2 0 |£23 4 3 |£12 0 0
Total temporal expenditure £33 8 8
„ spiritual „ £55 13 4½
---------
Total expenditure £89 2 0½
=========
In the disbursements there are many interesting items. A corrody, worth
£3 6s. 8d., one of the very small number recorded in Staffordshire,
is held by a royal nominee, John Seggewik. £2 is paid annually to
a poor scholar, John Belfeld, appointed also by the King: it was a
permanent arrangement. £10 is paid to Gloucester College, Oxford.
This was the great Benedictine college, and it was suppressed with
the larger monasteries. Its modern representative, Worcester College,
knows nothing of the £10 from Burton Abbey. On the other hand, _Valor
Ecclesiasticus_ recorded that Worcester Monastery still received £4
from the King’s College at Oxford _ratione suppressionis prioratus
de Sandwall_.[85] The annual payment to Gloucester College had
been instituted by John Sudbury, one of the most famous of the Abbots
of Burton. He held office from 1400 to 1423. His life had not been
an ideal one, by any means, and he was a typical specimen of his
time. When Convocation in 1404–5 voted the King a large grant he was
appointed one of the collectors, and the grant, being exceptionally
large and being levied with exceptional strictness, was bitterly
resented. Sudbury, finding himself opposed even by his own tenants
of Stapenhill, on the Derbyshire side of the Trent, instigated his
Staffordshire men to retaliate on them, when they crossed the river and
came into Burton to trade, by robbery and violence. The Burton monks
were very disorderly at this time, for just previous to this there had
been a charge against them of robbing a woman of 100 shillings. They
waylaid John Newton, Canon and Chaplain of their hostile neighbour,
Sir Thomas de Gresley, as well as the parson of Rolleston and others.
They stole fish and cows. They assaulted one of the King’s Escheators.
They set at naught not only the Statute of Labourers by paying Thomas
Shepherd and many others 4d. a day, “to the sum of 100 shillings,” but
also morality, for when Abbot Sudbury, in 1407, was driven to obtain
a royal pardon for his manifold offences, we find among them that “of
having, on Wednesday, Christmas, 6 Henry IV, in his chamber at Burton,
ravished Marjory, the wife of Nicholas Taverner.”[86] So powerful was
Abbot Sudbury that he was able to defy his Bishop’s summons to answer
for the many irregularities with which he was charged.
During the rule of Sudbury’s predecessor, the Abbey being in
difficulties, an attempt had been made to obtain the good offices of
“Monsieur John Bagot,” the Sheriff of Staffordshire, by an annual
payment of thirty shillings. It is a typical example of “maintenance.”
Such a policy was double-edged, and the powerful “friend” was often
encouraged to attempt to extort a higher price for his services. This
happened in the present instance. A petition was sent by Sudbury, to
the Bishop of Winchester, the Chancellor, setting forth that: “The said
John, not being content with the xxxs., in order to force a larger sum
from the Abbot, had destroyed his park at Bromley and had taken 20
bucks and 12 does, to the great damage of the said Abbot and to the
prejudice and contempt of the King.” Moreover, although John Bagot held
in chief of the Abbot the vill of Field by homage, fealty, and escuage,
and by the service of twenty shillings annually, he had refused to
perform his homage; his power in the district was so great that remedy
was difficult.[87] Altogether, the situation was one which illustrates
very well the general weakening of public security at the time through
the growing power of great men and the increasing decline of authority.
Just as John de Sudbury set at naught the Bishop and oppressed his
weaker neighbours, so John Bagot, the Sheriff, abused his position
and office to enforce an annual bribe from the Abbey to abstain from
robbery and violence, which he, nevertheless, continued.
But Sudbury was none the less a man of business and not without his
good qualities. When the Rectory of Allestree was appropriated during
his tenure of office he arranged, as _Valor Ecclesiasticus_
records, for a distribution there of 3s. 4d. annually at Michaelmas,
and for £1 to be paid to the deacon who took the place of the absentee
rector. He also provided for the maintenance of a lamp there at an
annual cost of 2s. Other former Abbots who had endowed Poor Doles
were Nicholas Abingdon (1187–1197), John Stafford (1260–1280),
Thomas Field (1474–1494), and William Beyne (1502–1533), the amount
to be distributed in each case being £14 7s. John Stafford arranged
also for the payment of £5 yearly to the Chantry Chapel at Sallow.
There are further doles, said to have been endowed by the founder of
the monastery, as follows: £1 18s. on the anniversary of his death
(Oct. 22nd) for his soul and the souls of King Etheldred and his
royal successors and of Anselm and Archbishop Alfrike, the founder’s
brothers; £1 18s. at Corpus Christi; £4 in twenty-four cloaks on the
anniversary of his death; and 8d. given to the poor each day in the
year in bread, ale and meat (reckoned at £12). The total spent in doles
is £23 4s. 3d. _per annum_.
The officials (with fees) are as follows: George, Earl of Huntingdon,
chief steward, £6 13s. 4d.; Hugh Barley, steward of Abbots Bromley,
£1, and auditor, £5; Thomas Boylston, general receiver, £4; bailiffs
Richard Morley (Findern and Stapenhill, 13s. 4d.), Ralf Manwaryng,
gent. (Mickleover, £1), Nicholas Teyte (Littleover and Caldwell, £1
6s. 8d.), John Lambert (Allestree and Appleby, 13s. 4d.), John Smith
(Branstone, etc., £2), Edward Edensore (Bromley Hurst, £2), Henry
Meynell, gent. (Willington and Pothlac, 6s. 8d.), Walter Charnels
(“bailiff of the town of Burton, who now receives the whole sum of the
perquisites of the Court there by the King’s commandment” £3 6s. 8d.).
The remark about Walter Charnels reminds us that the King had a
considerable interest in the affairs of Burton Abbey. Besides the
bailiff of the town, he nominated a corrodian and a poor scholar, and
he took fees (“Sheriffs’ Aids”) to the extent of £2 2s. a year.
If we are correct in our surmise that the statement of outgoings was
not very strictly scrutinised in the case of Burton, we have, perhaps,
an explanation of the large proportion allotted to alms there in
contrast to the very small amount allowed elsewhere in the whole of
the county. It may be that in other places the amount spent in alms was
not allowed to be deducted, as it was at Burton.
No valuation subsequent to the Dissolution appears in _Monasticon_, so
that we are deprived of the material which might have been afforded
for checking the Chancellor’s (second) valuation. It may, however,
be safely assumed to be fairly correct, and to give us a tolerably
complete account of the revenues of the Abbey during the last years of
its existence.