Religious Houses.
If the parish includes within its boundaries the remains or the site of any abbey, priory, hospital, monastic cell, or other religious building otherwise than the parish church, the history and description of such places must of course be separately undertaken. And let not the local historian consider it is needless for him to explore into a subject that has probably been treated of with greater or less detail in the original edition of Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” or with more precision in the expanded English edition. The English abbeys or priories, whose history can be said to have been exhaustively written, could certainly be counted on the fingers of both hands.
Should any one desire to thoroughly search into the history of a religious house, it will be best in the first place to ascertain whether there is any chartulary or chartularies extant (to printed lists of which we have previously referred) for Dugdale and subsequent writers have often only quoted some two or three out of a hundred charters, or ignored them altogether. Secondly, the numerous references to national records, all now to be found at the P. R. O., which are given in Tanner’s “Notitia,” or in the big Dugdale, should be referred to seriatim. Thirdly, the indexes and calendars to the various Rolls, etc., at the P. R. O., which have been mentioned under the manorial history, should be looked through for those more or less frequent references that are almost certain to have been omitted by Tanner. Fourthly, the Augmentation Books, and other likely documents of the time of the Suppression of the Monasteries, should be overhauled. Fifthly, special MSS. dealing with the order to which the house pertains, should be sought after; e.g., if of the Premonstratensian order, a store of unpublished matter is almost certain to be found in the Peck MSS. of the B. M., and in the Visitation Book of the B., numbered Ashmole MSS. 1519. Sixthly, search should also be made through the indexes of the various Blue Book Reports of the Historical Manuscript Commission, and inquiries set on foot as to local private libraries. Seventhly, and though last, this suggestion will often be found to be of great value, questions should be asked through the pages of that invaluable medium between literary men—Notes and Queries.
It may also be found of use to study the precise statutes and regulations of the particular order. They will be found in full in the bulky folios of Holstein’s “Codex Regularum Monasticarum et Canonicarum,” 1759. Dugdale only gives an abstract of the majority of them.
