In the “Taxatio” the following is the value of the benefices:—Caldwell, £4 13s. 4d.; St. Clement, £6 13s. 4d.; St. Margaret, £4 13s. 4d.; St. Mary at the Tower, £3 6s. 8d.; St. Lawrence, £3 6s. 8d.; St. Mary Hulme, £1; St. Nichl. (Michael?), £1 10s.; St. Peter, £4; Stoke, £10. The Priory had at the Reformation an income of £88 6s. 9d.; St. Ellen was worth £8 13s. 7d.; St. Stephen, £4 12s. 8d.; Stoke, £12; St. Matthew, £5; the Daundy chantry[585] in St. Lawrence worth £6 10s. 8d.
In 1177 a convent of Austin Canons was founded in the Church of Holy Trinity, and shortly afterwards another convent of the same order in the Church of St. Peter; and in course of time all the parishes of the town, except Stoke, which was on the other side of the river, were appropriated to one or other of these two convents. Only one new parish church of St. Matthew sprang up between the Conquest and the Reformation. A Convent of Dominican Friars was founded here in 1270, and gained so much acceptance among the better classes that most of the great people of the town were buried in its cemetery. The Franciscan Friars were established here in 1297.[586] There were also three leper hospitals in the town, and an almshouse, and one chantry in the Church of St. Lawrence.[587]
In not a few cases a great abbey was the origin of the existence of a town. Peterborough, St. Edmund’s Bury, and St. Alban’s, carry the fact in their names; and there are many others, as Burton, Wenlock, etc., etc. The abbey employed labourers and artificers, who settled in a convenient site under its shadow. If near a high-road, there was a frequent coming and going of travellers of various ranks, who halted for the night, and perhaps remained for a day or two. The abbey would be sure to obtain for its rising town the grant of a weekly market and annual fair. The abbey was the landlord of the ground on which the town was gradually growing; and a wise abbot would encourage the settlement of people in his burgh, build houses, make roads, maintain bridges, build churches, and provide schools.
Then there came a time when the citizens of the towns of England sought to obtain release from feudal claims and jurisdictions, and the right of self-government; the kings encouraged the rising municipalities, seeing in them allies for the Crown against the nobles, and gave them charters freely; and the citizens in many cases bought out the manorial rights of private owners. But bishops and monasteries, while not unwilling to give their tenants the right of association into gilds for the regulation of their trades, were unwilling to resign the rights and jurisdiction which they had exercised from the beginning in their lordship. We add two or three illustrations of the ecclesiastical life of towns founded by bishops and abbots.
The Benedictine Abbey of Burton was founded by Ulfric Spot, Earl of Mercia, about 1002, and endowed with so many manors that it was as great as a barony. Abbot Bernard (1160-1175) built a church for the use of the people who had settled outside the abbey. Abbot Nicholas, who died in 1187, founded Burton Burgh, and built the first street there. Abbot Melburne, who died in 1210, enlarged the town from the great bridge of Burton (over the Trent), to the new bridge (over the Dove) towards Horninglowe, and gave the citizens a charter, and established a fair and market. Abbot Lawrence (1228-1260), in a time of fire and flood, took no rent from the people. Abbot John, of Stafford, who died 1280, made the Burgh from Bradwaie to Berele Crosse, built the Monks’ Bridge over the Dove, and made (seldas in foro) shops in the market-place. Abbot Bernard built the great bridge of thirty-six arches over the Trent, with a chapel at one end of it. It was one of the longest bridges in England—five hundred and fifteen yards long.[588] And during a great famine in 1286, Abbot Thomas Pakington found the people employment and wages in building a new quarter from Cattestrete through the middle of Siwarmore to Hikanelstrete; and built a Chapel of St. Modwen adjoining the abbey, which, after the Reformation, became the parish church. In the time of Abbot William Matthew, who died 1430, the high town was paved with a gutter in the middle, and the novus vicus in front of the abbey gates.
The provision which the abbey made for the tenants of its burgh were the parish church and the Chapel of St. Modwen; and these seem to have been always served from the monastery; for, in the “Valor” there seems to be no Vicar of Burton, but the convent received from the parish church, in tithes and oblations, £32[589] a year, and from offerings at the Chapel of St. Modwenne, 40s.
The “Valor” speaks of a suburb appropriated to the serfs of the abbey, “Vicus Nativorum.”
Abbey Gateway, Bury St Edmund’s.