| Temporal | ||||||||||||
| Churches | Lamp and Chantry | Alms | Education | |||||||||
| £ | 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.