Then follow the outgoings. First come the “fixed charges” (£2 10s. 10d.), among which the foremost item is £1 12s. 4d., paid as chief rents to the Earl of Shrewsbury for lands in Cauldon and Alton. Four shillings a year is paid to the “monastery” of Rocester; 4s. 6d. to the King for lands in Ashbourne; and payments are noted to the Lord Mountjoy, William Chetwen, arm., the heirs of John Blount, miles, and the royal bailiff of Totmonslow.
Ecclesiastical payments are next given: to Hulton and Burton Abbeys, the parishes of Uttoxeter and Checkley, the Archdeacons of Stafford and Leicester, and 13s. 4d. per annum to the “General Reformator of the Cistercian Order,” Henry VIII’s official, whose appointment was chronicled in the preceding chapter.[93]
Wages to lay officials conclude the account. The steward of Tokeby received 10s. and of Oken, 20s. The steward of Croxden, Ashbourne, and Cauldon was John Wistowe, gent., and was paid £1. The bailiff and rent collector in Leicestershire was paid £1 13s. 4d., and the collectors in Oken and Croxden with its members 10s. and £1 6s. 8d. respectively. The bailiff of Ashbourne and Cauldon was paid £1 a year.
When we attempt to compare this valuation with the first valuation made after the surrender, as given in Monasticon we find that the latter omits various sources of income, as has already been mentioned is commonly the case. The valuation of the demesne at Croxden had decreased from £16 to £14 2s. 5d., but that of Musden Grange had risen from £13 6s. 8d. to £19 11s. 8d. Alton rents had risen from £5 4s. 1d. to £5 15s. 3d., and the value of the water-mill there from £2 5s. 4d. to £4. Rents in Tokeby in Leicestershire had risen from £8 to £11 9s. 4d., and the tithe there from £4 to £7. It appears as though the rents from lesser folk had been generally raised, but the richer people managed to keep down the valuation of their property. The total valuation for the property which is mentioned is £157 1s. 2d. When it is remembered that items amounting to some £15 are not included, this is a very large increase on Valor Ecclesiasticus. The following are not mentioned in the earlier valuation but appear in the later:
| Great Gate and Denstone—rents | £2 | 16 | 8 |
| Ditto with Musden, Calder, and Trussley (tithes) | 6 | 13 | 4 |
| Great Gate and Ridding—messuage and wood | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| Crakemarsh Grange | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| Calton, fixed rents | 3 | 6 | |
| Cauldon—rents | 3 | 7 | 0 |
| „ water-mill | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Musdon, 3 messuages | 3 | 12 | 0 |
| Ellaston—rents | 4 | 11 | 8 |
| „ water-mill | 1 | 6 | 8 |
| Hunchedial | 17 | 18 | 8 |
| Puttels | 1 | 4 | |
| East Norton, tithe | 2 | 13 | 4 |
| Caythorpe, „ | 13 | 4 |
There are also a few other items of small amount.
Dieulacres Abbey
Dieulacres was another Cistercian house which had profited by the wool trade, and had done much to bring the Moorlands into cultivation. Its monks had improved the course of the river Churnet, which flowed down the valley, had effected a great scheme of drainage, including the building of a stone drain so huge as to give rise to an impossible story of an underground passage from the Abbey to the Church, and had constructed a raised paved road across the valley. They had been well endowed at the commencement, and had begun with the advowson of the Church at Leek and its chapels. They owned a London house. The Abbot’s court was sometimes attended by as many as three or four hundred persons. His gallows stood at the end of the town, and his fair was held at Leek annually for seven days at the Feast of St. Arnulph (July 28th). He was a county magnate of importance, and even so late as 1504 we find him stipulating in the lease of the Manor of Pulton that he was to be entertained there with twelve mounted companions twice a year. Such a position was dangerous, and it is not surprising to find that the Abbot sometimes carried things with a high hand. In 1379 it was alleged against the Abbot that he attempted “to perpetrate maintenance in his marches” (in marchiis suis manutenenciam facere) and to oppress the people. He had a band of twenty-one retainers, who are described as common disturbers of the King’s peace, living at the Abbey and doing all the mischief they can, lying in wait for travellers, assaulting, maiming, and even killing them. Some of them were captured on the definite charge of murdering John de Warton at Leek, and were committed to the Marshalsea, with Edmund de Draycot, Cellarer at Dieulacres, and William del Brugge, Vicar of Leek, who, with the Abbot, had harboured the murderers. But the Abbot managed to delay proceedings again and again, and finally no one was punished.[94] In 1413 a monk of Dieulacres, with a large number of armed men, raided a neighbouring park, and took by force much stone, the Abbot being privy to the deed. The Abbot in question was Richard Whitmore, and one of the armed men who led the expedition was Adam Whitmore, Knight. Abbot Whitmore was frequently engaged in quarrels with his neighbours, as was his successor, John Goodfellow. He once stole goods worth £40, and once engaged in a riotous attack on the Vicar of Ilam, who had given the tithes to a neighbour he disliked.[95]
When the Commissioners visited Dieulacres the Abbot was Thomas Whitney, and subsequent events showed he inherited the spirit and vigour of his predecessors.
The summary[96] is arranged like that of Croxden and Rocester. The ecclesiastical income is mainly derived from Leek and its chapels: £1 4s. from glebe, £18 3s. 8d. from tithes of straw and hay, £46 8s. from oblations, £10 from tithes of sheep and wool, and £6 from tithes of cattle. From Leek also comes £6 5s. 4d. in Easter dues. Besides these there are two items from Sandbach: £23 16s. tithes of straw and hay, etc., and 14s. 8d. from glebe.