These rights, for the most part, referred to wood, sometimes permitting the felling of all timber necessary for their conventual buildings, churches, and farmsteads and fences, but more usually applying to undergrowth or dead wood for fuel. One house might have the right to send a horse and cart daily for a load of fuel, and another to do the same once a week or fortnight. The agistment of cattle at certain seasons and the pannage of swine were granted here and there, whilst venison-rights were by no means unknown. Occasionally the abbot or superior had certain rights granted him over the game or deer in a chase bordering on a royal forest, as was the case with the abbot of Whitby and Pickering Forest—a grant of much higher value than the far commoner right of free-warren, which covered hares and rabbits, and which pertained to a variety of manors. But such a grant as this did not imply that the abbot sent his monks hunting through the chase.
Venison-grants, when made, usually took the form of a tithe of the hunting. The tithe of the wild boars killed in Dean Forest went to the abbey of St. Peter’s, Gloucester; the tithe of the deer hunted in Pickering Lythe went to the abbey of St. Mary’s, York; and that of Duffield Frith and Needwood to the priory of Tutbury. As a result of these and like grants, venison pasties no doubt very occasionally smoked on the common tables of those laxer monasteries where flesh-eating was permissible; but, as a rule, the only venison consumed within conventual buildings would be reserved for guests of considerable distinction, or for use in the infirmary.
Next to charges of deep drinking, charges of hunting, poaching, and venison-gorging have always been the commonest and most generally accepted accusations against England’s religious. This notion was not only one of the mainstays of ribald contemporary ballads, or used to lend point to the rollicking jests of such writings as “Ingoldsby Legends,” but has even been gravely endorsed and circumstantially told both in the poetry and the prose of writers of repute. Now it so happens that an opportunity of testing the truth of such charges, after a dry legal fashion, has just recently occurred. It has long been known that in the very few cases where hunting or deer-stealing of any form came to the knowledge of monastic Visitors, it was severely condemned and punished; but how about the general records of the various forest courts, wherein “benefit of clergy” could not be pleaded after the same fashion as elsewhere, and where clerks of every kind were subject to presentment? Within the past twelve monks almost the whole of the muniments at the Public Record Office have been overhauled for an historical purpose altogether apart from any such question as the one now under discussion. The proceedings of forest courts were extraordinarily thorough, and screened none. The verderers who sat in judgment at the smaller courts were elected by the freeholders in county court, but subject to removal by the Crown; the foresters were partly hereditary and partly Crown appointments; the reeves and four chief men had also to attend from each township, as well as bailiffs and jurors from each hundred in the forest precincts. Moreover, before each Eyre or Forest Pleas before the Justices, a “regard” of the whole forest was undertaken, which was a most thorough and exhaustive investigation under many heads, carried out and duly scheduled by twelve resident knights. Nor would there be any disposition, but the contrary, to screen monks or canons, for they were often regarded with keen jealousy by high-placed officials and seculars of influence. From the temptations that lay at the very threshold of the majority of the monastic houses—the inmates of many never being able to set a foot outside their walls which was not on forest ground—and from the genuine excuse that not a few would have of entering forest thickets in search of fuel for their hearths and ovens, it might have been naturally expected that the charges against them of venison-trespass would be fairly frequent. But what is the case? Throughout the length and breadth of England, in the extant forest documents extending over several centuries, only three or four charges of venison-trespass against the religious have been found, and about a like number for the receipt of venison, or the harbouring of forest offenders. It is not to be understood that the examination has been quite thorough, save of a certain number of forests; but it is highly improbable that the charges against monks or canons regular, if the search was exhaustive, could not be counted on the fingers of both hands. And yet at the same time the charges against rectors, vicars, or parochial chaplains, and the heavy fines, sometimes exceeding a whole year’s income, are fairly common. No charges have been noticed against the monks of Rufford or the canons of Newstead, though both in Sherwood; and yet there was hardly a parish pertaining to that forest whose rector or vicar was not, at some time, convicted of deer-slaying with bow and arrows, or with greyhounds.
Such a result as this may fairly be claimed as an official testimony to the superior morality of the vowed religious in a matter wherein there was often great laxity of principle and practice even among those of high-standing and good position.
CHAPTER VII
VISITATIONS
IN accordance with the various Canons and Councils, both general and particular, all English monasteries in pre-Norman times were subject to the Bishop as visitor; but after the Conquest, when special houses gained in power, and new or reformed congregations obtained a lodgment, the diocesan’s right of visiting became materially abridged. Up to their end all the English Benedictine houses of men or women, which numbered about 200, were subject, save for a few exceptions, to the Bishop. In fact, so great was the Benedictine influence in England that no fewer than nine of the old cathedral foundations had monastic chapters, whilst another one (Carlisle) belonged to the canons regulars of St. Austin. In these cases, which were peculiar to England, the Bishop was regarded as taking the place of the abbot, whilst the acting superior of the house itself was only termed prior. All the Austin houses, save one, were also subject to their diocesan. The exempt Benedictine abbeys were Westminster, St. Albans, Bury St. Edmunds, Battle, St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, and Peterborough; the last named was, moreover, subject to the Primate. To these must be added the Austin abbey of Waltham. In these cases the cumbrous and costly custom prevailed of either very heavy fees or a journey to Rome for confirmation; their exemption seems to have proved a hindrance to discipline and good order.
LLANTHONY PRIORY (Austin Canons)
The two great orders of the reformed Benedictines, the Cluniacs, and the Cistercians—the latter of whom were a great power in England—were free from diocesan visitation, and the appointment of their superiors had not to be confirmed by the Bishop, though his benediction was usually sought. The exemption in each of these cases arose from the central houses, which were respectively at Cluny and Citeaux, in Burgundy, obtaining general powers of visitation throughout Christendom. The White or Premonstratensian canons, who were subject to some extent to their central house at Prémontré in the diocese of Laon, also obtained papal exemption from their diocesans, although it was not unusual for the abbot and chapter-general of Prémontré to appoint a Bishop as visitor-general of the whole of the English province. The Gilbertines, as well as all houses of mendicant friars, were also exempt.
It thus came to pass that in certain dioceses where the Benedictines or Austins were not very strong, the Bishop only visited a minority of the religious houses of his diocese. It has sometimes been assumed that these exemptions of whole orders conduced to disorder and carelessness. Although it would seem that the episcopal supervision of the diocesan of each religious house was on the whole most desirable, the supposition of laxness in its absence cannot be sustained; and the visitations made by the Commissioners of particular orders were, as a rule, more regular in occurrence, and, for the most part, as searching in character.