Monastic Life in the Medieval British Isles by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9781786833198
Google: v-yVDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Published: 2018-10-15T22:29:11+00:00

10

The abbey of St Benet of Holme and the English rising of 1381

Andrew Prescott

Some of the most dramatic and violent events of the great revolt in England in 1381 took place in what Trenholme called the monastic boroughs, such as St Albans, Bury, Dunstable and Abingdon, where there was longstanding resentment among townsfolk at the control exerted by local religious houses.1 In St Albans, the inhabitants of the town went to London to seek support against the abbey from Wat Tyler and forced the abbot to grant them a new charter. In the brutal suppression of the revolt, many leading townsfolk of St Albans were hanged. At Bury St Edmunds, the ancient enmity between the town’s population and the abbey meant that the Suffolk rebels led by the chaplain John Wraw were welcomed into the town. The prior of Bury and the monk who administered the abbey’s estates were beheaded, and documents and jewels of the abbey were seized. The inhabitants of Bury were afterwards excluded from the amnesty for the rebels, and a fine was imposed on them which took five years to pay. In Bedfordshire, the prior of Dunstable was forced during the revolt to concede a charter to the town.2 While there do not appear to have been large-scale disturbances in Abingdon, orders were nevertheless issued for the arrest of seven inhabitants of Abingdon for insurgency.3

The motives of the townsfolk of St Albans, Bury and Dunstable for joining the rising are often portrayed as somehow different to those of the bulk of the rebels. They are seen as allies of the rebels who took advantage of the breakdown of law and order to pursue their own local interests.4 Yet it is difficult to differentiate sharply between the grievances of the townsfolk and the rural insurgents. The townsfolk of St Albans bitterly resented their designation as bondsmen by the monks, and their demands for common pastures and fisheries and the right to grind their own corn were similar to those voiced by rural insurgents. Likewise, the action of the mayor and inhabitants of Cambridge in destroying enclosures erected by Barnwell Priory on land claimed as commons by the town is difficult to distinguish from attempts by rural insurgents to claim land and fisheries as commons.

In exploring the relationship between urban and rural participation in the revolt, an examination of the attacks on religious houses and orders provides a useful case study. While urban disturbances such as those in St Albans and Bury have received considerable attention, there has been far less interest in attacks on monasteries in more rural areas. One of the largest attacks on a monastery during the rising of 1381 was on the small Benedictine foundation of St Benet of Holme in Norfolk, which stood in an isolated setting overlooking marshland on the River Bure and whose estates were concentrated in the east of the county.5 An analysis of the disturbances connected with the abbey of St Benet of Holme illustrates the complexity of the structure of the rising.

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