King's Langley Priory was a Dominican priory in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England. It was located adjacent to the Kings Langley Royal Palace, residence of the Plantagenet English kings.
King's Langley Priory was a Dominican priory in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England. It was located adjacent to the Kings Langley Royal Palace, residence of the Plantagenet English kings.
Langley was founded in 1308 by Edward II in fulfilment of a vow made when in peril. On 1 December, the king made the friars a grant of £100 a year until further orders; on 20 December he gave them his garden near the church and land there for building, and the next day assigned to them as a dwelling until the priory could be built a place called 'Little London.' The first prior was John de Warefeld, who had for some time belonged to Edward's household, and in August 1315 became his confessor. [1]
The king in March 1312 gave the brothers 700 marks for building expenses, and in the summer of that year the conventual church was dedicated and a cemetery consecrated. Possibly, however, the church was not yet finished, for the body of Piers Gaveston, who was killed about this time, was not buried there until the end of 1314, when the ceremony took place with much state, the Archbishop of Canterbury and four bishops as well as many other ecclesiastics taking part in the funeral rites. [1]
In October 1311 the king increased the annual income of the house to £150 to provide for fifteen friars added since the foundation, so that his grant in September 1312 of 500 marks during pleasure may have been intended for building purposes. He gave the friars in June 1315 a house with closes in his manor of Langley and leave to take wood for fuel and other necessaries from Chipperfield Wood. During some years of scarcity he also supplied them with corn. [1]
The king, however, felt that this state of dependence on the Exchequer was unsatisfactory, and wished to endow them permanently. To overcome the difficulty that friars-preachers could not own property he proposed to found a house of Dominican nuns, who were to hold lands in trust for the brothers, and in 1318 he sent two friars to the pope for his authorization. Robert de Duffeld, the second Prior of King's Langley and the king's confessor, had been dispatched in October 1316 to the master of the order, apparently on the same errand, but nothing was done in the matter for years. [1]
The drawback to allowances is shown in the complaint of the friars to Edward III in 1345 that owing to the irregularity of the payments from the Exchequer they had not wherewith to live, carry on the works they had begun, and pay their debts. On this occasion, at their request, the money due to the king from the alien priory of Harmondsworth was assigned to them in part payment. [1]
Edward III seems to have been as much interested in the house as his father had been. In 1346 he granted the friars part of a quarry in Shotover for their works, and in 1347 gave them leave to enlarge the ditch round their close 3 ft. in breadth and 2,000 ft. in length. He gave them in April 1358 the fishery of his water of King's Langley with permission to have a weir in that water, and free entrance and exit to and from the weir through his park; also the head of a stream in Abbots Langley with leave to dig up his land in making an aqueduct underground to their house. In January 1361-2 he gave them, moreover, £20 a year during pleasure to their new work. Personal feeling seems to have prompted his grant in 1358 of 4 tuns of wine a year, and the gift in 1377 of forty mazers, one of which was called the Edward. The wish of Edward II was at last carried out in 1349, and a house of Dominican sisters founded at Dartford in Kent, which was regarded as the complement of the Dominican friary at King's Langley;[ [2] ] and in December 1356 the prioress and nuns had licence to acquire in mortmain property to the value of £300 for the sustenance of themselves and the friars of King's Langley. Here the brothers possibly owed something to the influence of John Woderowe, the king's confessor, who in June 1356 is mentioned as their prior. [1]
Still, the foundation of Dartford for some time did not change materially the financial position of Langley. The king in October 1363 granted to the convent of twenty brothers 200 marks a year of his alms and in March 1371 ordered that the money should be paid to them from the issues of the alien priory of Burstall. [1]
But the appropriation of the church of Langley in 1374 to the nuns of Dartford is the beginning of a new arrangement. In October 1376 Edward III made over to John Duke of Lancaster, Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others in trust for the convent at Langley, the hundred and manor of Preston and the manors of Overland in Ash, Elmstone, Wadling in Ripple, Packmanstone in Newchurch, Harrietsham, 'Godmeston', Beaurepaire, Waldeslade in Chatham, Ham and Westgate in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, and these were granted to the friars from Easter 1382 for forty years, with the idea that during this term they might be secured to them in frankalmoin. The convent let them to Simon de Burley, who shortly afterwards received a grant of them in fee simple from Richard II. The brothers in 1383-4 represented to the king that the rent was much in arrears, and begged that King Edward's intention might be fulfilled and the lands given to them in mortmain; but this was not done, for in September 1386 the king assigned to them the farm of the alien priory of Ware instead of the manors held by Burley. After Burley's execution and forfeiture in 1388 the friars were allowed possession of the property pending inquiry into the king's right, but complained that they and their sureties were harassed by the Exchequer, while large sums due from Burley were still owing. The desired Letters patent were not, however, granted until 24 April 1399, when the king considering that the house of King's Langley 'was not yet sufficiently built and endowed, and as the foundation required', gave the manors to the nuns of Dartford in frankalmoin to hold for the friars. Five years earlier they had acquired in the same way from Richard II the advowson of Willian, Hertfordshire, and from John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, and Warin Waldegrave that of Great Gaddesden, with leave in both cases to appropriate the churches to their own uses. [1]
When Richard died in February 1400 he was at first buried at Langley Priory; afterwards, however, his body was removed by order of Henry V to Westminster Abbey. But the conventual church of Langley still retained a sign of the priory's connexion with the royal family in the tomb of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, interred here in 1402 beside his wife, Isabella, the daughter of Peter, King of Castile. [1]
Henry IV in 1399 and Henry V in 1413 confirmed the grants made to the friars, who therefore could easily prove their title to the Kentish manors, when the escheator seized them in 1420 on the expiration of the term for which they had originally been given. The experience showed the expediency of royal confirmations, and the prior and convent obtained the ratification of their charters from Henry VI in 1424, Edward IV in 1466, Henry VII in 1486, and in 1510 from Henry VIII. [1]
The house seems to have been now provided with an income, not only assured but sufficient. The certain livelihood it offered is said to have been the reason why Richard Wycherley, a former prior promoted to be Bishop of 'Olivence', asked to be appointed prior again about 1497, and this time for life. He promised that he would live under the obedience of the provincial, enrich the house with his own possessions, require only the same living as priors usually had, and render due account of the revenues of the priory. The post was given to him, but according to the story of his successor the appointment was not to the convent's benefit: after four years of office he was £64 in debt to the house. In his last illness he desired that the sum should be paid, and in further recompense of charges on the priory caused by his episcopal dignity he bequeathed to the convent his crozier and mitre worth £40. After his death his executors sued the prior and convent for some of his property — a silver ewer and holy water stock, a counterpane and a dozen napkins. The friars declared that they belonged to the house, and the bishop had them in pledge, and asked that the trial of the case in Worcestershire might be stopped as detrimental to their interests. The friars may have been wronged, but it must be owned that their tale is not very plausible, for it is unlikely that they would pawn goods to a person in their debt. [1]
The house was subjected to an attack on its rights and property in 1533 by one Verney, when Thomas Cromwell showed himself disposed in their favour. Richard Yngworth, the prior, on 16 December sent him a present of apples, and thanked him for his help and counsel to the provincial superior, John Hilsey, by which he himself was enabled to serve God quietly and keep his study and office without trouble. Verney several months later was still causing the convent annoyance and loss, but the prior would not take steps against him without Cromwell's leave. Yngworth's attitude here expresses his policy, which was complete subservience to Cromwell, naturally for his own advancement. In April 1534 he went on a visitation to the eastern counties to secure the acknowledgement by the friars of the king's claim to be supreme head of the English Church, and later made himself useful to Hilsey elsewhere in the same business. The convent at Langley, needless to say, made the formal declaration required. [1]
Yngworth's labours were not unnoticed. When Hilsey was made Bishop of Rochester, Thomas Bedell wrote to Cromwell recommending that the Prior of Langley, 'who had taken great pains in the king's matters,' should have the office of provincial; Russell also urged his appointment. The post, however, was not vacant, and Yngworth had to wait for preferment until December 1537, being then made Suffragan Bishop of Dover. Probably he ceased to be Prior of King's Langley from that time. He was commissioned by the king in February 1538 to visit all friaries in England, and in May he was ordered to put their goods into safe custody and take inventories of them, evidently in preparation for suppression. Langley was surrendered towards the end of that year. Many of the friars were very old and poor, but it is doubtful whether any provision was made for them. Yngworth begged for the house immediately, and in February 1540 it was granted to him with most of its lands, to be held until he obtained ecclesiastical benefices worth £100 a year. The priory was reckoned in the Valor of 1535 as worth £122 4s. a year clear, a fairly accurate estimate, to judge from the statement at the Dissolution. Its gross annual value was then said to be £130 16s. 8d., but to this must be added £11 13s. 4d. for the obits of Sir John Cheyne and Sir Ralph Verney, so that its net income after the deduction of £18 6s. 8d. for salaries and other payments was £124 3s. 4d. [1]
It is impossible to ascertain the size of the convent at any period. Edward II intended the house to hold a hundred, but there is no proof that it ever did. His allowance of £50 extra for fifteen brothers in 1311 implies that there were then forty-five here. Edward III in 1356 gave licence to the nuns of Dartford to acquire land sufficient to maintain forty sisters and sixty friars, but the number he actually provided for at Langley from the Exchequer did not exceed twenty, apparently increased by twenty under his will. [1]
The priory of King's Langley was refounded by Philip and Mary in June 1557 as a house of Dominican sisters, at the request, and for the benefit of seven nuns, formerly at Ingress Abbey, Dartford, Kent. The prioress and convent were declared a corporate body, having perpetual succession and power to acquire property and to sue and be sued at law. They were given the house and site of the late friary, the land called 'le Courte Wike' in King's Langley which had belonged to the priory, and a house and buildings within 'the old manor' lying near the pales of the royal park. [1]
On 8 September 1558 the king and queen granted to the Prioress and convent of Langley the reversion of certain tenements in Dartford, formerly demesne lands of the nuns of that place, and until the expiration of the lease, the rent of £30 7s. 7d. They gave also, besides other demesne lands, the house of the late nunnery with the property in Dartford assigned after its suppression to Anne of Cleves, and it has been supposed that the nuns now returned to Dartford. [1] The nuns were able to sell the lead from the Priory roofs at King's Langley to the building works ongoing at Windsor Castle. [3]
The convent's existence was very short. Queen Mary died in November of that year, and by an Act passed in Elizabeth's first Parliament all restorations or foundations of monasteries since the death of Edward VI were made void, and their possessions given to the Crown. In 1575, the tomb of Edmund of Langley was moved to All Saints' Church nearby. [1]
Early in the 20th century the property came into the ownership of Margaret Cross, who adapted it for use as a school. It is now united with the adjoining property, the site of Kings Langley Palace, in the ownership of the Rudolf Steiner School Kings Langley, which was closed in March 2019. [4]
Elizabeth Cressener was the only prioress of Langley. Priors of King's Langley were: [1]
A 15th-century seal of the house, in shape a pointed oval, bears a representation of the Annunciation in a niche of very elaborate design, below which the royal founder kneels in prayer. On either side of him is a shield not of the arms of Edward II, but of France and England. Of the legend only two letters survive. [1]
A later seal, also a pointed oval, represents the Christian God in majesty. In the base, under a carved four-centred arch, is the king as in the earlier seal. The inner border is engrailed. Legend: SIGILLUM : COVUNE : FRATRUM : PREDIB : DE : LANGELEYE. [1]
A 16th-century seal, of the same shape but slightly larger, shows the coronation of the Virgin in a niche with two-arched canopy. On each side there is a smaller canopied niche; the one on the left containing St. Margaret, crowned, standing on the dragon, which she pierces with a long cross, and holding in her right hand a book; in that on the right is an archbishop with mitre and crozier. Below is the founder on his knees under a carved roundheaded arch; he holds a church and in front of him on the ground is his crown. Legend: . . . . VENT . MONAST'II DE LAN . . Y. The counterseal shows two impressions of a shield-shaped signet with arms, a bend engrailed between six fleurs de lis with three crosslets fitchy on the bend, the ownership of which is unknown. [1]
The Order of Preachers, commonly known as the Dominican Order, is a Catholic mendicant order of pontifical right that was founded in France by a Castilian priest named Dominic de Guzmán. It was approved by Pope Honorius III via the papal bull Religiosam vitam on 22 December 1216. Members of the order, who are referred to as Dominicans, generally display the letters OP after their names, standing for Ordinis Praedicatorum, meaning 'of the Order of Preachers'. Membership in the order includes friars, nuns, active sisters, and lay or secular Dominicans. More recently, there have been a growing number of associates of the religious sisters who are unrelated to the tertiaries.
The dissolution of the monasteries, occasionally referred to as the suppression of the monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541, by which Henry VIII disbanded Catholic monasteries, priories, convents, and friaries in England, Wales, and Ireland; seized their wealth; disposed of their assets, and provided for their former personnel and functions.
A convent is an enclosed community of monks, nuns, friars or religious sisters. Alternatively, convent means the building used by the community.
White Ladies Priory, once the Priory of St Leonard at Brewood, was an English priory of Augustinian canonesses, now in ruins, in Shropshire, in the parish of Boscobel, some eight miles (13 km) northwest of Wolverhampton, near Junction 3 of the M54 motorway. Dissolved in 1536, it became famous for its role in the escape of Charles II of England after the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The name 'White Ladies' refers to the canonesses who lived there and who wore white religious habits.
Prior is an ecclesiastical title for a superior in some religious orders. The word is derived from the Latin for "earlier" or "first". Its earlier generic usage referred to any monastic superior. In abbeys, a prior would be lower in rank than the abbey's abbot or abbess.
St. Catherine's Priory, Roskilde was a Danish priory of Dominican friars located in Roskilde. It was established in 1231 and dissolved during the Reformation. In 1699, the private house which replaced the Priory, became the Lutheran Roskilde Adelige Jomfrukloster, a women's collegiate foundation.
St. Agnes Priory was established by Queen Margaret I for a community of Dominican nuns at Gavnø Island. After the Danish Reformation the priory was transformed into a manor estate known as Gavnø Castle located near Næstved, Denmark.
Ingress Abbey is a Neo-Gothic Jacobean-style country house in Greenhithe, Kent, England, built in 1833 on the site of an earlier Palladian-style house.
Markyate Priory was a Benedictine priory in Bedfordshire, England. It was established in 1145 and disestablished in 1537.
Blackfriars, Bristol was a Dominican priory in Broadmead, Bristol, England. It was founded by Maurice de Gaunt in 1227 or 1228. Llywelyn ap Dafydd, son of Dafydd ap Gruffydd, the last native Prince of Wales, was buried in the cemetery of the priory. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, surviving parts of the priory became a guildhall for the Smiths and Cutlers Company, the Bakers Company, a workhouse and then Bristol Quaker meeting house. In the 20th century, it has housed the local register office, a theatre company, and a restaurant.
Cambridge Blackfriars is a priory of the Dominican Order in Cambridgeshire, England. It was established in 1238, dissolved in 1538 and re-established in 1938. It continues to operate as a Dominican priory and, in 2000, became the novitiate house of the English Province of the Order of Preachers.
King's Mead Priory was a Benedictine Priory situated west of Derby, in the area currently known as Nun's Street, or Nun's Green. It was the only Benedictine Nunnery in Derbyshire.
Derby Dominican Priory, also known as Derby Black Friary, or Blackfriars, Derby, was a Dominican priory situated in the town of Derby, England. It was also named in different sources as a friary, monastery and convent, but was officially a priory as it was headed by a prior and the Dominican Order calls all their houses Priories. The "Black" came from the colour of the mantles worn by the friars of the order.
Alvingham Priory was a Gilbertine priory in St. Mary, Alvingham, Lincolnshire, England. The Priory, established between 1148 and 1154, was a "double house", where religious of both sexes lived in two separate monasteries. They did not commonly communicate with one another, and there was an internal wall dividing their priory church. The superior of every Gilbertine house was the prioress, the prior being really an official of her house.
Sempringham Priory was a priory in Lincolnshire, England, located in the medieval hamlet of Sempringham, to the northwest of Pointon. Today, all that remains of the priory is a marking on the ground where the walls stood and a square, which are identifiable only in aerial photos of the vicinity. However, the parish church of St Andrew's, built around 1100 AD, is witness to the priory standing alone in a field away from the main road.
Holywell Priory or Haliwell, Halliwell, or Halywell, was a religious house in Shoreditch, formerly in the historical county of Middlesex and now in the London Borough of Hackney. Its formal name was the Priory of St John the Baptist.
St. George's Priory, Thetford was a Benedictine priory on the Suffolk side of Thetford, England. It was located at the current site of the British Trust for Ornithology, South of Nuns Bridges Road.
Farewell Priory was a Benedictine nunnery near Lichfield in Staffordshire, England. Although it received considerable episcopal support, it was always small and poor. It was dissolved in 1527 as a by-product of Cardinal Wolsey's scheme to establish a college within Oxford University.
Black Ladies Priory was a house of Benedictine nuns, located about 4 km west of Brewood in Staffordshire, on the northern edge of the hamlet of Kiddemore Green. Founded in the mid-12th century, it was a small, often struggling, house. It was dissolved in 1538, and a large house was built on the site in Tudor and Jacobean styles by the Giffard family of Chillington Hall. Much of this is incorporated in the present Black Ladies, a large, Grade II*-listed, private residence.
Elizabeth Cressener was an English prioress of the Dominican Dartford Priory in Kent. One of her nuns was a Princess, daughter of Edward IV. She lived to see the start of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.