St Leonard's Priory, London

Last updated

St Leonard's Priory was a Benedictine nunnery in what is now east London, which gave its name to Bromley St Leonard (today known as Bromley-by-Bow or simply Bromley). [1] [2]

Contents

History

Middle Ages

It was first recorded in 1122 as an institution for nine nuns and a prioress - around the time of its Dissolution the priory's own tradition was that it had been founded by Maurice or Richard de Belmeis I, though the antiquarian John Leland believed it had been a co-foundation by William of London and William Roscelin. [3] [4] It was the burial place of some of the Earls of Hereford and of Essex as well as of a daughter of William, Earl of Henault.

Initially held by Geoffrey, Earl of Essex, the lands on which the priory stood had shifted to the prior and canons of Holy Trinity Priory, Aldgate by 1292. It achieved notoriety in the Geoffrey Chaucer's description of the Nun Prioress in the General Prologue to his Canterbury Tales :

Ther was also a nonne, a prioresse,
That of hir smylyng was ful symple and coy;
Hire gretteste ooth was but by seinte loy;
And she was cleped madame eglentyne.
Ful weel she soong the service dyvyne,
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And frenssh she spak ful faire and fetisly,
After the scole of stratford atte bowe,
For frenssh of parys was to hire unknowe. [5]

This was a barbed reference as it implied the Prioress had learned French from the Benedictine nuns in a distinct Anglo-Norman dialect. [6] By this time the dialect had lost prestige and was being ridiculed as sub-standard French.

Dissolution and after

St Mary's Church, Bromley St Leonard's StMarysChurchBromleyStLeonards.jpg
St Mary's Church, Bromley St Leonard's

The priory was destroyed during the first phase of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536, along with many other smaller religious house. Its books were moved to Westminster Abbey to join the library for the new Diocese of Westminster and the church retained to form a new parish church. [7] Sybil Kirke was the last prioress – she was granted an annual pension of £15 and allowed to retain 35 shillings 2 pence worth of Priory goods. Initially she was also granted the retention of some of the priory's demesne lands to cover her household expenses. She lived until at least 1553. [8]

Most of the rest of the building's contents (such as its cattle and corn) were sold by the king's commissioners to Sir Ralph Sadleir, who lived at Sutton House in Homerton and was privy councillor to Henry VIII. Some were also sold to Mr More, steward to the Lord Chancellor. In February 1539 the crown also granted Sadleir the priory's site, buildings and most of its lands, including the manor of Bromley, though initially these had all been sold to William Rolte. All that remains of the grounds of the Abbey is the parish church's small neglected churchyard. [9]

Related Research Articles

Bromley-by-Bow Human settlement in England

Bromley, commonly known as Bromley-by-Bow, is a district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London, located on the western banks of the River Lea, in the Lower Lea Valley in East London.

Littlemore Human settlement in England

Littlemore is a district and civil parish in Oxford, England. The civil parish includes part of Rose Hill. It is about 2+12 miles (4 km) southeast of the city centre of Oxford, between Rose Hill, Blackbird Leys, Cowley, and Sandford-on-Thames. The 2011 Census recorded the parish's population as 5,646, with the electoral ward having a total population of 6,441.

White Ladies Priory

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.

Arthington Priory

Arthington Priory was an English monastery which was home to a community of nuns in Arthington, West Yorkshire, founded in the mid-12th century. The priory land is occupied by a residence called "Arthington Hall", which was built around 1585, and little, if anything, remains of the priory. The site of the priory church is possibly now occupied by a farmhouse called The Nunnery. The community was the only one of nuns of the Cluniac congregation in Yorkshire and one of two in England. It was established through a grant by Peter de Arthington.

Amesbury Abbey was a Benedictine abbey of women at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, founded by Queen Ælfthryth in about the year 979 on what may have been the site of an earlier monastery. The abbey was dissolved in 1177 by Henry II, who founded in its place a house of the Order of Fontevraud, known as Amesbury Priory.

Westwood Priory was a priory of Benedictine nuns founded in 1153, near Droitwich, Worcestershire, England. It was a daughter house of Fontevraud Abbey, seized by the English crown in 1537 during the Dissolution of the monasteries.

Armathwaite Nunnery was a Benedictine nunnery in Cumbria, England. It was situated near the confluence of the rivers Croglin Water and Eden in the southern angle of the parish of Ainstable, and was first known as the nunnery of Ainstable.

Seaton Priory

Originally called the nunnery of Lekeley from the name of the land it was built upon, the former nunnery of Seaton is to the north of the parish of Bootle, Cumbria, England.

Kings Mead Priory

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.

Wilberfoss Priory was a priory in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.

Langley Priory

Langley Priory is a former Benedictine nunnery in Leicestershire, England. It is located around a mile and a half south of East Midlands Airport; around a mile from the village of Diseworth. Population figures are included in the civil parish of Breedon on the Hill.

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.

Carrow Abbey

Carrow Abbey is a former Benedictine priory in Bracondale, southeast Norwich, England. The village on the site used to be called Carrow and gives its name to Carrow Road, the football ground of Norwich F.C., located just metres to the north. Granted by charter of King Stephen, the abbey was founded ca. 1146, and became a Grade I listed building in 1954.

Farewell Priory

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.

Bungay Priory Priory in Suffolk, England

Bungay Priory was a Benedictine nunnery in the town of Bungay in the English county of Suffolk. It was founded c. 1160-1185 by the Countess Gundreda, wife or widow of Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk, upon lands of her maritagium, and was confirmed to her and her second husband Roger de Glanville by King Henry II. It was dissolved in about 1536. At the time of the suppression it consisted of a prioress and 11 nuns. The priory church, the Church of the Holy Cross, became the Church of St Mary, the parish church in Bungay. Although ruins of the priory remain to the east of the church, any remaining intact buildings are likely to have been destroyed in the Bungay fire of 1688 which severely damaged the church itself. The church and the ruins of the priory are a Grade I listed building.

St. Marys Priory (Lothian)

St. Mary's Priory, North Berwick, was a monastery of nuns in medieval East Lothian, Scotland. Founded by Donnchad I, Earl of Fife around 1150, the priory lasted for more than four centuries, declining and disappearing after the Scottish Reformation. It had been endowed by the Earls of Carrick as well as the Earls of Fife, but over time lost its dependence on these and came to be controlled by the more locally based Home family, who eventually acquired the priory's lands as a free barony.

Black Ladies Priory

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.

St Marys Church, Bromley St Leonards

St Mary's Church, Bow was a Church of England parish church in Bromley St Leonard's in east London. 'Bromley St Leonard's' was split from the parish of Stepney in 1536, reusing the priory church from the recently dissolved St Leonard's Priory, a Benedictine nunnery. It was destroyed by bombing in World War II and obliterated by the building of the Blackwall Tunnel approach road, dividing the main residential body of the parish from the river front, though its churchyard survives.

Sybil Montagu, Prioress of Amesbury

Sybil Montagu or Montague or de Montague or Montacute was a daughter of John de Montagu, 1st Baron Montagu and his wife Margaret de Monthermer. At an unknown date she entered Amesbury Priory and became a nun, then in 1391 was elected the monastery's prioress. Her vigorous government led to a few stormy years in the monastery, in the period when the conflict between Richard II and his eventual successor Henry IV came to a head. She weathered that and later storms and died as prioress in 1420.

Margaret Pygot was an English prioress of Carrow Abbey. She put the Abbey on a firm financial footing.

References

  1. "Bromley-by-Bow - Hidden London". hidden-london.com.
  2. "The Priory of St Leonard Stratford-at-Bow". 15 May 2014.
  3. Hawkins, Duncan (2005). "The Priory of St Leonard Stratford-at-Bow and Parish Church of St Mary Bromley-by-Bow" (PDF). archaeologydataservice.ac.uk. Retrieved 2019-06-17.
  4. "Bromley by Bow's history - eastlondonhistory.com". eastlondonhistory.com.
  5. Line 125. ChaucerThe Canterbury Tales accessed on 14 Nov 2006
  6. "With Tongues: Old Language Variety: ANGLO-NORMAN".
  7. "Bromley St Leonard's - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.
  8. "Bromley St. Leonard. Pt.2 (1934)". www.mernick.org.uk.
  9. "Religious Houses: House of Benedictine nuns - British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk.

Coordinates: 51°31′42″N0°00′47″W / 51.52840°N 0.01305°W / 51.52840; -0.01305