Lewes Priory dependencies

Text Box: Ten monasteries (including Reading and Thetford) were founded with monks from Lewes Priory in the 12th C. Eight of these became permanently dependent, 6 in England and 2 in Normandy, making Lewes the only English monastery with French dependencies. Castle Acre and Mortemer-sur-Eaulne, like Lewes, were de Warenne foundations built close to major castles. Of the eight, three were cells of less than 5 monks. In 1324 Stanesgate consisted of a prior and 3 monks, whilst in the 1250s –1260s numbers at Mortemer and Etoutteville fluctuated between 2-4 and 1-2 respectively and both priories’ revenues were out to farm. These smaller cells, although common in the Cluniac Order, offered obvious potential for personality clashes and in 1259 the Archbishop of Rouen noted that at Mortemer the 2 monks then resident refused either to eat with each other or to say services together. Monkton Farleigh, Monks Horton and Prittlewell all had incomes of between £125-150 a year in 1291 and so could sustain up to a dozen monks each, although in practice numbers were often lower as at Monks Horton in 1324 when there was a prior and 7 monks resident. Clifford in Herefordshire with an income of £62 in 1291 was of intermediate size whilst Castle Acre, worth £314 a year in 1291 was the second wealthiest Cluniac monastery in England at that time, although this was still less than a third of Lewes’s income of £1013 in the same year, making it one of the wealthiest monasteries in England. Once a year, at the feast of St Pancras all 8 subordinate priors were expected to come to Lewes for the patronal festival and annual Chapter General, just as the prior of Lewes was expected to attend the annual chapter at Easter at Cluny

© Graham Mayhew 2007