CHAPTER VTHE FINANCES OF BURTON ABBEY
Many causes had combined to undermine the stability of the religious houses. Their pecuniary usefulness to Pope and King tended to make them the shuttlecock of politics. Their extensive worldly possessions made them objects of jealousy to their neighbours, while the secular spirit with which they became infected when they were drawn into the “full stream of the world” weakened their spiritual influence and made them at once more susceptible to attacks and less capable of effective opposition. Events and tendencies beyond their power to control, like the Black Death, the Hundred Years’ War, the Wars of the Roses, and the Revival of Learning, in turn exercised a disastrous influence upon them.
Seriously affected in wealth, numbers, and efficiency by the Black Death and its consequences; sharing in the lawlessness and demoralisation which accompanied the French War in its later stages, and the Wars of the Roses; lacking the supervision and guidance which active bishops had at any rate attempted, and not always ineffectually, to exercise; in the sixteenth century the religious houses were very different in character from what they had originally been. Even in material things they had changed. They had once been leaders in agricultural development, but their methods were now old-fashioned, ineffective, and outof date. Their wide domains were no longer the sources of wealth they formerly had been. New methods and new outlets for trade had left them behind. Unwise leases only gave temporary relief, and crippled instead of improving resources. All landowners were indeed feeling the effects of the economic changes, and a result was increased claims upon the monasteries by kings and patrons; and the religious houses were not in a condition to make effective opposition. They were not worse than their neighbours: their weakness lay in the fact that they were so little different from them. Up to the present there had been no definite charges of moral delinquency brought by authority against the monastic system. Good or bad, they were looked upon as part of the settled order of things by all except a few theorists and extremists.
There is no call, therefore, to consider as yet the question of their moral condition. In these earlier years of the “Reformation” the subject of interest to the government of the day was their financial value. With their finances only, therefore, we are as yet concerned.
WithValor Ecclesiasticusto guide us as to the main outlines, it is possible to form a fairly correct estimate of the material condition of the Staffordshire houses at the time when the idea of the Dissolution of the Monasteries was being gradually evolved. We are able to draw up a balance sheet for each of the houses, and to obtain an insight into its revenues, possessions, and expenditure.
The largest and most important house in Staffordshirewas the Benedictine Abbey of Burton-on-Trent. It had been of some renown in the past. Its Chronicle[70]incorporated many historical documents of first-rate importance. It had done much for the town. It had frequently given hospitality to kings, prelates, and lords: one of its rooms was actually still called “the King’s Chamber.” Recently its Abbot, Dr. William Boston, had made himself acceptable to Cromwell, had been summoned to Parliament, had been placed in various positions where he could make himself useful to the Government, and had been promoted to the headship of the great Abbey of Westminster. His successor at Burton had been elected directly through the influence of Cromwell’s representatives and he retained Cromwell’s favour accordingly. It might have been expected that when the Commissioners visited Burton-on-Trent they would be received with cordiality and would be able to count on every assistance.
It is surprising, therefore, to find that Burton Abbey is the only one in England where we know that an entirely false return was supplied. Indeed the Return from Burton Abbey which the Commissioners for Tenths sent in was so entirely erroneous that a second survey had to be made. There are two valuations of some other monasteries, but in such cases one is really an abbreviation of the other. The second survey of Burton is, however, a substitute for the first.
The original Summary inValor Ecclesiasticusappears in its place[71]but is superseded by another whichis written on a separate paper attached to the parchment.[72]The second is made authoritative by a note appended at the foot of the first survey under the following circumstances. The gross income having been stated to be £356 16s. 3½d. and the expenses £89 2s. O½d. (leaving a balance of £267 14s. 3d.), the tithe would, therefore, be under ordinary circumstances £26 15s. 5d. But the amount is stated to be £41 4s. 6d., with the explanatory note: “Plus oneratur pro xiiiili.ixs.id.per billam domini cancellarii.” On referring to the second survey we find it is signed by the Chancellor, Thomas Audley, and gives the gross income as £501 7s. 0½d. It allows the correctness of the expenditure as stated in the other survey, and when this is deducted from the revised total the net income becomes £412 5s., the tithe from which is that previously noted, namely £14 9s. 1d. more than was due according to the first survey.
The problem raised by the existence of the two surveys is interesting, and may be compared with a similar one which arises in the early history of the same Abbey. There is no mention in Domesday Book of the bulk of the territory of the Manor and Parish of Burton-on-Trent, some 6,000 acres, which the Abbey possessed and in the midst of which it stood. Although the land lay in two counties and should have been surveyed by two distinct sets of Domesday officials, no trace of any report of either has been found, and the final summary is silent. Whether the Abbot in the eleventh century procured the suppression by tampering with both sets of commissioners, orwhether he evaded the survey of both by playing off one against the other, or whether he was specially exempted by the Crown, cannot be known.
In the case of Henry VIII’s survey there is much the same uncertainty. External history tells us nothing, and little can be gleaned from the summaries themselves. The following table is an attempt to exhibit a comparative analysis of the two surveys. The income, temporal and spiritual, is arranged according to its sources and character. It must be borne in mind that here we have to deal with the items as they are detailed and not with the official totals as those are given, sometimes wrongly, inValor Ecclesiasticus. The totals shown in the table do not, therefore, always agree with the figures which appeared in the table on page 64. (See Notes following that table.)
This was not the first occasion on which Burton had pretended to be poorer than it actually was. The royal claim to nominate men, disbanded soldiers or others for whom it was desired to provide at other people’s expense, to corrodies at the religious houses, was at times a grave abuse. The Patent Rolls show vast numbers of such nominations. In the course of a few years we find, as regards Burton only,[73]two men sent there in 1316 and another sent in 1317; in 1318 John le Treour was sent on account of his good service to the King and to Queen Isabella in the place of one who had died; Treour lived till 1323, and on his death John le Nakerer was immediately substituted. The presence of such outsiders in what professed to be religious communities must have been exceedingly embarrassing to any who were trying to live in the spirit of the rules, and most prejudicial to spirituality and discipline. It was, however, difficult to oppose the royal commands. Burton tried to do so in 1310 and failed ignominiously.[74]Thomas de Bannebury, who had long served Edward II and his father, was sent to the Abbot and Convent to receive the necessaries of life in food and drink, clothing, etc., according to his estate. They replied to the royal missive with a profession of their willingness to acquiesce if they had the power to do so, but they pleaded that their house was the poorest and smallest of their Order in England, and was more heavily charged than any in proportion to its means. They, therefore, asserted their inability to receive the royal pensioner. For answer, they were told that there was trustworthy evidence that their assertions were false, and on their continued efforts to avoid compliance they were summarily ordered to admit Bannebury, and were told that their excuses were frivolous, untruthful, and unacceptable.
BURTON-ON-TRENT: INCOME (“TEMPORALITIES”)
Part 1 of table
Part 2 of table
Part 3 of table
1st Total £271 16s. 3½d.[given in _V.E._ as £cclxxi xi. iii ob.]
2nd Total £414 14s. 4½d.[given in _V.E._ as £ccccii xv iiii ob.]