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The Order of the Holy Cross (Crutched Friars) In England
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 February 2009
Extract
One of the religious communities dissolved in the reign of Henry VIII was described in its deed of surrender as ‘prior et conventus domus fratrum ordinis sanctae Crucis juxta Turrim Lond. vulgariter nuncupatae The Crossed Fryers’ —the house of the brethren of the Holy Cross, popularly called the ‘crossed friars’; a house whose memory is kept alive by the street near the Tower of London known as ‘Crutched Friars.’ The object of this paper is to give some account of the order to which it belonged, and to attempt to determine the number of its establishments in this country. It will be shown that its members were canons regular, and, assuming this for the moment, something must be said in regard to their designation as the crossed, crouched, or crutched friars.
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References
page 191 note 1 Rymer, , Foedera (ed. of 1704–1735), xiv. 610.Google Scholar
page 191 note 2 In Holland, and Belgium where the order still exists, they are known as Kruisheeren or, by the French-speaking population, Croisiers. A London weekly newspaper, The Tablet, has taken to speak of them as the ‘Crozier fathers,’ which looks as if there were in the minds of those responsible some confusion between a crozier and a cross!
page 192 note 1 The term ‘Order of the Holy Cross’ is itself not free from confusion; it has sometimes been applied to the Order of the Holy Sepulchre.
page 192 note 2 In the Hist. MSS. Commission Reports on Various Collections, iv. 330Google Scholar, may be seen the translation of a lease granted in 1320 by the canons regular of Tandridge, which begins: ‘Grant by Friar Thomas, Prior of Tanregge, and the Canons of the said Convent to,’ &c. One wonders whether the author of this report would describe an abbot of Westminster as Friar X! If not, why not?
page 193 note 1 Rymer, , Foedera, xiv. 613.Google Scholar
page 194 note 1 In the discussion which followed the reading of this paper, Mr. Theodore Craib pointed out that in the early Chancery proceedings there was a case relating to some crutched friars of Exeter. In connexion with this Mr. R. C. Fowler very kindly called my attention to a note which he had written for the Devon and Cornwall Notes and Queries (vi. 90); and also to another, contributed by Mr. Wilfrid Bowring (ib. vi. 107Google Scholar), calling attention to an Exeter will of 1514 which had been printed in the same magazine (iv. 150–151). One of the parties to the Chancery suit was Richard Hyll ‘prior of the Crosse Freres of the cite of Exeter.’ This was in 1500–1501; and in the will, there is a bequest to the ‘crossid fryers of St. John's.’ On looking at Oliver's Monasticon, we found that in 1500–1501, the prior of St. John's hospital was Richard Hyll.
page 195 note 1 I am much indebted both for facts and for documents to the Annales canonicorum regularium S. Augustini ordinis S. Crucis, which was published at Bois-le-Duc in 1858, being edited by Dr. Cornelius Rudolph Hermans. The Chronicon of Fr. Henry Russell, published at Cologne in 1635, forms the basis of the work: Hermans contributed an abundance of notes and of documents.
page 195 note 2 Mire, Le, Opera Diplomatica (Brussels, 1723–1748), iv. 38.Google Scholar This instruction to the bishop-elect of Liège is wrongly entered in the Calendar of Papal Letters, i. 249Google Scholar, as having been addressed to the bishop of Lincoln: in this Mr. Bliss apparently followed Berger's, M. Registres d'Innocent IV, No. 4155 (vol. ii. p. 9).Google Scholar
page 195 note 3 Mire, Le, op. cit. iv. 38, 39.Google Scholar
page 196 note 1 Monasticon (Paris 1624), lib. i. 9 (p. 38).Google Scholar
page 196 note 2 Distinctio Ia cap. 13, De recipiendis—Nullus prior aliquem recipiat in canonicum vel conversum nisi de licentia prioris Hoyensis vel visitatoris.
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page 197 note 2 Mire, Le, op. cit. iv. 40.Google Scholar
page 197 note 3 For a transcript of this bull, I am indebted to the courtesy of the Very Rev. L. Honhon, prior of the Kruisheeren of Diest, who had already laid me under great obligations by the ready kindness with which he had more than once given me information on points relating to his order. The transcript, I should say, reached me after the reading of the paper.
page 197 note 4 The Italian order of Lateran canons has gone farther still, for not only do they require the permission of the general for profession, but the profession itself is for the order and not for a particular house; the effect of this being that a canon may be moved from house to house and from province to province. Very little is left in common with the old canons regular (e.g. those of St. Maurice d'Agaune in Switzerland) beyond the name and the habit—and even part of the habit was abandoned in the sixteenth century.
page 198 note 1 Dizionario, xviii. 304.Google Scholar
page 198 note 2 See a bull of Urban III in Migne, P.L. ccii. 1507.Google Scholar
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page 199 note 2 The only opinions to the contrary known to me are those expressed by Morant in his History of Colchester and by Mr. A. G. Little in the Victoria History of Oxfordshire: both distinguish the ‘friars’ of the Holy Cross from the cross-bearing friars mentioned by Matthew Paris.
page 200 note 1 Cal. Pat. 28 Hen. 3, m. 2. The first ‘order’ is written quite clearly on the roll: it is an obvious, and very natural, blunder on the part of the scribe. The 1250 entry suggests the probable correction.
page 200 note 2 Ibid., 34 Hen. 3, m. 6.
page 200 note 3 Ibid., 33 Hen. 3, m. 2.
page 200 note 4 Her charter is undated, but there is a confirmation entered on the charter roll of 1251. The charter is printed in the History of Northumberland (issued under the direction of the Northumberland County History Committee), vol. i. (Parish of Bamburgh), p. 249, note. It was printed from the original in the possession of the late Canon Raine.
page 201 note 1 Assize Roll 40 Hen. 3, printed (1891) by Surtees Society in Three Early Assize Rolls for the County of Northumberland, at p. 10.Google Scholar
page 201 note 2 Cal. Pat. 41 Hen. 3, m. 1.
page 201 note 3 Cart, prioratus de Gyseburne (Surtees Society), i. p. 389Google Scholar, and cf. Cal. Pat. 4 Edw. 2, p. 1, m. 20. The archbishop of York speaks of the religious who had gone there as ‘se de ordine fratrum de Cruce praetendentes.’ They were probably canons of the Holy Cross, but may have belonged to some other body.
page 201 note 4 Cal. Pat. 16 Edw. 3, p. 2, m. 25.
page 201 note 5 Cat. Pat. 21 Edw. 3, p. 2, m. 6. I know of nothing to show that a foundation was actually made either here or at Blakelowe.
page 201 note 6 Cal. Pat. 23 Edw. 3, p. 1, m. 22.
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page 201 note 9 Vol. vi. 1586. Mr. A. G. Little, writing of this foundation in the Victoria History of Oxfordshire, says that this licence is still preserved in the archives of Merton College, Oxford.
page 201 note 10 There is no notice of this priory among the religious houses in the Victoria History of Suffolk.
page 202 note 1 Index of Inquis. ad quod damnum, i. 32.Google Scholar
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page 202 note 4 Cal. Pat. 5 Edw. 3, p. 2, m. 1.
page 202 note 5 Ibid., 21 Edw. 3, p. 1, m. 10.
page 202 note 6 Ibid., 16 Edw. 2, p. 2, m. 25.
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page 203 note 1 Cal. Pat. 26 Hen. 6, p. 2, m. 19.
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page 203 note 4 Cal. Pat. 35 Hen. 3, m. 4.
page 203 note 5 Ibid., 11 Edw 1., m. 21.
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page 205 note 1 See Wykeham's Register (Hampshire Record Society), i. 11–14.Google Scholar
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page 206 note 1 Fuit constitutus vicarius generalis nomine Wilhelmus de Sutphalia ad visitandam et reformandam Angliam. [Hermans, ii. 282Google Scholar, citing Halloix Diffiinitiones, MS. in 8vo, ff. 101, 102 and Diff. Cap. Gen. MS. Udensis in 4to.]
page 206 note 2 Constitutions Dist. ii. cap. 7 De visitatoribus.
page 206 note 3 Confirmatus fuit Guilelmus de Zutphalia in suo vicariata generalatus pro reformatione et visitatione Angliae. [Hermans ii. 291, same authorities, but ff. 102, 103 of Halloix.]
page 206 note 4 Fr. Goswinus Koviomagi, prior in Wateniss, ordinatus visitator plena auctoritate et procurator conventuum regnorum et terrarum Angliae, Scotiae, Hyberniae et Wallagiae: Fr. Joannes Essendiae item reformater tarn in disciplina regulari quam in actibus conventuum et fratrum ordinis in Londonia nostri usque ad revocationem nostram. [Hermans, ii. 388.]Google Scholar
page 207 note 1 [1492] Ultimo autem vitae suae Everhardus [ab Orsoy] misit ad reformandum conventum Londoniensem in Anglia fratrem Gerbrandum priorem Hornensem quern per earn provinciam suum generalera vicarium constituit, necnon F. Cornelium Gerbrandi priorern Novi Fondi, F. Christianum Coloniensem, et F. Lucam de Mechlinia Huensem qui in reformatione eaclem viriliter agonizantes, superatis pluribus periculis, divina gratia cooperante et bonorum virorum auxilio optatum finem reformationis adepti sunt, fratre Christiano priore ibi constitute. [Russel, Chron. apud Hermans, i. 146.]Google Scholar
page 207 note 2 Ordinatus fuit P. Henricus prior in Doneton in nostrum vicarium et provincialem in toto regno Angliae generali auctoritate usque ad revocationem P. Generalis. [Hermans, iii. 24Google Scholar.] The last prior of Donington was Henry ‘Weete,’ who was said by Williams and London, the king's visitors, in a letter to Sir Richard Riche, in 1538, to be ‘an extreme aged man.’ [Lett, and Pap., xiii. (2) 1025, and cf. xv. 1032, p. 544.]Google Scholar
page 207 note 3 Anno 1534 SUD ven. P. Generali Thoma de Gouda capitulum generale ultimos visitatores deputat his verbis: Per Angliam visitabit venerabilis prior in Doniton provincialis Angliae cum ven. priore Colcestriae. Conventum in Doniton visitabit ven. prior Colcestriae cum socio per eum assumendo. [Hertzworms, , Rel. S. Crucis Auxeses, 23, 24 apud Hermans, I. pt. ii. p. 17 note.]Google Scholar
page 207 note 4 Chronicon addit quod Ven. P. Ubachius ut vidit de tot et tam egregiis conventibus actum esse, moerore tabescens, obierit Huii. [Hertzworms loc. cit.]
page 208 note 1 Eighth Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Records, App. 2.Google Scholar
page 208 note 2 Ibid.