I’ve written about the Augustinians of Dunstable before but I’m trying to decide whether I want to keep Medieval Dunstable (edited by Yates, Jean ) or not. It was one of five houses founded by King Henry I. By the time he died there were nearly two hundred Augustinian monastic houses in England which just goes to show how keen his nobility were to get into his good books. Apparently The Augustinians were not an enclosed order. The canons were all ordained priests who chose to live as a monastic community; they served the neighbourhoods where they lived as priests and offered hospitality. And that’s one of the reasons why Dunstable ended up with lands in Derbyshire. Situated on Watling Street, it was one of the busiest medieval roads in the kingdom but unlike the hotel chain which advertises a good night’s sleep the canons were unable to charge for the food and lodgings they offered. Instead, they were given gifts by grateful travellers.
Much of the monastic land was in the Dunstable environs as were the churches to which the canons held the advowson – or the right to appoint the priest. They also held land and churches in Buckinghamshire and, this is where I become interested, Derbyshire. Bradbourne Manor which was part of the Honour of Tutbury lay in the hands of the Cauceis family. Sir Godfrey de Cauceis granted the chapels at Ballidon, Brassington, Tissington and Atlow to the canons as well as the tithes at Aldwark and Lee Hall. (Yates, Jean, (Ed.), ‘Churches and Lands: Buckinghamshire, Derbyshire, Hertfordshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire & Oxfordshire’, in Medieval Dunstable, p.231.)
Unfortunately Godfrey died the following year and although the gift was confirmed, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of Coventry kept episcopal and parish rights for himself. With so many fingers in the pie it is perhaps not surprising that the prior at Dunstable took matters further. In 1215 the case went to Rome and three judges were appointed to take a closer look at the Peak District churches. The rector at Bradbourne, Robert, was the son of the previous incumbent and yes, Henry the vicar at Ballidon was also the progeny of the previous cleric. Both men were described as being incontinent – which has nothing to do with the modern meaning and more to do with the keeping of mistresses. I suppose that it’s only fair that William who was the chaplain at Tissington kept moth mistresses and hunting dogs. As a result of these discoveries, which all three men denied, the canons at Dunstable were allowed to appoint new vicars.
And just when it seems you’ve got a handle on these things in 1230, Pope Gregory extracted a tenth tax on the income from Dunstable’s Peak District churches. In 1242 the canons required a new charter for the church at Bradbourne because the old one was nibbled by mice. In the decades that followed the canons made an annual visit to the Peak District to inspect the books – and possibly to enjoy the countryside. Not that it was always plain sailing. Sheep, as any hill farmer will tell you, are quite keen on finding innovative ways to die and there were several years when disease took its toll but in general the wool trade was a profitable one at this time.
And it turns out that the canons held church rights along Watling Street while at Pattishall, the lord of the manor came to an agreement with the prior for him to stay three times a year depending on the number of horses he had with him (Yates, p.240.). The Augustinians already owned land in Northamptonshire – think of it as joining the dots. And there was the Augustinian Priory at Repton, virtually on the doorstep.
Dunstable’s ownership of various Peak District lands and churches came to an end in 1540 with its dissolution. However, Medieval Dunstable is going back to its place on the bookshelf – the section about Derbyshire is small but extremely useful and I have been reminded that I need to retake photos of the various churches that Dunstable held but possibly not on a day when the rain is coming in horizontally.
There may have been a church on the site of All Saints in Breadsall since Saxon times – certainly the stones at the bottom of the tower suggest as much. The Normans rebuilt and there were further changes in the thirteenth century to create a place of worship in the Early English style. Succeeding generations placed their mark on the building. It even boasted a set of chained medieval books and an Elizabethan altar until the night of 4th June 1914 when the whole lot went up in smoke.
The problem with this neat scenario is that aside from Alice’s confession (seated on the far left of the picture next to her two daughters and a prison warder) the only evidence of suffragette involvement were three letters which arrived after the event and some graffiti on a wall a mile away – in other cases letters were left at the scene at the time of the arson rather than arriving afterwards. The only other evidence was a woman sized hole in a window and a hat pin which was found nearby.