The Architectural Antiquities of Great Britain Volume 4; Represented and Illustrated in a Series of Views, Elevations, Plans, Sections, and Details, of Various Ancient English Edifices with Historical and Descriptive Accounts of Each (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1814 Excerpt: ...had the grant (or confirmation) of the manor of Walsingham Parva, and a fair for eight days." In the twenty-first year of Edward the First they were found to possess temporalities and spiritualities, to the value of 157l. 13 s. 8d. per ann. which in those days was a very considerable sum. About seven years afterwards they acquired a grant of free warren in this town, and in Holkham and Burnham. Edward the Second, at the solicitation of his queen, Isabel, granted them "license of mortmain to the value of forty marks per ann. and in part thereof to appropriate the church of St. Peter's in Walsingham-Magna, the patronage of the priory being then, and long before, in the Earls of Clare." The same king further granted them a patent for acquiring additional lands and tenements to the amount of forty pounds annual rent. His successor, Edward III. likewise granted this establishment several licences for the acquisition and exchange of property; as did also Henry the Fourth and Sixth. Hence, and from the liberality of devotees, this priory attained a more elevated rank, and a higher degree of prosperity and wealth, than most other priories in England. Among the privileges possessed by its priors was that of " a mortuary of every parishioner in the parish in Walsingham, of the second best animal, and if there was but one, then of that." At its dissolution, which took place in the thirtieth year of Henry VIII. its annual revenues were estimated, according to Dugdale, at 391l. lis. 7d. ob. or, as Speed, at 446l. 14s. 4d. That its fate was not unmerited, nor prejudicial to the cause of morality, is sufficiently manifested by the report of the visitors, from which it appears that no fewer than six of the canons " confessed themselves guilty ...