6 - John of Northwold’s Early Problems and Reforms

Summary

At the outset of his abbacy in 1279, Abbot John was beset by abuses in the abbey’s domestic management and apparently by a strong movement in the convent in favour of reform. Just possibly he had bargained with the monks for their support in the abbatial election by promising to implement the reforms which they demanded. Less than a year after his election two key figures in the convent’s administration were replaced by new men. The prior, Robert Russel, who had held office throughout Simon’s abbacy, ‘after he had suffered from paralysis for some time, at length on the feast of St Paul (18 March) resigned his office, having consideration for his infirmity’. The sacrist, Simon of Kingston, about whose term of office the author of the Gesta sacristarum could find nothing memorable to report, also resigned. Like Russel, he may have been an old man since he was subcellarer already early in Abbot Simon’s time. The new prior was Stephen of Ixworth. Whether he was elected by the monks and approved by Abbot John, or appointed by the latter with the convent’s consent, is not known. The new sacrist was William of Hoo, a man of outstanding energy and ability who ruled the sacristy for fourteen years with notable success.

These new appointments may have been among terms offered by John to the monks in exchange for his election. The concessions preserved in the statute issued on 16 October 1280 can be seen in the same light. The statute was formulated after full discussion between Abbot John, Prior Stephen and senior monks. In effect, Abbot John conceded that the usurpations of the monks’ rights and other abuses perpetrated under Abbot Simon would be corrected. If the statute did in fact originate as part of an attempt by John to win conventual support for his election to the abbacy, there would be a possible precedent. A draft survives, datable to c. 1215, of an agreement between an (unnamed) abbot of St Edmunds and the convent which was intended to rectify various abuses perpetrated by an (again unnamed) abbot, although the contents of the agreement make it plain that the culpable abbot was Samson.