8 - Sack Friars, c. 1270–1305

Summary

THE Friars of the Penitence of Jesus Christ, popularly known as the Sack Friars, were a mendicant movement formed in Provence in the 1240s, inspired by the teaching of Franciscans. Their official name hints at their connection to penitential groups of lay people such as Beguines, while their unofficial name in the vernacular must refer to the sack-like cloth they wore, and reveals the emphasis the friars placed on humility and poverty. In 1251 they received official approval from the pope and adopted a Dominican version of the monastic Rule of St Augustine. The movement spread rapidly and won high-ranking backers including Louis IX of France and Henry III of England. By the third quarter of the thirteenth century they were the third largest order of friars, behind the Dominicans and Franciscans, of course, but often more numerous in members and more popular with lay people than the Carmelites and Augustine friars. The Sack friars planned their move into England in 1256 and they arrived the following year.

They set up their first English house in London, initially based in the parish of St Lawrence Jewry. They soon moved to a larger site just outside the city walls to the north, probably before 1259, funded by a donation of 100 marks (£66 13s 4d) from Henry III. This first priory was in the parish of St Botolph Aldersgate, although its precise location is not known. In the 1260s the friars received continuing support from the king in the form of grants of food and fuel and, in 1266 and 1268, of timber for building projects and repairs. They received a donation of land in St Botolph from a lay benefactor with which to enlarge their priory and they owned at least one property in another parish. However, by the end of the decade the friars had chosen to move to another site within the walls, perhaps because the Aldersgate friary was too close to the Grey Friars, or because they wanted a more central and prestigious location. The Sack friars received a royal licence to sell their Aldersgate friary in February 1270, presumably having acquired (and begun work on?) a new site in Colechurch Street, later known as Old Jewry (Figure 58).