CHAPTER I - Royal Administration of Religious Houses

Summary

One of the most interesting exercises of the royal authority which the Patent Rolls disclose is the king's intervention in the affairs of certain financially embarrassed monasteries. The measures taken in a number of such cases have been described in detail in the accounts of individual religious houses published in the Victoria County Histories and elsewhere; but, so far, no attempt to study the question of royal intervention as a whole appears to have been undertaken. It is indeed a somewhat discouraging subject, for the evidence very frequently ceases just where it is most needed, and, consequently, the investigation seems to raise more problems than it solves. In spite of its defects, however, the evidence seemed sufficient to throw light on some points of interest concerning the internal affairs of the monasteries, and considerably to increase our knowledge of their relations to the king, and, consequently, an attempt to study the question of the royal intervention seemed to form a necessary part of the present work.

Here, as elsewhere, I shall deal mainly with the records of the reign of Edward III, though in this case my study has necessarily included a careful examination of the documents of the three preceding reigns. A similar investigation of the evidence subsequent to the reign of Edward III has not been possible. If it were undertaken it might considerably alter much that I have said here, especially as the end of Edward III's reign has been taken as a purely arbitrary limit to this enquiry and marks no important point in the development of the present problem. Therefore such conclusions as I have reached must be regarded as merely tentative.