CHAPTER II - Royal Visitations of Hospitals and Free Chapels

Summary

In the affairs of the monasteries which have been discussed in the last chapter, the king's authority was largely restricted to temporal matters and was in all cases limited by the rights of the bishops and of the religious orders to which the monasteries belonged. But there were certain ecclesiastical foundations over which the power of the crown was practically absolute. These were those collegiate churches which were known as “royal free chapels”, and the hospitals which either owed their establishment to some king of England or had acquired the status of royal foundations through their patronage having passed to the crown by escheat or gift. These were held to be exempt from the jurisdiction of their diocesans, and subject only to the authority of those who were set over them by the crown. Their immunity from episcopal control was not indeed quietly conceded by the church; bishops and archbishops repeatedly endeavoured to exercise in them the rights of visitors, but such attempts almost invariably aroused strenuous opposition both from the crown and from the ecclesiastics who were actually in possession and, consequently, the bishops were seldom successful. The most important conflicts over this right belong, however, to the half century preceding our period, and by the beginning of Edward III's reign the bishops had, tacitly at least, acknowledged the exemption of these houses. During the time here considered, we rarely meet with attempts to subject a house of this kind to episcopal control.