Monks Kirby Priory

Monks Kirby Priory was a Benedictine priory established in 1077 in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, England. The Priory was suppressed in 1415 and its estates and revenues were given to the Carthusian priory of Axholme in Lincolnshire in whose possession they continued until the Reformation. Remains of the priory form part of Monks Kirby village church today.

Foundation of the Priory in 1077[]

Based on the very large size of the parish of Monks Kirby, the name of the village (kirk-by) and other indications (see Monks Kirby) the Church of Monks Kirby is understood to have been a minster in the Anglo-Saxon era.^[1][2]. After the Conquest, the land around Monks Kirby came into the ownership of Geoffrey de la Guerche, a Breton knight. Geoffrey rebuilt the Anglo Saxon church which had been "burst asunder", possibly in fighting between Saxons and Normans in the immediate post-Conquest period.^[3]

Geoffrey established the rebuilt church as a alien priory subject to the Benedictine Abbey of St. Nicholas at Angers. The text of the founding Charter for the Priory survives, dated 1 July 1077.^[4] A "remarkable"^[5] survival, the text of the Charter provides evidence of what is often assumed to have happened after the Conquest but is rarely clearly attested - a marriage between the new Norman lord of a territory - Geoffrey - and the daughter of the previous Anglo-Saxon lord, Leofwin of Newnham. Leofwin was a relative of Leofric Earl of Mercia and his wife Lady Godiva. As Greenway in her review of the charter grimly notes, such a marriage would not mean that no violence had been done to Leofwin, or even to his daughter, Ælgifu, Geoffrey's bride.^[6][7][5]

In the Charter, Geoffrey on behalf of Ælgifu and himself, granted to the new Priory some of his land (notably the village of Copston Magna) and tithes, together with the church of Kirby and two priests. The Monks Kirby Priory was named in honour of the Virgin Mary and St Denis.^[8] The Charter tells us the names of the first monks, brought from France – Geoffrey, Ranulf, Stephen, Maurice, Roger and Herman. Based on their names, Herman may have been of Lotharingian origin, while the other five monks were French. The two priests - Frano and Osgot - are assumed to have been the priests of the pre-Conquest church. Interestingly, as the first residents of Monks Kirby to enter history, Frano and Osgot have - like the village itself - Scandinavian names.^[7]

Rise and Decline of the Benedictine Priory[]

After Geoffrey's death, his estates, including the lands around Monks Kirby reverted to the King, who subsequently granted them to Nigel d'Aubigny, the father of Roger de Mowbray whose descendants were to become Earls of Nottingham and Dukes of Norfolk.

Through the 1100s the priory grew in importance. New grants of land and revenues were given by the Mowbray family and others. No doubt the fact that the Plantagenet family - who came from Angers - had taken over the English throne increased Monks Kirby priory's profile. In the 1170s Richard of Waterville was a monk at Angers who was sent to become Prior of Monks Kirby. He went on to become Prior of Whitby where he played a key part in that town's establishment^[9] and is said to staged an archery competition for Robin Hood and Little John.^[10]

In 1266 Henry III granted the monks a fair at Midsummer and a weekly market at Kirby.

Little is known of the layout of the monastery though it must have had a library and possibly a Scriptorium as one manuscript from the Priory is still in existence, a beautiful illuminated work from the late 1100s. The manuscript is now in the collection of Balliol College, Oxford (Balliol MS240). Many miracles were apparently wrought at the priory in the name of the Virgin: the Balliol manuscript includes a "Long account of how an image of the virgin and child in the church of Kirkebi frustrated two thieves one of whom was afterwards converted and paid regular annual visits to the Priory."^[11]

Through the fourteenth and early fifteenth century the Black Death and the Hundred Years War with France caused major problems for alien, French-run, priories like Monks Kirby. Money was short - the priory's estates were intermittently confiscated by the King^[12] - and discipline was poor: in 1330 Monks Kirby's Benedictines had needed to be reminded of basic rules such as the non-admission of women to the monastery, and their duty to the poor.^[13] Having nearly fallen into ruin, the church was substantially rebuilt in around 1380. The structure and shape of the church, as well as one of the church's bells, still in use today, dates from this reconstruction.^[14]

In 1396, Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham wrote a letter to the Pope that has been summarised as saying: "The number of the monks at Kirby Priory, founded by his progenitor for seven monks, and subjected to the monastery of St. Nicholas, Angiers, had long not been maintained, and only two monks resided (besides the prior); that the rule was not observed; that the goods were not expended for pious uses; that on account of the dissolute life of the prior and French monks living there, and of their servants, who were at discord with the English, and on account of the wars between the two realms, the buildings were partially falling."^[13] Mowbray wished for the priory to become a house of the Carthusian Abbey he was establishing on the isle of Axholme in Lincolnshire.

Transfer to the Carthusians[]

In 1415 Henry V agreed that the Duke of Norfolk could transfer the priory and its lands out of nominally French hands, to become a house of the Carthusian Abbey established on the Duke's estates at the Isle of Axholme, Lincolnshire. By 1415 the connection between Monks Kirby and Axholme was already well over 300 years old as both formed part of the lands given to Geoffrey de la Guerche at the time of the Conquest, and subsequently granted to the Mowbray family. The transfer represented a reversal: since 1077 revenues of Axholme had been paid to the priory of Monks Kirby, but now Monks Kirby revenues would support the new Axholme Abbey.

The church was again altered in the late fifteenth century, and an octagonal spire added which must have been an imposing local landmark and lasted until the early 18th century.

The Carthusians in Axholme practised a strict monastic lifestyle and the revenues of the Monks Kirby priory provided most of their income.^[15] There were no monks now at Monks Kirby: in 1535 Axholme paid for a vicar at Monks Kirby and for a chantry priest; it is not known for whose soul or souls the chantry priest prayed.^[16]

The Newnham Paddox Estate was owned by the Newnham family, under the Mowbrays, from the 12th century; it held by a number of different families in the fourteenth and early fifteenth century until, on 11 November 1433, John Fildyng, or Feilding bought the estate; he was a descendent of the earlier owners, the Newnham family.^[12][17] The Feildings expanded their estate by buying part of the Monks Kirby manor (i.e. the lands that belonged to Monks Kirby priory) from the monks at Axholme in 1515.^[12]

The Reformation[]

In the reformation, King Henry VIII confiscated the assets of the Axholme priory. The King granted the remaining lands of the Monks Kirby Manor to Thomas Manning, Bishop of Ipswich. Meanwhile, the King granted the rectory and the advowson of the vicarage and the income from collection of local tithes to his foundation of Trinity College, Cambridge.

After the Reformation[]

The manor of Monks Kirby did not stay with the Bishop of Ipswich. There were several owners over the following 80 years, including the family of Lady Jane Grey, before the Manor was bought by the powerful Countess of Buckingham who passed it to her grandson Basil Feilding, 1st Earl of Denbigh. The Feilding family thus came to own both the historic Newnham Paddox estate and the lands that in the medieval period had belonged to the Priory Church of Monks Kirby. The Earl of Denbigh owned most of the village and the land around it until the mid-twentieth century (see below).

The priory church became the parish church of St Edith, Monks Kirby, which is a grade I listed building.^[18] Elements of the priory were incorporated into the North wall of the Church and one of the two side-chapels.

Trinity College's retains the benefice and continues to be involved in the church's affairs today^[19] but divested itself of substantial landholdings around Monks Kirby following the Second World War.

Notes[]

References[]

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