‘Dorset Monasteries in the Late Medieval Period, 1290-1540: Two Prosopographical Studies’, by David Cousins
Synopsis of a paper given at the 2011 SDNQ symposium: County Connections – historic links between Somerset and Dorset, held on 1 October 2011 at Downside Abbey.
Synopsis published in SDNQ, vol.37, pp.166-168, September 2012.
Information concerning Dorset monasteries in the late Middle Ages is patchy and sparse. A study of entries in the bishops’ registers, combined with other sources, has been used as the basis for two prosopographical studies of the ecclesiastical patronage of the Dorset monasteries, and the monks and nuns in the Dorset monasteries before and after Dissolution.
Shaftesbury Abbey was a large well-endowed monastery which, in the first half of the fourteenth century, held 44 livings, 30 in Dorset, 10 in Wiltshire, 3 in Somerset and 1 in Sussex. Despite this formidable list of livings in their patronage, the Abbey’s spiritual income in the Valor, was only £88:10:8, about 8% of their total income. From this it can be deduced that the advowsons’ major value to the monastery lay in using them to reward well-educated and ambitious clerks, and who often came from influential families. These clerks could conduct the Abbey’s business, act as external eyes and ears for the monastery in court and ecclesiastical circles, and lobby for the Abbey when necessary.
Detailed study of the lists of clerics presented to their livings shows evidence of career planning by the monastery. At any one time about seven well-educated and influential clerics would have been available to the Abbey. These were generally presented to the more valuable livings, especially to the prebends which had no residential requirements. Many of these clerics are recorded as holding offices within the monastery and acting for the Abbess.
As a nunnery they also required clerics to officiate at divine service in the Abbey church, with its numerous chapels and chantries. Shaftesbury Abbey was fortunate in having not only a number of livings within the town, but a cluster of other benefices within easy reach of the Abbey to which they could appoint suitable clerics. There is evidence that these clerics formed a team to ensure a continuous round of divine service in the Abbey church. The list of clergy presented by Shaftesbury Abbey contains many examples of clerics who spent their lives serving in the Abbey’s livings, moving from one living to another.
Information about the monks and nuns in the Dorset monasteries has been extracted from the ordination lists and monastic election records, mainly in the registers of the Bishops of Salisbury. Knowing the year when a monk was ordained a priest enables an estimate to be made of the monk’s age in any subsequent year. Additional information concerning their careers has come from published papal records and documents in The National Archives of England.
The monks in the Dorset monasteries tended to follow the custom, when entering a monastery, of adopting a new surname based upon their town or village of origin. Analysis of these locative names shows that Abbotsbury, Cerne and Milton Abbeys tended to rely on local recruitment, with two thirds of the monks coming from Dorset. Sherborne and Milton had about a fifth of their monks coming from further away than Dorset and the four surrounding counties. About a fifth of Cerne and Sherborne’s monks came from Somerset.
With such a small number of monks in the four Benedictine and one Cistercian monastery in Dorset, detailed analysis of changes in the number of monks with time is not possible. However, there is an indication of a drop in numbers in the middle of the 15th century, with numbers rising again until the Dissolution, in line with more detailed studies possible in other counties.
Tracing the subsequent careers of the ex-religious after the Dissolution is difficult. Pension records[i] enable a good estimate to be made of the date of their death and, where ordination data is available, an estimate of age at death can be made as well. An analysis of the number of monks and nuns surviving after the Dissolution show that they had a similar life expectancy, enduring the rigours of the outside world, to that they might have expected if they had continued to enjoy the sheltered life of the monastic cloister. The last Dorset nun who witnessed the Dissolution, Margaret Lovell of Shaftesbury Abbey, died in 1602, and the last Dorset monk, William Dyer of Cerne Abbey, died in 1594 at the age of about 89.
[i] The National Archives, LR 6, Office of the Auditors of Land Revenue, Receivers’ accounts for Somerset, Dorset, Devon and Cornwall; SC6 (HENRY VIII), receivers’ accounts for possessions of the dissolved monasteries of Dorset.
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