Abbots of Shrewsbury

The succession of the new king Henry I was accompanied by a period of turbulence and the revolt of Earl Roger's son, Robert of Bellême, in 1102 resulted in his expropriation, leaving the abbey without the powerful local protection it had enjoyed.

Henry I granted, during Godfred's abbacy, the Sanctum Prisca writ, of 1121,[24] which confirmed the abbey's rights and possessions, as held under Fulchred, and awarded it multure or mill-right, the fees charged by mill owners for grinding corn, in Shrewsbury.

Richard de Capella, the Bishop of Hereford, whose diocese included a large part of southern Shropshire, was warned not to let the king hear complaints against him over his dealings with Shrewsbury Abbey.

It was Herbert who, "by advice of his brethren"[35] (consilio fratrum suum)[36] sent his prior, Robert of Shrewsbury, to seek the relics of St Winifred, a decision which was to have momentous consequences for the economic as well as the spiritual development of the abbey.

[35] Ranulph (or Ralph, Radulph) was one of three monks from Canterbury Cathedral's Benedictine chapter who were appointed to abbacies immediately after the accession of Archbishop Richard of Dover, all apparently under his influence.

[55] The precise date of his death is unknown but, because of the vacancy it caused, Henry III exercised his right to present a cleric to the abbey's church at Hodnet on 4 August 1244.

[58] By 22 October, back at Westminster, the king was hearing of trouble breaking out at the abbey itself and appointed Robert Walerand, one of his most trusted justiciars, to deal with cases arising from a serious trespass.

[75] Henry III issued a writ de intendendo in favour of William from Kenilworth on 11 August 1266 and followed this up with a request that the tenants grant him a relief to help meet the abbey's debts.

In September 1267 the king was in Shrewsbury and, in return for a fine of 50 marks, gave the abbey the right to administer its own goods and estates during the next vacancy, a great boon as it generally fell under royal control during such periods.

On 20 April 1284, after an inquisition by Justice in Eyre Roger Le Strange, he received a licence to enclose 10 acres in the Forest of Shirlet,[91] an area closer to the abbey's cell, Morville Priory, than to Shrewsbury.

He noted that liveries (benefits in the form of clothes) and corrodies (annuities conferring maintenance at the abbey) were out of control and ordered that no more be sold or granted without diocesan consent.

In February 1324 Northburgh wrote to Muckley to rehearse the case of William de Coventre, a Shrewsbury monk who had rebelled against monastic discipline and left the abbey.

To make the funding permanent, Abbot William earmarked the tithes from Wrockwardine parish church, the advowson of which had been granted to the abbey by Roger Montgomery shortly after its establishment, as recorded in Domesday Book.

[103] In 1333, just after William's death, and referring to the request of King Edward and Queen Philippa, the Pope issued a mandate confirming the appropriation, so long as enough was left over to support a perpetual vicar.

[113] In February 1349 he repeated the order, apparently in some exasperation, this time instructing "all sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, ministers and others to attach without violence the bodies of Nicholas de Hetth and all others" who were still resisting the court judgement in the king's favour.

A year after Henry's consecration Robert Corbet and three other local notables were commissioned to investigate the "homicides, robberies, felonies and trespasses done by William Hord, monk of Shrewsbury, and others of his confederacy.

[131] In the case of Sandwell Priory, near West Bromwich in Staffordshire, a small and sometimes poorly governed Benedictine house, Stevens sought complete annexation to Shrewsbury Abbey – a project for which he was prepared to use the most unscrupulous means.

[136] Tudenham challenged Westbury's appointment by obtaining papal provision to the priory but his arrest was ordered by Richard II's Council on 8 July 1380 on the grounds that this breached the Statute of Provisors, a law designed to prevent such appeals to the Pope.

[144] In November 1388, however, investigations were launched into a complaint from Stevens that a gang of tradesmen from Shrewsbury had broken into his properties, taken away goods and terrorised his men so that they dare not leave the abbey.

[151] On 20 May 1405 the abbey was dispensed, during Prestbury's lifetime, from paying the tenths, a key royal tax, on its properties outside the Diocese of Lichfield because of the damage done by to its lands by Welsh rebels.

[162] The donors included four gentry members of the Arundel affinity, probably acting on the Earl's behalf:[163] Robert Corbet, his younger brother Roger, their aunt's husband John Darras and William Ryman of Sussex.

[126] By December 1413 Prestbury was sufficiently trusted by the new king to be commissioned with other eminent clerics for investigation and reform of St Mary's Church, Shrewsbury, a royal free chapel.

In 1442 he agreed to grant the advowson of the parish church at Newport and of tithes in two villages of Edgmond to Thomas Draper, who promised in turn to establish a college of priests and a chantry in the abbey.

They carried Mynde in procession to the High Altar and returned to the chapter house to complete formalities, choosing the sub-prior Thomas Hyll and the third prior Wiliam Okys to take their decision to the king for the royal assent.

In 1485 the king's mother, Margaret Beaufort, Countess of Richmond and Derby, initiated the rebuilding of the Holywell shrine and William Caxton printed an English translation of Robert of Shrewsbury's life of St Winifred.

It was ordained that each deceased member of the guild should have a requiem mass, with the poorest specifically instructed to turn to face the congregation and to pray in English: a clear sign of lay demands for greater participation in worship.

[220] Another Richard Lye and his wife, Beatrice, were among the founding members of the Guild of St Winifred in 1487:[207] his name does not appear on the Burgess Roll and he was probably a citizen of Abbey Foregate, then a separate borough.

[226] The following month Henry VIII ordered a pension for a cleric, William Dingley, which the abbot was bound to give him until he could be found a suitable position in one of the abbey's churches.

As early as 1524–5, Thomas Wolsey had been allowed to sweep away 21 houses to fund study at a new institution at Oxford, which he proposed to nameCardinal College: disturbingly, one of those dissolved was Sandwell Priory,[237] long but vainly coveted by the abbots of Shrewsbury.

The following month Rowland Lee, a tough administrator who was both Bishop of Coventry and Lichfield and President of the Council of Wales and the Marches, was pleading for a little latitude for Boteler, as he was suffering from a palsy.