Spalding Priory

The priory precinct in a 17th-century engraving by Wenceslas Hollar

Spalding Priory was a small Benedictine house in the town of Spalding, Lincolnshire, dedicated to St Mary the Virgin and St Nicholas.

It was founded as a cell of Croyland Abbey, in 1052, by Leofric, Earl of Mercia and his wife, Godiva, Countess of Leicester. It was supported by Leofric's eldest son. Ælfgār, Earl of Mercia and the monks were confirmed in their property in 1074, after the Norman Conquest of England.

Until 1220, Alkborough Priory Cell was a dependency of Spalding.

After 1071 one monk only remained in Spalding, so the house was refounded in 1074 as a dependent priory of St Nicholas's Abbey, Angers. The monks secured their independence from Angers in 1397, and remained so until 1540, when the house was surrendered at the dissolution. Six human skeletons found during building work in Bridge Street are presumed to indicate the site of the Priory burial ground.

The lands of the house passed to the family of Sir Richard Ogle of Pinchbeck, and were included in the English jointure of Anne of Denmark in 1603.

Priors

Its priors included

• Simon 1229–1252
• James 1252–1253
• John 1253–1274
• At some time before 1278, there was a Wazinus.
• William of Littleport 1278–1293
• Clement 1293–1318
• Walter de Halton 1318–1322 though he is reported as holding the post for 14 years.
• Thomas de Nassington 1322–1353

Burials

• Thomas Moulton (knight) and his father Lambert de Multon
• Thomas de Moulton, father of Thomas de Multon, 1st Baron Multon of Gilsland
• Lucy Mercia Tailebois, wife of Ivo Taillebois

See also

• Monks Kirby Priory, in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, also as an English Benedictine house subsidiary to St Nicholas at Angers, established in the wake of the Norman Conquest
• Adalbert of Spalding, supposed author

References

• This page reports some early developments in the priory's history.

Further reading

• "The Priory of Spalding", in William Page (ed.), A History of the County of Lincoln (London: Victoria County History, 1906), pp. 118–124.
• Bailey, Mark, "Blowing up Bubbles: Some New Demographic Evidence for the Fifteenth Century?", Journal of Medieval History, vol. 15, no. 4 (1989), pp. 347–358.
• Darby, H. C., The Medieval Fenland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940).
• Gooch, E. H., A History of Spalding (Spalding: Spalding Free Press, 1940).
• Hallam, H. E., "Goll Grange, a Grange of Spalding Priory", Lincolnshire Architectural and Archaeological Society Reports and Papers, vol. 5 (1953), pp. 1–18.
• Hallam, H. E., The New Lands of Elloe: A Study of Early Reclamation in Lincolnshire, Department of English Local History Occasional Papers, no. 6 (Leicester: University College of Leicester, 1954).
• Hallam, H. E., "Some Thirteenth-Century Censuses", The Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. 10, no. 3 (1958), pp. 340–361.
• Hallam, H. E., Settlement and Society: A Study of the Early Agrarian History of South Lincolnshire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965).
• Hallam, H. E., "Further Observations on the Spalding Serf Lists", The Economic History Review, 2nd series, vol. 16, no. 2 (1963), pp. 338–350.
• Hallam, H. E., "The Agrarian Economy of South Lincolnshire in the Mid-Fifteenth Century", Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 11 (1967), pp. 86–95.
• Jones, E. D., "Going Round in Circles: Some New Evidence for Population in the Later Middle Ages", Journal of Medieval History, vol. 15 (1989), pp. 329–345.
• Jones, E. D., "A Few Bubbles More: The Myntling Register Revisited", Journal of Medieval History, vol. 17, no. 3 (1991), pp. 263–269.
• Jones, E. D., "Villein Mobility in the Later Middle Ages: the Case of Spalding Priory", Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 36 (1992), pp. 151–166.
• Jones, E. D., "The Medieval Merchet: A Late Contribution to the Debate", Medieval History, vol. 2, no. 3 (1992), pp. 26–35.
• Jones, E. D., "The Medieval Leyrwite: A Historical Note on Female Fornication", English Historical Review, vol. 107 (1992), pp. 945–953.
• Jones, E. D., "Research Notes: Summary Execution at Spalding Priory 1250–1500", Journal of Legal History, vol. 16, no. 2 (1995), pp. 189–198.
• Jones, E. D., "Medieval Merchets as Demographic Data: Some Evidence from the Spalding Priory Estates, Lincolnshire", Continuity and Change, vol. 11, no. 3 (1996), pp. 459–470.
• Jones, E. D., "Death by Document: A Re-Appraisal of Spalding Priory's Census Evidence for the 1260s", Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 39 (1995), pp. 54–69.
• Jones, E. D., "The Spalding Priory Merchet Evidence from the 1250 to the 1470s", Journal of Medieval History, vol. 24, no. 2 (1998), pp. 155–175.
• Jones, E. D., "Merchet Practice on the Spalding Priory Manor of Sutton from 1253 to 1477", Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, vol. 33, (1998), pp. 79–84.
• Jones, E. D., "The Exploitation of its Serfs by Spalding Priory before the Black Death", Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 43 (1999), pp. 126–151.
• Jones, E. D., "Some Spalding Priory Vagabonds of the Twelve-Sixties", Historical Research, vol. 73, no. 180 (2000), pp. 93–104.
• Jones, E. D., "Spalding Priory and Its Serfs in the Fifteenth Century", Lincolnshire History and Archaeology, vol. 35 (2000), pp. 64–68.
• Jones, E. D., "The Spalding Priory Operarii in the Thirteenth Century", Nottingham Medieval Studies, vol. 65 (2001), pp. 51–67.
• Keats-Rohan, K. S. B., "Antecessor Noster: The Parentage of Countess Lucy Made Plain", Prosopon Newsletter, no. 2 (May 1995), pp. 1–3.
• Liu, Wenxi, "Competing for Justice Beyond Law Between Croyland and Spalding, 1189–1202", Anglo-American Law Review, vol. 29, no. 1 (2000), pp. 67–96.
• Mitchell, Rose, and David Crook, "The Pinchbeck Fen Map: A Fifteenth‐Century Map of the Lincolnshire Fenland", Imago Mundi, vol. 51, no. 1 (1999), pp. 40–50.
• Russell, J. C., "Demographic Limitations of the Spalding Serf Lists", The Economic History Review, vol. 15, no. 1 (1962), pp. 138–144.
• Smith, Richard M., "Hypothèses sur la nuptialité en Angleterre aux XIII^e–XIV^e siècles", Annales, Economies, Sociétés, Civilisations, vol. 38 (1983), pp. 107–136.
• Smith, Richard M., "Demographic Developments in Rural England, 1300–1348: A Survey", in B. M. S. Campbell (ed.), Before the Black Death: Studies in the Crisis of the Early Fourteenth Century (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1991), pp. 25–78.
• Sumner, Neal, "The Countess Lucy's Priory? The Early History of Spalding Priory and its Estates", Reading Medieval Studies, vol. 8 (1987), pp. 81–103.
• Thirsk, Joan, Fenland Farming in the Sixteenth Century (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1953).