Flixton Priory
Flixton Priory was a nunnery under a prioress following the Augustinian rule, which formerly stood in the parish of Flixton in the north of the English county of Suffolk, about south-west of Bungay. It was founded by Margery de Creke in 1258, and was dissolved in 1536–37. It was the poorest of the nunneries within the Diocese of Norwich. The site of the priory, which was enclosed by a moat, was at the present Abbey Farm, where little apart from the position in the landscape and a small section of standing wall remain to be seen. It was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1953. It is privately owned and is not open to the public. It is suggested that some parts of the masonry may have been re-used in St Peter's Hall at St Peter, South Elmham.
There are plentiful charters and other deeds and documents relating to the history of the priory. Eighty-four charters collected by Thomas Martin of Palgrave which were purchased by Thomas Astle entered the Stowe Collection, and passed from the Ashburnham Collection to the British Library. An 18th-century abstract of their contents is bound into the miscellaneous volume Stowe MS 1083, at fols. 56–84. Other Flixton charters owned by Thomas Astle are in the British Library "Carta Antiqua"; there is also a small but important series in the Lord Frederick Campbell collection. Several manorial rolls, rentals and other documents are among the Adair papers in the Suffolk Record Office at Lowestoft.
Flixton was among the feudal possessions of the Bishop of East Anglia at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, and together with Homersfield "is embedded in the tight-knit bundle of estates and churches of the bishop's fee known as South Elmham." The claim thus laid by Norman Scarfe is that this historic endowment of the bishops originated in a 7th-century grant to the first East Anglian bishop, St Felix, Bishop of Dommoc c. 631–648, and that Flixton itself take their names from him. While this does not decide the various claims of South Elmham in Suffolk and North Elmham in Norfolk to be the seat of the second East Anglian Episcopal see of Helmham established by Archbishop Theodore, it does provide a context which in the 13th century may have recommended Flixton as an appropriate site for a religious foundation, in a commanding manorial seat a short distance from the pre-Conquest parochial church.
The patron family
Margery de Hanes, daughter of Geoffrey de Hanes of Hillington, Norfolk, by her marriage to Bartholomew de Creke brought her inheritance to the principal heir of a house associated with the formerly rival powers of the Bigod and Glanvill families. The de Creke family were lords of the manor of Creak at North Creake, Norfolk, adjacent to the estate upon which Sir Robert de Nerford established a Hospital of St Bartholomew after 1217, which his widow Dame Alice developed as the Augustinian abbey of Creake.Bartholomew de Creke, and his sisters Margaret and Isabel, were the children of Robert de Creke and his wife Agnes de Glanvill, daughter and heir of William, son of Hervey de Glanvill. Agnes had first married Thomas Bigod, son of Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk. Roger Bigod's father Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk made a second marriage to Gundreda, daughter of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. This Countess, in her widowhood, married Roger de Glanvill, the uncle of Agnes, and with his assistance founded her nunnery at Bungay Priory. When Glanvill died, around 1195, certain Glanvill estates descended to Agnes as his heir, and Gundreda sued her for a share of them as her dower. At much the same time Thomas Bigod died and Agnes remarried to Robert de Creke. Roger de Glanvill's lands were, however, tied up in grants to Ranulf de Glanvill's monastery at Leiston Abbey, or else not disponible owing to Roger's debts to the crown.
Robert de Creke also held Glanvill lands at Combs, Suffolk, on behalf of the heirs of Agnes, but after 1210 paid his scutage and farm erratically, and made a second marriage. Not until 1221 was account rendered for Combs in Bartholomew's name. Bartholomew's sister Isabel married the heir of Theobald de Valoines, founder of Hickling Priory and of the nunnery at Campsey Priory, and in 1229 Bartholomew obtained the manor of Helmingham Hall, Suffolk, from Theobald's sister Joan, prioress of Campsey, in exchange for rents out of his lands at Combs. His marriage to Margery de Hanes added her family manor of Hillington to their assets, and also that of Flixton. He settled a dower on his stepmother Richemaia on his return from service in Ireland in 1234. In 1240 £14 a year was owed to Bartholomew for Margery's maintenance out of the manors of Creake, Helmingham, Hillington and Flixton, payable at Fundenhall. These were held from him in part by William le Blund, whose sister was, before 1247, married to Bartholomew's cousin Robert de Valoines, son of Isabel de Creke.
The foundation phase, 1256–1292
Foundation charter
Bartholomew died around 1252 leaving three sons and a daughter, while Margery de Creke retained control of the manors which were hers by inheritance. She held the fee of Flixton from Robert, son of Sir Robert de Tateshal, on nominal service. In 1256 he granted her licence to found a house of religion there, at a site of her choosing, and granted her the fee to appropriate to the house. By charter of 1258 she gave the whole of her manor of Flixton, which she held by hereditary right, to the religious women professing the rule of St Augustine and certain other rules, serving God and St Mary and St Katharine and All Saints at her capital messuage in Flixton. The grant was made for the good of her own soul, for that of her father Geoffrey de Anos and mother, for her late husband Sir Bartholomew de Creke, for her children and other family. She did this with the full consent of her first-born son and heir Robert de Creke. Robert de Valoines and William le Blum were two of the principal witnesses, and Margery's two younger sons Geoffrey and John de Creke also attested.The monastery was limited to 18 nuns and a prioress, the first of whom was Alianora. The dwelling-house with its moated enclosure stood at the northern edge of the ancient cluster of parishes of South Elmham known as The Saints, on the brow of the plateau where it falls into the valley of the River Waveney. Two miles to the south stood the moated palace of the Bishops of Norwich at St Cross, South Elmham, built by Herbert de Losinga. That was a favourite residence of Bishop Walter Suffield, who lived there in great splendour and died in May 1257. Margery's charter of foundation was therefore given under his successor Simon de Wanton, elected in June 1257 and consecrated in March 1258, who lived until 1266 and assisted Margery in her early benefactions. Bishop Roger Skerning later granted confirmation.
Early endowments
A short distance from the priory, at the foot of the lane, stood the parochial church of St Mary's, its large west tower of late Anglo-Saxon date topped by a Rhenish helm spire. The patronage of the church was held in two moieties, one belonging to the Bishop of Norwich and one to Margery de Creke. In 1260 Margery conveyed the messuage and two carucates of land, and her moiety of the advowson, to the priory, and Rannulf de Combs conveyed 20 acres of land at Flixton worth £1 a year. The advowson and appropriation of the church of Dunston, Norfolk, in 1264, and the advowson of Shipmeadow, Suffolk, in 1269, were conveyed to Prioress Beatrice, who had succeeded Alianora by 1263. At about this time the advowsons of North Creak and Helmingham also came to the priory.Margery outlived her two elder sons, who died without offspring: in 1272 she held Hillington and Westhorp from Robert de Tateshal. She gave a house and lands and the advowson of the church in Combs to the priory in c. 1275. In 1280, after petition, she granted the patronage of the priory to the Bishops of Norwich, then William de Middleton. She died about 1286, when the Combs lands, until then held in Bartholomew's name, passed to the third son, John de Creke. John lived only until 1289, leaving as heir his sister Sarra, wife of Roger fitz Peter fitz Osbert.
Successive escheats necessitated the renewal of the priory's endowments. In 1289 Prioress Beatrice conveyed her right of advowson of North Creak and Combs churches to Roger and Sarra, who in turn granted or regranted to her the manor of Flixton and moiety of the church, the advowson of Helmingham church, a house with 26 acres in Wilby, Suffolk, a house with 29 acres in North Creak, and the advowsons of Dunston and Fundenhall, in pure alms. A grant of the watermill at Flixton and a mill at Combs was received from William de Colchester, and renewed in 1292 at Sarra's death, when an inquisition was held into the priory's temporalities, and an extent taken, showing a value of £43.18s.2d. See In the same year the priory granted a free chantry to Adam de Walpole in the chapel in his manor at Shipmeadow.
The church of Dunston is dedicated to St Remigius. It was much restored in the early 20th century. If the 14th-century glass in the chancel is original to this church, it may refer to the patronage of Flixton Priory in the image of a kneeling veiled woman, perhaps Margery de Creke herself, praying before the saint.
Poverty and Reform, 1292–1357
After Sarra's death, Roger fitz Peter held her lands by Courtesy of England until he died in 1306. All the estates of Sarra's inheritance were then divided between the heirs of Bartholomew de Creke's sisters. In this complicated partition, one moiety of all went to John de Thorp, great-grandson of Margaret de Creke, and the other moiety was subdivided between Rohesia and Cecily de Valoines, great-granddaughters of Isabel de Creke. The fee of Flixton was now held by the priory in frankalmoin in three parts, and the advowson of Helmingham church from Cecily. Emma de Welholm was admitted prioress in 1301 and occurs until 1328. In 1310, on the application of the King's leech, Master Robert de Cisterna, the priory was licensed to acquire lands to the value of £10 per annum, on account of their rents and possessions being insufficient for their sustenance.Despite many small grants and plentiful lessees, the comparatively small endowment of the priory and the extinction of the principal line of its benefactors left it impoverished. In 1321 John Salmon, Bishop of Norwich and Lord Chancellor, exchanged with the priory his half of the advowson of Flixton church for that of Helmingham, uniting the two moieties and granting an appropriation. His deed of endowment refers to the notorious poverty of the house, and the patient devotion of the sisters. For a long time past, through unfortunate circumstances, they could not meet their own needs for food and drink, nor for the strangers or poor resorting to them; their possessions had grown barren, and would not cover half a year of their costs. They were now to have the tithes and proceeds of the church lands, and the manse and croft formerly assigned to the bishop's Rector: the Vicar, whose stipend should be found from the profits, was to occupy the priory's vicarage, and the priory became liable for repair of the chancel. A great benefit to the priory is implied.
Margery de Stonham succeeded as prioress, and at her death in 1345 Isabel Weltham was elected. Two years before this, William Bateman was consecrated Bishop of Norwich. His family was closely associated with Flixton, and bought much land there. At Easter 1331 Bartholomew Bateman, 'chivaler', brother of the bishop, acquired a manor at Flixton from Robert de Sandcroft, apparently that centred upon Flixton Hall, and, dying in 1349, was buried at Flixton Priory. The priory, however, was so oppressed by poverty that by February 1348 they were unable to pay their tithes to the king and other charges, and were granted a pardon for two years. A month later, at the request of Henry of Grosmont, 1st Duke of Lancaster, they were granted licence to appropriate the church of Fundenhall. It was represented that most of the inhabitants of Dunston, upon whom the priory depended for part of its maintenance, died in the Great Mortality, and the land was left untilled, so that the nuns were again unable to provide for their own sustenance.
Bishop Bateman was at that time concerned with the chantry which Maud of Lancaster was establishing at the Augustinian nunnery of Campsey Priory, and, in preparation for the removal of their college of five chaplains to Bruisyard, in 1353–54 he drew up provisional statutes for their observance. In the same period, as patron of Flixton Priory, he drew up new statutes for "la meson de Dames de Flixtune", by which they were thereafter to be governed. Bateman died early in 1355, and by 1357 Joan de Hemynhall had succeeded Isabel Weltham as prioress. He had effectively reformed the priory, which in 1359 was able to acquire in mortmain houses and lands in South Elmham and Flixton to the value of 46s.4d. yearly under an existing licence.