The Churches of Coventry | Page 3

Chapters
produced a plentiful crop of serious quarrels, its relations with the
townsfolk were free from such violent episodes as occurred at Bury St.
Edmunds or St. Albans. The

Chapter of
Lichfield consisted of secular priests (Lymesey and his next successor
were married men), while the Monastery, though freed by pope and

king from any episcopal or justiciary power and with the right of
electing its own abbot, was, like all monastic bodies, always jealous of
the encroachments of bishops, and regarded secular priests as inferior
in every respect. The opinion of the laity who saw both sides may be
gathered from Chaucer's picture of a "poore Persoun of a toun." He
knew well enough how the revenue, which should have gone to the
parish, its parson and its poor, went to fill the coffers of rich abbeys, to
build enormous churches and furnish them sumptuously, to provide
retinues of lazy knights for the train of abbot or bishop, and to
prosecute lawsuits in the papal courts.
But when bishop and abbot were one and the same, the monks still
claimed the right of election, and so for generations the history of the
diocese is a tale of strife and bickering, and how it was that pope, king
or archbishop did not perceive that it was a case of hopeless
incompatibility of temper, or, perceiving it, did not dissolve the union
or get it dissolved is difficult to see. Probably the injury done to
religion weighed but lightly against vested interests and the power of
the purse. The Monastery was, however, as Dugdale says, "the chief
occasion of all the succeeding wealth and honour that accrued to
Coventry"; for though the original Nunnery may have been planted in
an existing settlement, or have attracted one about it, the greater wealth
of the Abbey, its right to hold markets, and all its own varied
requirements would quickly increase and bring prosperity to such a
township, as it did at Bury St. Edmunds, Burton-on-Trent and many
another.
In the thirteenth century the priory was in financial straits, through
being fined by Henry III for disobedience. Later, however, he granted
further privileges to the monks, among them that of embodying the
merchants in a Gild. In 1340 Edward III granted this privilege to the
City. From an early period the manufacture of cloth and caps and
bonnets was the principal trade of Coventry, and though Leland says,
"the town rose by making of cloth and caps, which now decaying, the
glory of the City also decayeth," it was only destroyed by the French
wars of the seventeenth century. But in 1377, when only eighteen
towns in the kingdom had more than 3,000 inhabitants, and York, the
second city, had only 11,000, Coventry was fourth with 7,000. Just one
hundred years later 3,000 died here of the plague, one of many

visitations of that terrible scourge. At the Suppression it had risen to
15,000, and soon after fell to 3,000, through loss of trade for "want of
such concourse of people that numerously resorted thither before that
fatal Dissolution."
But if the town grew apace so did the Monastery. Thus, when in 1244
Earl Hugh died childless his sisters divided his estates and Coventry
fell to Cecily, wife of Roger de Montalt. Six years later the Monastery
lent him a large sum to take him to the Holy Land, and received from
him the lordship of Coventry (excepting the Manor House and Park of
Cheylesmore) and the advowson of St. Michael's and its dependent
chapels, thus becoming the landlords of nearly the whole of Coventry.
[Illustration: COOK STREET GATE.]
Civic powers grew with the growth of trade. Before 1218 a fair of eight
days had been granted to the Priory, and later another of six days, to be
held in the earl's half of the town about the Feast of Holy Trinity. In
1285 a patent from the king is addressed to the burgesses and true men
to levy tolls for paving the town; one in 1328 for tolls for inclosing the
city with walls and gates, while in 1344 the city was given a
corporation, with mayor, bailiffs, a common seal, and a prison. As the
municipal importance and the dignity of the city increased, the desire
for their visible signs strengthened, and so, in 1355, work was begun on
the walls, Newgate (on the London Road) being the first gate to be built.
Such undertakings proceeded slowly, and nine years later the royal
permission was obtained to levy a tax for their construction, "the lands
and goods of all ecclesiastical persons excepted."
Twice afterwards we hear of licence being granted by Richard II to dig
stone in Cheylesmore Park, first for Grey Friars Gate, and later for
Spon Gate, "near his Chapel of Babelake."