A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 2. Originally published by Victoria County History, London, 1908.
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'RELIGIOUS HOUSES: Introduction', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 2, ed. William Page( London, 1908), British History Online https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol2/p51 [accessed 22 December 2024].
'RELIGIOUS HOUSES: Introduction', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 2. Edited by William Page( London, 1908), British History Online, accessed December 22, 2024, https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol2/p51.
"RELIGIOUS HOUSES: Introduction". A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 2. Ed. William Page(London, 1908), , British History Online. Web. 22 December 2024. https://prod.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol2/p51.
In this section
THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES OF WARWICKSHIRE
INTRODUCTION
The Benedictine order had three houses for monks in Warwickshire; by far the most important was the cathedral priory of Coventry, founded in 1043; the abbey of Alcester and the priory of Alvecote were both small. The nuns of this order had an ancient abbey at Polesworth, and three priories, of which that at Nuneaton, subject to the famous abbey of Fontevrault, was the most prominent.
The Cluniac branch of the Benedictines was unrepresented, but the Cistercians had abbeys at Combe, Merevale, and Stoneleigh, and a nunnery at Pinley. A Carthusian priory was founded in 1381 at Coventry.
The Austin canons were represented by five priories, at Kenilworth (subsequently raised to the rank of an abbey), Arbury, Maxstoke, Studley, and Warwick, the last-named having been originally founded for the shortlived order of the Holy Sepulchre.
A preceptory of Knights Templars was established at Balsall, and upon the suppression of that order came to the Knights Hospitallers.
The various orders of friars were sparsely represented in this county; the Dominicans settled at Warwick, Franciscans and Carmelites at Coventry, and Austin Friars at Atherstone. In 1363 Nicholas Rivell, priest, obtained papal licence to found a house of Austin Friars at Coventry, (fn. 1) but for some reason, possibly local opposition, the project was abandoned. The Trinitarian Friars had a priory at Thelsford.
Hospitals were not so numerous as in many counties, only ten are known; and of these four were in Coventry and two in Warwick. On the other hand there were five collegiate churches, at Astley, Coventry, Knowle, Stratford-on-Avon, and, most important, Warwick.
Of the four small alien houses in Warwickshire, Wootton Wawen was the most important, while it is doubtful if the so-called priory of Warmington was ever more than a grange of the abbey of Préaux, under the control of the abbey's cell of Toft, in Norfolk.