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King's Langley Priory was a Dominican priory in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire, England. It was located adjacent to the Kings Langley Royal Palace, residence of the Plantagenet English kings. ==History== Langley was founded in 1308 by Edward II in fulfilment of a vow made when in peril. On 1 December, the king made the friars a grant of £100 a year until further orders; on 20 December he gave them his garden near the church and land there for building, and the next day assigned to them as a dwelling until the priory could be built a place called 'Little London.' The first prior was John de Warefeld, who had for some time belonged to Edward's household, and in August 1315 became his confessor.〔Page, William; Doubleday, Herbert Arthur (''The Victoria History of the County of Hertford: Volume 4'' ), 1971, pp.446-451〕 The king in March 1312 gave the brothers 700 marks for building expenses, and in the summer of that year the conventual church was dedicated and a cemetery consecrated. Possibly, however, the church was not yet finished, for the body of Piers Gaveston, who was killed about this time, was not buried there until the end of 1314, when the ceremony took place with much state, the Archbishop of Canterbury and four bishops as well as many other ecclesiastics taking part in the funeral rites.〔 In October 1311 the king increased the annual income of the house to £150 to provide for fifteen friars added since the foundation, so that his grant in September 1312 of 500 marks during pleasure may have been intended for building purposes. He gave the friars in June 1315 a house with closes in his manor of Langley and leave to take wood for fuel and other necessaries from Chipperfield Wood. During some years of scarcity he also supplied them with corn.〔 The king, however, felt that this state of dependence on the Exchequer was unsatisfactory, and wished to endow them permanently. To overcome the difficulty that friars-preachers could not own property he proposed to found a house of Dominican nuns, who were to hold lands in trust for the brothers, and in 1318 he sent two friars to the pope for his authorization. Robert de Duffeld, the second Prior of King's Langley and the king's confessor, had been dispatched in October 1316 to the master of the order, apparently on the same errand, but nothing was done in the matter for years.〔 The drawback to allowances is shown in the complaint of the friars to Edward III in 1345 that owing to the irregularity of the payments from the Exchequer they had not wherewith to live, carry on the works they had begun, and pay their debts. On this occasion, at their request, the money due to the king from the alien priory of Harmondsworth was assigned to them in part payment.〔 Edward III seems to have been as much interested in the house as his father had been. In 1346 he granted the friars part of a quarry in Shotover for their works, and in 1347 gave them leave to enlarge the ditch round their close 3 ft. in breadth and 2,000 ft. in length. He gave them in April 1358 the fishery of his water of King's Langley with permission to have a weir in that water, and free entrance and exit to and from the weir through his park; also the head of a stream in Abbots Langley with leave to dig up his land in making an aqueduct underground to their house. In January 1361-2 he gave them, moreover, £20 a year during pleasure to their new work. Personal feeling seems to have prompted his grant in 1358 of 4 tuns of wine a year, and the gift in 1377 of forty mazers, one of which was called the Edward. The wish of Edward II was at last carried out in 1349, and a house of Dominican sisters founded at Dartford in Kent, which was regarded as the complement of the Dominican friary at King's Langley; and in December 1356 the prioress and nuns had licence to acquire in mortmain property to the value of £300 for the sustenance of themselves and the friars of King's Langley. Here the brothers possibly owed something to the influence of John Woderowe, the king's confessor, who in June 1356 is mentioned as their prior.〔 Still, the foundation of Dartford for some time did not change materially the financial position of Langley. The king in October 1363 granted to the convent of twenty brothers 200 marks a year of his alms and in March 1371 ordered that the money should be paid to them from the issues of the alien priory of Burstall.〔 But the appropriation of the church of Langley in 1374 to the nuns of Dartford is the beginning of a new arrangement. In October 1376 Edward III made over to John Duke of Lancaster, Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, and others in trust for the convent at Langley, the hundred and manor of Preston and the manors of Overland in Ash, Elmstone, Wadling in Ripple, Packmanstone in Newchurch, Harrietsham, 'Godmeston', Beaurepaire, Waldeslade in Chatham, Ham and Westgate in the Isle of Thanet, Kent, and these were granted to the friars from Easter 1382 for forty years, with the idea that during this term they might be secured to them in frankalmoin The convent let them to Simon de Burley, who shortly afterwards received a grant of them in fee simple from Richard II. The brothers in 1383-4 represented to the king that the rent was much in arrears, and begged that King Edward's intention might be fulfilled and the lands given to them in mortmain; but this was not done, for in September 1386 the king assigned to them the farm of the alien priory of Ware instead of the manors held by Burley. After Burley's execution and forfeiture in 1388 the friars were allowed possession of the property pending inquiry into the king's right, but complained that they and their sureties were harassed by the Exchequer, while large sums due from Burley were still owing. The desired Letters patent were not, however, granted until 24 April 1399, when the king considering that the house of King's Langley 'was not yet sufficiently built and endowed, and as the foundation required', gave the manors to the nuns of Dartford in frankalmoign to hold for the friars. Five years earlier they had acquired in the same way from Richard II the advowson of Willian, Hertfordshire, and from John Waltham, Bishop of Salisbury, and Warin Waldegrave that of Great Gaddesden, with leave in both cases to appropriate the churches to their own uses.〔 When Richard died in February 1400 he was at first buried at Langley priory; afterwards, however, his body was removed by order of Henry V to Westminster Abbey. But the conventual church of Langley still retained a sign of the priory's connexion with the royal family in the tomb of Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, interred here in 1402 beside his wife, Isabella, the daughter of Peter, King of Castile.〔 Henry IV in 1399 and Henry V in 1413 confirmed the grants made to the friars, who therefore could easily prove their title to the Kentish manors, when the escheator seized them in 1420 on the expiration of the term for which they had originally been given. The experience showed the expediency of royal confirmations, and the prior and convent obtained the ratification of their charters from Henry VI in 1424, Edward IV in 1466, Henry VII in 1486, and in 1510 from Henry VIII.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「King's Langley Priory」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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