Members of the Augustinian Order first arrived in England around 1249. The Augustinian Friary in London (customarily abbreviated as Austin Friars) was founded in the 1260s. According to John Stow, the friary was established by Humphrey de Bohun, 2nd Earl of Hereford and Essex and Constable of England, on his return from the Seventh Crusade.[2][3] (Stow gives a date of 1253, but this appears to be too early, as the first verifiable reference to the friary dates only to around 1270; sources from the 1250s omit any reference to the Austin Friars.[4]) It was built on Broad Street in the north of the City of London, on land acquired from (probably) two older churches. St Olave Broad Street appears to have been demolished to make way for the friary, as later records show that the friars subsequently paid annual compensation to St Paul's Cathedral for the "land and appurtenances where the parish church of St Olave Broad Street ... used to be". The church of St Peter le Poer or St Peter the Poor (also known as St Peter Broad Street) was incorporated into the friary, forming the south aisle of the friary church's choir.[3][4]
By the second half of the 14th century a series of land acquisitions had enabled the friary to expand to cover 5.5 acres (2.2 hectares). It had about 60 friars by the end of the 13th century[5] and through the 14th century, though the number fluctuated over time and declined in the 15th century.[6] Most of the friars whose names are known appear to have been English, predominantly from East Anglia and the London region.[7] Not unusually for friaries within the City of London, Austin Friars was favoured by the aristocracy and by other wealthy people both as a place of worship and as a final resting place. The friary made a good profit from these associations; the friary church was completely rebuilt on a grander scale than the original in 1354, and there was no difficulty in funding a new steeple to replace the one demolished by a storm in 1362.[2] By the 16th century it was receiving a rental income of Â60 annually and enjoyed a healthy income from bequests.[8]
The friary played an important role as a centre for religious education. It housed a studium generale attended by students who aspired to go on to study at Oxford, Cambridge or one of the major continental European universities. It incorporate a school and a library which were attended not only by English people but by foreigners resident in London, notably the Italians and Germans. It was not uncommon for foreign friars to come to study at Austin Friars and then stay on, to preach and hear confessions for their countrymen in London.[9] For some, the disruption caused by the Great Schism probably made the friary a more attractive place to study than continental institutions.[6] The state did not make much use of the friary, unlike some of the others in London, though the Commissary Court did occasionally sit there.[9]
During the Peasants' Revolt of 1381, thirteen Flemings who had been sheltering in the friary were taken out and lynched by the mob, though the friars themselves appear to have been left unharmed. Five years later, a sermon to Lollards in the nearby church of St Christopher le Stocks (since demolished) about the practices and privileges of Augustinian monks almost led to the razing of the friary by that congregation. Only the timely intercession of the local sheriff led the mob to disperse.[10]
Many notable people were buried within the friary precinct including its founder, Humphrey de Bohun. Other interments included Hubert de Burgh; Edward, the young son of Edward, the Black Prince; Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel and Surrey; John de Vere, 12th Earl of Oxford and his son Aubrey; Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham; and many of the high-ranking knights killed at the Battle of Barnet in April 1471,[11] also Maurice Berkeley, 3rd Baron Berkeley (d.1506) and his wife.[12] Perkin Warbeck, pretender to the English throne, was buried in Austin Friars in 1499 after his execution at Tyburn.[13]
The friary was constructed over time, as the availability of money and land permitted. The church's nave and the other friary buildings may not have been completed until after 1350.[8] Like other urban friaries, it was surrounded by a high wall to provide a measure of privacy. This ran on three sides along Broad Street, London Wall and part of Throgmorton Street and was made variously of stone or brick.[14] The friary precinct was entered via at least three gates, the main one of which was located on Throgmorton Street and gave access to the church and churchyard.[15]
The friary church stood at the centre of the complex. The Crown gave the friary six oaks from Windsor Forest in 1277, possibly to provide wood for the roof, while bequests in the 14th century (including one by a descendant of the friary's founder) show that construction continued into the 1370s. The nave of the church survived until it was destroyed in The Blitz of 1940 and it was surveyed by the Royal Commission on Historic Monuments before the war, so a good deal is known about its original appearance and dimensions.[16]
It was built using Kentish Ragstone with external flint courses and mouldings made from Reigate Stone. The church's plan incorporated a three-aisled nave, floored in Purbeck marble, and a two-aisled choir. The nave measured 149 ft by 83 ft internally (45.3 m by 25.2 m) and was accessed principally through a main door on its western front.[17] The altar, which was probably dedicated to St Augustine himself,[18] stood at the far end on the eastern side, in front of a wooden screen.[17] The church's choir had two aisles and six bays, measuring about 96 by 57 ft (29 by 17 m)[19] The medieval part of the church of St Peter le Poer was incorporated into the friary church to form its south aisle.[17] This would have been discontinuous from the rest of the choir and was probably separated from it in some fashion, perhaps by a stone wall or a masonry arcade and timber screen. The old church would have been entered from Broad Street rather than through the precinct of the friary.[19] There were also several chapels, the existence of which is recorded in wills and records of herald's visitations; these were dedicated to St Thomas, John the Baptist, St Catherine and the Virgin Mary.[20]
The cloisters have twice been excavated, once in 1909 and again in the 1980s. The priory had two, the one to the south being the principal cloister. 16th century records enable the buildings surrounding the cloister to be identified.[21] The principal cloister had both a main and a secondary chapter house and was flanked by dormitories for guests and residents. Just to the west of the guest hall was a porter's lodge, controlling access to the complex, while a refectory divided the north and south cloisters. The north cloister was flanked by a library on the west side, an infirmary on the north side and kitchens on the east side.[22] The prior's house adjoined the east side of the south cloister and may have had its own private entrance to the friary church.[23]
There were certainly a number of other monastic buildings within the friary precinct but little is known about them. There would, for instance, have been a number of service buildings to facilitate the friary's maintenance. The studium generale would have had its own building, and the building of a domus lectorum (house for the student lectors) was authorised in 1419. The friary is the only one in London known to have had its own prison.[24] It was at the centre of a scandal in 1525 when an imprisoned friar died there, leading to those responsible being imprisoned for a while in the Tower of London.[25] The friary also had extensive gardens, principally in the northern end of its precinct. The largest was the Great Garden, on the western side, which was some 388 ft (118 m) long by the 16th century. They would have been used to grow vegetables and medicinal herbs, and a 16th-century lease indicates that one of the gardens had fruit trees as well.[26]
Monastic houses in London often leased land within their precincts to secular tenants, and Austin Friars was no exception.[26] Several tenements were built on the western side of the precinct and the friary also owned a number of properties just outside the precinct, adjoining Throgmorton Street, which included the Swanne and Bell inns. The larger tenements were rented to important officials and dignitaries; in the first half of the 16th century their tenants included Thomas Cromwell, the wealthy Italian merchant John Cavalcante, the Holy Roman Emperor's ambassador Eustace Chapuys, the French ambassador, and Erasmus, who left without paying his bill.[27] These properties enabled the friary to obtain about Â60 a year in rents, although the disposal of a number of properties in the 1530s reduced this figure to Â40 annually by 1538.[28]
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