Cherie's Place

In 1521 there was a dispute over the election of the prior which led to a visitation from Dr John Allen who took evidence from each of the monks at the priory. He published a report that showed that the once-strict following of the rule of St Benedict had now become slack. The list of ‘Injunctions & Exhortations’ included the following:

• The rule of continuous silence must be kept more strictly.

• There must be no dealings with women. They are forbidden in the cloister absolutely.

• Monks must conform to the rules about regular attendance in church, sleeping in the dormitory and eating in the refectory.

• Private property is forbidden.

• Monks must not hunt and their dogs must be expelled from the cloister, dormitory and indeed from the monastery.

• Gambling on games of cards, marbles and chess is forbidden.

• Monks must not take boys to the dormitory or have them in their company.

• Monks must not carry arms, nor must they form cliques and conspiracies.

• After compline, monks must go to the dormitory and not walk in the garden or go outside the monastery; they must not indulge in late drinking.

• After bleeding, monks may rest for two hours a day; they must not go to a grange for convalescence.

• Monks must be content with food and clothes instead of salaries, but they may receive payment for funerals.

• The prior should not indulge in luxurious and extravagant living with a large household.

• Everyone, from the prior downwards is forbidden to ask anyone what he said at this Visitation.

So according to Dr Allen, immorality, easy living and lack of worship had, by 1521, brought Wenlock Priory into disrepute. *

*From the English Heritage handbook.