Medieval religious communities
Monasteries
A monastery for men is a settlement built to house a community of monks or canons and, in some orders, lay-brothers. Monasteries provided facilities for worship, communal living and subsistence. These may include the church and domestic ranges grouped around a main cloister; a subsidiary cloister which might accommodate offices, an abbot's lodging, infirmaries, and an inner gatehouse; and an outer court for guest houses and ancillary industrial and agricultural buildings. This precinct was bounded by a wall or moat, pierced by an outer gatehouse and perhaps marked also by a gate chapel. Within or near the precinct, were mills, fishponds, and field systems.
Monasteries were founded from before the Norman Conquest to the Dissolution of the monasteries (1535-40). Domesday Book records thirty-five monasteries for men. The Anglo-Norman plantations that followed were architecturally on a larger scale than the earlier houses (for example, Battle, Sussex and Selby, N Yorks), although the quantity of lands held by the preConquest houses ensured that these remained the wealthiest monasteries. Very few monasteries for men were founded after the (mid) 14th century. Patrons turned to monasteries more specifically devoted to evangelism (Friaries), or prayer (Charterhouses),or the offering of masses (Colleges). Piety was re-channelled toward the funding of chantries or hospitals and almshouses.
Monasteries for men of traditional and Reformed orders include Arrouiasian, Augustinian, Benedictine, Bonhommes, Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, Cistercian, Cluniac, Fontevraultine, Gilbertine, Grandmontine, Premonstratensian, Savignac, Tironian, Trinitarian, and Victorine.
Monasteries for men established in Buckinghamshire include the Cistercian Medmenham Abbey, and a Maturine monastery said to have stood on the site of the Prebendal in Aylesbury. Two Arrouiasian foundations were Missenden Abbey and Notley Abbey.
Notley Abbey.
Monastic granges
A grange may be defined as a consolidated block of monastic demesne land, anything from c30ha to c2000ha or more in extent, often at a distance of several kilometres from the abbey itself, organised as an estate farm and worked more or less independently of the manorial system of communal agriculture and servile labour. At the core of the estate were farm buildings, paddocks, gardens, granaries, industrial workings and, occasionally, a chapel.
Such properties were especially characteristic of the estates of Cistercian abbeys, but the system of farming pioneered by the Cistercian monks was soon imitated by other orders. The class of granges may be subdivided into: agrarian farms, sheep farms, cattle ranches, horse studs and industrial complexes, such as iron workings. An individual monastic estate might include several types of out-station or outlying grange, in addition to a "home grange" adjacent to the monastery. This served as an estate office and centre of organisation. Most of the specialised out-stations also included some degree of mixed farming or animal husbandry. This makes them similar to other medieval farmsteads.
The function of monastic granges was twofold, to provide food and raw materials for consumption within the monastery itself, and to produce surpluses for sale for profit. Monastic granges can first be recognised in the 12th century, and continue in use, with some significant changes in management and function, up until the Dissolution (1535 - 40). Foundation grants to most Cistercian houses and to those of other monasteries during the 12th century make it clear that sheep formed an important part of their economies. The role of sheep farming increased during the 13th century, before declining from the early 14th century. The Cistercians also created vast upland cattle ranges from the 12th century. Their purpose was to produce meat, but more importantly, to yield hides for leather and parchment.
There are several monastic granges that have been identified in Buckinghamshire, including those at Holywick, a grange of Medmenham Abbey, and Grange Farm in Great Kimble, belonging to Missenden Abbey. A grange is also mentioned at Moreton Farm in Dinton in the records of the Bishopric of Winchester.
Abbeys
These are monasteries governed by an abbot or abbess. There are several abbeys that survive in Buckinghamshire. Missenden Abbey , Notley Abbey, Burnham Abbey, which is now again a community of nuns, and Medmenham Abbey. These buildings have become places where the public are not able to get in, whereas, originally they were very open to outside people.
Priories
A priory is a monastery in the charge of a prior or a prioress and sometimes overseen by an abbey. Snelshall Priory near Whaddon survives only as a cropmark while part of Chetwode Priory Church survives as Chetwode parish church.
Snelshall Priory.
Friaries
A friary is a settlement housing a community of male mendicants. It is normally composed of a discrete group of buildings and open spaces bounded by a precinct wall. In contrast to monasteries of the 12th century reformed orders, the friars' main concerns were preaching, evangelism and learning. Strict enclosure or segregation from the secular world was not, therefore, a factor in planning their sites. Their orders prohibited private property, so that their subsistence was achieved through the alms and gifts of benefactors. A friary might include a church, cloister, chapter house, dormitory, kitchen, refectory, library, prior's lodging, guest house, "little cloister", infirmary, gatehouse and precinct boundaries. Within the precinct may have been additional agricultural or industrial components, such as wells, orchards, stables, pens, slaughter/butchery areas, tanneries and workshops.
Friaries were established in prominent English county towns from at least the mid 13th century onwards. The main period of construction and consolidation of plans occurred between 1270 and 1320. Many sites were occupied for c320 years, from their initial foundation until the Dissolution in the late 1530s and early 1540s.
In response to their missionary aims, the friars located their houses in towns. Because of this, a friary had less space and therefore a less formal layout than a monastery. In addition, their economic basis did not consist of an estate or grange system but relied on the financial or material gifts of benefactors for their subsistence. The main mendicant orders associated with English friaries include the Franciscans (Greyfriars), Dominicans (Blackfriars), Austin Friars and Carmelites (Whitefriars). A small number of houses for Franciscan and Dominican nuns were established in the 14th century. One friary is known in Buckinghamshire at Rickford Hill.
Nunneries
A nunnery is a settlement built to sustain a community of religious women. Its main components included provision for worship and subsistence. Their central elements are the church and domestic buildings arranged around a cloister. In addition a second outer court and gatehouse may accompany the central cloister complex, the whole bounded by a precinct wall, earthworks or moat. Associated outlying features may include fishponds, mills, field systems, stock enclosures and barns.
The earliest English nunneries were founded in the 7th century AD. Most of these early houses had fallen out of use by the 9th century. A small number of these were later refounded. The 10th century witnessed the foundation of some new nunneries, particularly in Wessex. But the majority of medieval nunneries was established from the late eleventh century onwards. The period of greatest activity for the foundation and construction for the Reformed Orders (Benedictine, Cistercian, Augustinian) fell between 1130 and 1250. A small group of medicant nunneries (Franciscan, Dominican) were founded between 1250 and 1350.
Most nunneries remained in use from the time of their foundation until the Dissolution of the monasteries (1535-9). Many of the houses were then either systematically dismantled or sold in order to be converted into manor houses or domestic dwellings. In cases where the conventual church also served as a parish church, the nunnery's domestic buildings were disposed of and the church was retained for parochial use. During the 20th century some of the sites have been re-established as convents for women (for example, Malling and Burnham, Bucks) but many continue to be occupied for domestic purposes. The remains associated with a monument, therefore, may date from the medieval period until the present day; some 24 churches which were originally parts of nunneries are still used for Christian worship. One place that may have been the site of a medieval nunnery suggested from historic documents is south of Little Kimble Church.
Alien houses
A residence of monks dependent on a foreign mother house sent to exploit a distant estate. Alien houses were officially suppressed in 1414. There is an alien monastery in Buckinghamshire, at Grove Priory near Leighton Buzzard.
Hermitages
A hermitage is a settlement built to house a religious individual or group seeking solitude and isolation. Their main components may include an oratory (or chapel), cell (or group of cells) or domestic ranges, sometimes arranged around a cloister or courtyard. A well, latrine and, in larger examples, ancillary domestic buildings (dovecote, kitchen, ovens) can also be present.
By about the 12th century, the function of a hermitage varied according to whether it was occupied by hermit-monks, canons or priests. Hermit-monks resembled contemplative monastics, and their hermitages may have been retreat houses serving monastic communities. The hermitages of hermit-canons (following the Augustinian Rule) sometimes served as hospices, or were linked to hospitals or leper houses. Priest-hermits served bridge and chantry chapels.
Except for the Hermits of St Paul, hermitages sought isolation, locating themselves on the boundaries or margins of human settlement. Their chosen situations emulated the tradition of the early Desert Fathers of Egypt and Syria.
Town hermits have been recorded for London, Shrewsbury, Durham, Leicester, Ely, Colchester, Coventry, Crewkerne, Canterbury, Lydd, Chichester, Bristol, Pontefract, Norwich and Thetford. Hermitages in Buckinghamshire are mostly known from historic sources, though the foundations of one hermitage survives on Whaddon Chase at Coddimoor Farm that was later absorbed by Snelshall Priory. Other hermitages are known in Finemere Wood that was attached to Notley Abbey, at Plough Farm in Chetwode and attached to St Leonards Church in Cholesbury-cum-St. Leonards.