The Churches of Coventry | Page 3

the laity who saw both sides may be gathered from Chaucer's picture of a "poore Persoun of a toun." He knew well enough how the revenue, which should have gone to the parish, its parson and its poor, went to fill the coffers of rich abbeys, to build enormous churches and furnish them sumptuously, to provide retinues of lazy knights for the train of abbot or bishop, and to prosecute lawsuits in the papal courts.
But when bishop and abbot were one and the same, the monks still claimed the right of election, and so for generations the history of the diocese is a tale of strife and bickering, and how it was that pope, king or archbishop did not perceive that it was a case of hopeless incompatibility of temper, or, perceiving it, did not dissolve the union or get it dissolved is difficult to see. Probably the injury done to religion weighed but lightly against vested interests and the power of the purse. The Monastery was, however, as Dugdale says, "the chief occasion of all the succeeding wealth and honour that accrued to Coventry"; for though the original Nunnery may have been planted in an existing settlement, or have attracted one about it, the greater wealth of the Abbey, its right to hold markets, and all its own varied requirements would quickly increase and bring prosperity to such a township, as it did at Bury St. Edmunds, Burton-on-Trent and many another.
In the thirteenth century the priory was in financial straits, through being fined by Henry III for disobedience. Later, however, he granted further privileges to the monks, among them that of embodying the merchants in a Gild. In 1340 Edward III granted this privilege to the City. From an early period the manufacture of cloth and caps and bonnets was the principal trade of Coventry, and though Leland says, "the town rose by making of cloth and caps, which now decaying, the glory of the City also decayeth," it was only destroyed by the French wars of the seventeenth century. But in 1377, when only eighteen towns in the kingdom had more than 3,000 inhabitants, and York, the second city, had only 11,000, Coventry was fourth with 7,000. Just one hundred years later 3,000 died here of the plague, one of many visitations of that terrible scourge. At the Suppression it had risen to 15,000, and soon after fell to 3,000, through loss of trade for "want of such concourse of people that numerously resorted thither before that fatal Dissolution."
But if the town grew apace so did the Monastery. Thus, when in 1244 Earl Hugh died childless his sisters divided his estates and Coventry fell to Cecily, wife of Roger de Montalt. Six years later the Monastery lent him a large sum to take him to the Holy Land, and received from him the lordship of Coventry (excepting the Manor House and Park of Cheylesmore) and the advowson of St. Michael's and its dependent chapels, thus becoming the landlords of nearly the whole of Coventry.
[Illustration: COOK STREET GATE.]
Civic powers grew with the growth of trade. Before 1218 a fair of eight days had been granted to the Priory, and later another of six days, to be held in the earl's half of the town about the Feast of Holy Trinity. In 1285 a patent from the king is addressed to the burgesses and true men to levy tolls for paving the town; one in 1328 for tolls for inclosing the city with walls and gates, while in 1344 the city was given a corporation, with mayor, bailiffs, a common seal, and a prison. As the municipal importance and the dignity of the city increased, the desire for their visible signs strengthened, and so, in 1355, work was begun on the walls, Newgate (on the London Road) being the first gate to be built. Such undertakings proceeded slowly, and nine years later the royal permission was obtained to levy a tax for their construction, "the lands and goods of all ecclesiastical persons excepted."
Twice afterwards we hear of licence being granted by Richard II to dig stone in Cheylesmore Park, first for Grey Friars Gate, and later for Spon Gate, "near his Chapel of Babelake." The walls so built were of imposing extent and dimensions, being three yards in breadth, two and a quarter miles in circumference, and having thirty-two towers and twelve gates.[3] Nehemiah Wharton, a Parliamentary officer in 1642, reports of the city that it is:
Environed with a wall co-equal, if not exceedinge, that of London, for breadth and height; and with gates and battlements, magnificent churches and stately streets and abundant fountains of water; altogether a place very sweetly situate and where there is no stint of venison.
To return to the monastic history. We have seen how, in