The Gilbertine Priory of Saint Katherine’s Without Lincoln

The Gilbertine Order of Sempringham was confirmed by Pope Eugenius III in 1148.

Soon after that date, Robert de Chesney, bishop of Lincoln (1148 to 1166) founded the priory of St Katherine’s without Bargate at Lincoln, and provided as endowement custody of St Sepulchre’s Hospital to the north of the prioryand much land in Canwick, Bracebridge and the surrounding area.  The grant was confirmed by Charter of Henry II sometime between 1154 and 1169.

The priory was founded as a house for canons but it seems possible that the lay sisters were soon introduced to undertake the care of the sick.  St Gilbert limited the number of women in the house to twenty, while there might be sixteen men.  The canons who followed the rule of St. Augustine, and who wore a black cassock with a white cloak over it, and a hood lined with lamb skin, and lay brothers, and nuns who obeyed the Cistercian rule of St Benedict, and the lay sisters who looked after the sick.

The buildings of the priory occupied the area between Sincil Dyke to the north, the River Witham to the west and the highway to the east, and reached southwest to a point someway beyond Cross Cliff Hill, in all, about 9 acres.

The priory was dedicated to St Katherine the patroness of secular learning (although by the Gilbertine rules all dedications in this order should be to St. Mary or St. Andrew.

 

Over the next three hundred years, the canons and lay sister cared for the poor, the sick and the dying, as well as the hospital there was an orphanage and school within the priory walls, it was also a place of hospitality, not only the hierarchy of the church but kings, queens, dukes and earls stayed there before entering the city, these created a constant demand on their resources.  The priory attracted endowments from some of the leading citizens of the city and knights of the shire.

The night before St. Hugh of Avalon was entered bishop of Lincoln (29^th September 1181) he stayed with the prior at St Katherine’s and it later became the custom, enshrined in the Cathedral statues, for a new bishop elect of Lincoln to spend the night before his enthronement at St Katherine’s and hence go to his cathedral in barefoot.  The streets were draped with cloth, which was then distributed to the poor.

St. Hugh died on 17^th November 1199 in London; his body was carried back to Lincoln and rested overnight at the priory.  On the 26^th November 1199 the funeral procession including king John of England, King William of Scotland, Archbishop Hubert of Canterbury, Archbishop John of Dublin, Archbishop Bernard of Ragusa and 13 bishops with earls and barons carried the coffin up the hill from St Katherine’s to the Cathedral.

There is evidence of considerable activity at the end of the thirteenth century.  In 1285 a royal grant was made to the priory and convent to build a windmill to the east of the priory gate.

In 1290, it was here in the priory that queen Eleanor’s body rested for five days and was embalmed and prepared for its journey to London by the nus, and her viscera were taken to the Cathedral for burial.

To mark the start of this sad journey King Edward I raised the first of twelve Eleanor crosses opposite the main entrance to the priory, it stood in front of the church of The Holy Innocence on Swine Green.  The only remaining fragment of this first cross is now to be seen in the grounds of Lincoln Castle.

In 1294 the Prior were allowed to enclose a further plot of land to enlarge the priory and twelve years later they built an aqueduct for a water supply.  It was piped underground and came from a spring in Canwick.  A fragment of the pipe can be seen beneath the glass floor in the nave of the church.

By 1291 the priory and the city of Lincoln were both extremely wealthy because the king had granted the city the staple for wood, leather and more importantly wool (the priory had large flocks of sheep on their vast tracts of land in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire), this meant that any merchant who wished to export any of these commodities to the continent had to ship them out of England through the port on the Brayford pool and pay the taxes on these items in Lincoln.

One must remember that in 1349, the first full year of the plague deaths in England, one third of the whole population of Europe died, and the morality rate was seriously affecting economic activities in agriculture, especially in Lincolnshire where whole communities were wiped out, the shortage of labour lead to what was for that time serious inflation and if one was lucky enough to find healthy labourers the day rate had more than doubled.

A further blow came in 1369 when the king transferred the staples from Lincoln to the newly built port at Boston.  Until recent times, neither the city of Lincoln nor St Katherine’s ever fully recovered from these events.

The most famous prior was Robert Holgate.  In 1529 he went to London and took with him, it was said, a gold cup and two censers belonging to the priory.  He became Chaplin to Thomas Cromwell who made him Minister of the whole Order of Gilbertine houses; he was also made bishop of Llandaff.  In 1545, in return for his valuable services the king made Holgate Archbishop of York.  He also became Lord President of the North.  When Catholic Mary assumed the throne in 1553, to quote the York Minister Chronicle, “Robert Holgate quickly shed his wife and his protestant faith to save his skin”

The destruction of the English monasteries by Henry VIII must be regarded as one of the great events of the sixteenth century.  The king sought to abolish the entire monastic system in order to add royal coffers and to break down opposition to royal supremacy.

In 1535 the house at Lincoln was the first of the Gilbertine priories to surrender and William Griffith, the last prior with fifteen monks, joined the surrender of the house to the king.  It was valued in the twenty-sixth year of Henry VIII’s rein (1535) at £270, 1s.  3d gross income and at £202 5s.0 1/2 net.  The priory had been getting poorer and weaker for many years before it was actually dissolved.  Lord John Hussey of Sleaford had acted as agent and steward, not only for St Katherine’s but also for twenty other Gilbertine houses.

After the king had quelled both the Lincolnshire uprising and in the following year the ‘Pilgrimage of Grace’ for daring to challenge his authority in closing the monasteries, Lord Hussey was executed at Lincoln for high treason and Charles Brandon who had been instrumental in crushing all opposition was granted St Katherine’s priory, Barrlings Abbey and much of the former monastic land in Lincolnshire.  In the Elizabethan period a large and splendid house was built on the side of the former priory known as St Katherine’s Hall, eventually it passed into the hands of Sir Thomas Grantham of Goltho and St Katherine’s, who sat in all the parliaments from 1604 to 1629 either for the county or the city.  In 1617 King James paid an extended visit to the city and stayed at St Katherine’s with the Grantham family and there received the Sheriff, also in the house was a young man John Hutchinson, who later would sign the death warrant of James’ son Charles I.

In the 18^th century the Hall was described as “A beautiful place, once standing on the left on entering Lincoln and belonging to the Manby family, but pulled down a few years ago” and again “St Katherine’s near Lincoln, 1763 aftewards was neglected.  Of this priory, justly admired for its elegance, nothing new remains but some barns built from the materials.

St Catherine’s, a Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, was born out of the early expansion of the Lincoln circuit; (it followed the construction of the Hannah Memorial Chapel 1875, being built as a memorial chapel to the late much loved Dr Hannah). It was on the 12^th of April 1879, that a group of leading Methodists, including George Bainbridge, Loyatt Waterhouse, Holton Battle, White Wrighthall, Thomas Wallis, W J Smith who incidently donated the land, me with the Rev B Waddy in the chair, it was resolved to form a trust, in order that the land could be purchased, in the St Catherine’s area of the city, in order that a new school chapel, and before the trustees next meeting it was further resolved that plans should be obtained for the new complex. At the meeting of the Trustees, help on the 18 October 1870, a plan titled “The World is my Parish” was agreed upon.  The school chapel was built at a cost of £985.

At a trustees meeting held on the 4thy may 1887, Mr Bainbridge proposed that a chapel be built in front of the present school chapel, and this motion was supported by Mr Richardson.  It was agreed that it should cost no more than £3000.  The chapel was opened on the 4^th of October 1888 by the president of the council, Rev J Bush. A new two manual organ built by messers Foster and Andrews of Hull was provided by Mr George Bainbridge, was opened in 1890.

At the A.G.M of the trustees held in the church on Thursday the 4^th November 1976.  Due to high cost of maintenance it was resolved to close the church and sell the site, on the 31^st of August 1977, the closing service to be held on Sunday, August 28^th 1977.

2002 The Priory trust was formed to restore St. Katherine’s Church to its former glory and took possession on 11^th March of that year.