Ipswich Whitefriars - Other Affairs

Other Affairs

During the mid-14th century Sir Geoffrey Badley joined the Ipswich Whitefriars, one of several knights attracted to the order who, however, held only junior positions owing to their lack of learning. Edmund Brounfield, Abbot of Bury St Edmund's, took refuge with the Ipswich Carmelites in 1379 when his monks had driven him out: the house of the Rector of St Stephen's church, close to the Priory, was ransacked in the Peasants' Revolt of 1381. Around 1400 here began the Institute of Recluses, the early female department of the Order. There was a very devoted woman at Ipswich named Agnes, who had a remarkable spirit of prayer and penance. The Recluses observed the rule closely, having a mostly vegetarian diet, wearing hair shirts, waking at midnight throughout the winter and at dawn in summer, fasting on Fridays and Saturdays (bread and ale only on Fridays), and devoting much time to prayers.

In 1452 the monastery entertained King Henry VI with his entire suite. Over the next 25 years the church was entirely rebuilt (creating the structure revealed by excavation). The new church was consecrated in 1477 by Friar Thomas Bradley (Scrope), Bishop of Dromore. It is known from a will dated 1463 that there was a chapel to St John the Baptist in the Priory Church, where the benefactor desired to be buried and to have masses sung for his soul. Town burgesses and merchants sought to arrange for their funerals and burials to take place in the church, and there are sundry records of bequests. Henry Fulslo left a barrel of beer to each of the three orders of Friars in Ipswich, in 1486: John Whelmeton, a tailor, left a cloak for every Ipswich friar in 1495.