100
THE ESSEX FIELD CLUB.
windowing of the Perpendicular Period was introduced in the north aisle. He
particularly drew attention to the work in red brick executed late in the fifteenth
or early in the sixteenth century by the addition of another bay to each aisle,
clerestory and battlements to nave, and dormers, gable, and buttressing to
chancel. The tower is large, and bears a lofty spire.
Of this church Alexander Barclay was an early rector (1546), well known as
a writer, and for his paraphrase of Brant's emblem-book "Stultifera nauis,'
entitled "The Shyp of Folys of the Worlde," folio, printed by Richard Pynson
in 1509 (first edition), an exceedingly rare and valuable work.1
The name of an early owner here, Sir Hugh de Badew (temp. Ed. III,) still
occurs about a mile S. of Howe Green, where two houses are entitled "Great"
and "Little Sir Hugh's."
The party then proceeded by Howe Green to the Hamlet of Bicknacre
(Parish of Woodham Ferrers), where the carriages were dismissed and some time
occupied in visiting all that now remains of the old Priory. Mr. Chancellor
pointed out that the fragment, which consists of two piers with shafts and
moulded arch, probably formed part of the central tower of the old Priory
Church, its date being of the thirteenth century. Attention was drawn to the
fact that but little was known of the history of Bicknacre Priory, although for
400 years the Priors and Canons, possessed as they were of very considerable
estates in Danbury, Woodham Ferrers, and elsewhere, and the largest ecclesiastical
building in the district, must have exercised considerable influence over our fore-
fathers in Chelmsford, Danbury, and surrounding parishes. The original Priory
was founded by King Henry II., at the instigation of Maurice Fitz-Geoffrey,
Sheriff of Essex from 1157 to 1164, who built and endowed this Priory for the
Canons of S. Augustine, and which he dedicated to the Virgin Mary and S. John
the Baptist. There were seventeen Priors who in succession ruled the establish-
ment from its foundation to the latter part of the reign of Henry VII., when
Edmund Goding, the last Prior, died. "At this time, through the carelessness of
the Priors, and other occasions being grown poor, and Edmund Goding, the last
Prior, being dead, and but one Canon left in the House, became in a manner
wholly neglected, upon which the Prior and Convent of the Blessed Virgin Mary
without Bishopsgate procured of the said King to grant them his royal license
bearing date 21 April, 1507, to have this Priory of Byknacre, with all its lands,
rights, and appurtenances to be united and appropriated to their hospital." By
an inquisition, taken after the death of the last Prior, the possessions are de-
scribed as the Manor of Bicknacre, with 30 messuages, 300 acres of arable, 40 of
meadow, 60 of wood, 500 of pasture, 62 of marsh, and £5 yearly rent, with a
Court Leet and view of frank pledge in Woodham Ferrers, Danbury, Norton,
Steeple, Chelmsford, Mayland, Stow, East and West Hanningfield, Purleigh,
Burnham, and Downham.
Upon the suppression, King Henry VIII. granted, 3 Feb., 1539, the site of the
1 At the end is this curious rhymed note :
Our Shyp here leuyth the sees brode
By helpe of God almyght and quyetly
At Anker we lye within the rode
But who that lysteth of them to bye
In Flete Streete shall them fynde truly
At the George: in Richade Pynsones place
Prynter unto the Kyngs noble grace.
Deo gratias.