Bruisyard Hall, built out of the remains of the conventual buildings.

The Abbey of Bruisyard was a house of Minoresses (Poor Clares) at Bruisyard in Suffolk. It was founded from Campsey Priory in Suffolk on the initiative of Maud of Lancaster, Countess of Ulster, assisted by her son-in-law Lionel of Antwerp, in 1364–1366.[1]

The foundation of a religious house at Rokes Hall in Bruisyard began a little earlier, when a small college of secular priests (four chaplains and a master, or warden) attached to Campsey Priory for the purposes of a chantry, established in 1346–1347, was moved to Bruisyard in 1354 to celebrate there in a new chapel of the Annunciation to the Virgin. At that time a full set of statutes was promulgated by Maud of Lancaster.[2]

It was following the death of her daughter Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster in 1363 that Lionel of Antwerp, Duke of Clarence assisted in the refoundation of the house as a nunnery of the Order of St Clare, and at that time Maud of Lancaster, who had become a canoness at Campsey, transferred to the Poor Clares and spent her last years at Bruisyard. She and her daughter Maud de Ufford were buried there.[3]

The house was suppressed on 17 February 1539, as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

References

  1. ^ 'Houses of Austin nuns: Priory of Campsey', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Suffolk, Vol. 2 (V.C.H., London 1975), pp. 112-115 (British History Online, accessed 8 June 2018).
  2. ^ D. Allen, 'A newly-discovered survival from the muniments of Maud of Lancaster's Chantry', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History XLI Part 2 (2006), pp. 151-74 (Suffolk Institute pdf).
  3. ^ 'House of minoresses: Abbey of Bruisyard', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Suffolk, Vol. 2, (London, 1975), pp. 131-32 (British History Online, accessed 19 June 2018).

52°14′40″N 1°25′04″E / 52.24454°N 1.41775°E / 52.24454; 1.41775


Categories