The quarrel between the King and his barons would seem, too, to have
involved the monks, for we find the sub-prior and nine brethren were
expelled from Lewes for conspiracy and faction and went to do penance
in various houses of the Congregation. Indeed such was the general
collapse here that before the end of the century the Priory was
practically bankrupt.
That Lewes suffered severely from the Black Death of 1348-49 is
certain, but we know very little about it, and indeed the history of
the house is negligible until, in the beginning of the fifteenth
century the whole system of Cluny was called in question and it was
claimed on behalf of Lewes that it should be raised to an abbacy with
the power to profess monks. It will be remembered that the Abbot of
Cluny--the only Abbot within the Congregation--alone could profess, and
in times of war, such as the fourteenth century, this must have been
very inconvenient. Indeed we read of men who had been monks their whole
life long, but had never been professed at all. It is therefore not
surprising that such a claim should at last have been put forward.
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