The Carmelite Friary

The White Friars were called that because of their white cloaks.They were of the order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, and were generally known as the Carmelites. They wore a white mantle and a loose hood. The Carmelites established themselves in Scotland at Banff in the reign of Alexander III. They came to Yarmouth in about 1278. They had extensive property, thought to have extended from White Friars Quay to the Market Place. Individual monks could own nothing, and were sworn to poverty, nevertheless they acquired for their monastery considerable riches.They sold letters of fraternity, and burial places within their church. They also sold perpetual prayers for the dead*1. Several persons are known as having been interred at the church of the white friars, including in about 1309, a Nicholas Castle and his wife Elizabeth; Dame Maud, wife of Sir Thomas Huntingdon in 1330; and Sir John De Monte Acuto, Steward to the household of Richard III, in 1382*3a. John Tylney was Prior in 1435, 1437, and 1455, both Prior and Sub-Prior being elected annually.

In 1509 both the Church and the Convent were burned to the ground, Manship recording that there was insufficient water to put it out. Robert Denton and Robert Nottingham in 1544 had a grant of all the property which had belonged to the White Friars, and in 1567 they obtained licence from the Crown to sell it, when the land was divided. It is not recorded what happened in the interim, assuming that on part of this land, William Browne was to build his residence in 1756, except that the deeds do refer to an earlier right of way to the north. Throughout history, Carmelites have hit the headlines from time to time. A Carmelite called Robert Baston was taken by Edward II to celebrate his victory in verse. Instead Baston was captured by the Scots and forced to write for them instead. The results are said to be very unremarkable! [W.D. Macray Eng. Hist. Rev.xix (1904) p.507-8] When Edward II was deposed, there was a formal deputation that included two Carmelite Friars. [Lanercost, p.258] In the peasants revolt of 1381, in the reign of Richard II, many monasteries were plundered. In Cambridge a chest full of parchments was taken from the house of the Carmelites and publicly burned in the Market Square.On the 17th.of June there was a band of rebels, one of whom, called Litster, assembled with his fellows on Mousehold Heath, Norwich, from where gangs of rebels went to nearby towns and villages. One such gang, under Roger Bacon, was sent to Yarmouth. Rolls were destroyed, and several persons executed after mock trials. Litster was later apprehended by Bishop Despenser's forces, and led to the gallows by the latter at North Walsham.[Oxford Hist. of Eng., McKisack, p.417]

See also other details, in Row 13