Binham Priory: Sieges, Alchemy and Scandal in a Norfolk Monastery

From Allan Barton – the Antiquary

In 1320 the monks of Binham Priory in north Norfolk barricaded their doors against their own abbot; when a papal messenger arrived to serve legal papers on the prior, he was attacked so violently that his blood was splattered across the church walls. Binham was only ever a small Benedictine cell of St Albans Abbey, founded about 1091, and for long stretches of the Middle Ages it was a difficult place to live out a monastic vocation. In this video I fly the drone over the ruins on a foggy April morning and explain why this was a place where medieval monks behaved badly: Robert Fitzwalter’s siege of 1212, Alexander of Langley confined in chains, Prior William de Somerton and the alchemist friar who emptied the priory’s treasury, the monks who locked the gates against Bishop Alnwick in 1431, and Prior William Dyxwell, who kept wandering off. We also look at what survives: the Norman and Early English nave, still the parish church; the great west front, with the earliest dated bar tracery in England; the fifteenth-century benches and font; the rood screen, on which the saints are showing through the Reformation whitewash and texts; and the ruined monastic quire, with its reconstructed high altar. Much of what we know of the priory’s troubles comes from the chronicles of Matthew Paris and Thomas Walsingham, who wrote at St Albans and so, of course, tell it from the mother house’s side. Chapters 0:00 Binham Priory in the fog 0:59 What survives at Binham today 1:33A cell of St Albans: the foundation 3:47 1212: Robert Fitzwalter besieges the priory 5:47 Alexander of Langley, the chained monk 7:53 Prior de Somerton the alchemist 10:50 1431: the monks lock out the bishop 12:42 William Dyxwell, the wandering prior 13:36 The Dissolution and the ruin of the priory 15:05 The surviving nave 16:22 Why the nave took 150 years to build 17:50 The great west window and early bar tracery 20:09 Benches, font, misericords and rood screen 22:10 The ruined monastic quire