- EUSTACE founded NEW MALTON when he returned in 1153. EUSTACE no longer needed his Old Malton Manor, so he gave it and the church to be a Monastery for the Gilbertine Canons in circa 1150. His son WILLIAM de-VESCY added Fishery’s, Fishpond, Tangarth, Mill Sheepfold and Meadows, the order flourished until HENRY 8th dissolved it in December 1539. The Malton Priory was a Carmelite house. Malton Priory was founded by Eustace FitzJohn in 1150 as a single house for canons and lay brothers.
- The Church was built originally in Late Norman style, and a beautiful Norman doorway, with zigzag and beak head moulding, still stands at the north east angle. The west front dated from 1180-1210, and the main entrance is adorned with five orders of mouldings. It had originally two towers, of which the south one still remains. Perpendicular work was added later, and the original building was altered accordingly. The three lowest windows of the west front were replaced by Perpendicular work, which offers a striking contrast to the Early English dog-tooth ornament which had been cut on the original outer frame. One of the Early English pillars was remodelled by later builders, and is covered with the stone panelling which formed one of the features of Perpendicular architecture.
- The Priory had very few shrines or relics, and the monks were forbidden by their founder to raise money for building purposes by itinerant preaching. The Priory accounts show that the canons were successful sheep masters, and that much of their profits were used to buy additional land. But the fiancés of the Priory were badly managed, and money was borrowed from the Jews to meet deficits. Agnes de Vesci and the townsfolk plundered the canons, who, between 1243 and 1257, had to spend £94.14s.3d., in bribes to win the goodwill of the sheriffs and bailiffs of Pickering Forest.
- OLD MALTON - St Gilbert of Sempringham son of a Lincolnshire Squire was sent away to become a cleric because he was disabled He was allowed to form his own order which became the Gilbertine's and was the only English Mediaeval Order. Gilbert de Sempringham died in 1189, at the advanced age of 106 years
The activities of the brethren were not confined to agriculture. They quarried their own stone and burnt their own lime. The latter operation was not free from danger, In 1197 a Canon of Malton fell into a lime pit and died immediately, poisoned by carbonic acid gas. The two bystanders who went to investigate shared the same feat. A third, 'protecting himself with the sign of the cross' descended be a short ladder into 'the fatal pit,' and immediately shouted ''I am dying, I am dying; pull me out.' Those standing nearest seized the top of the ladder to which the victim was clinging, and pulled him out. The next day some men recovered the bodies of the dead, on which they found no disfigurement except that the left eyes were bruised and bloodshot.
GILBERTINE CANONS. PRIORS.
- 1.ADAM; circa 1220 (Rievaulx Chartulary); Fine, 1214.
- 2.WILLIAM; Fines 1235-49; mentioned 1260.
- 3.ROBERT; Fine 1280; 1282;1284; mentioned 1288; ? ROBERT DE SKAKILTHORP, temp. Hen.III. (No.33).
- GEOFFREY; 1288.
- WILLIAM; Fines 1294-1305; 1300.
- JOHN DE WINTRINGTON; before 1343.
- JOHN; 1343.
- WILLIAM DE BENTHAM; 1368,1372.
- GEOFFREY; Pardon, 1415; 1423; 1425.
- JOHN WARDALE; 1435.
- RICHARD HEWORTH; Pardon 1459.
- (Taken from Yorkshire Archaeological Society Record Series Vol. XVII dated 1895).
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