Clerkenwell Priory
Clerkenwell Priory was a priory of the Monastic Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, in present Clerkenwell, London. Run according to the Augustinian rule, it was the residence of the Hospitallers' Grand Prior in England, and was thus their English headquarters. Its great landholding – until Protestant monarch Edward VI of England – was in the ancient parish of Marylebone, in the now Inner London area known as St John's Wood, which it had farmed out on agricultural tenancies as a source of produce and income.[1]
History[edit]
Foundation[edit]
Jordan Briset, a Norman baron, founded the Priory in the reign of Henry II (along with a Benedictine nunnery alongside), and its church was consecrated by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Heraclius, in 1185. Henry held an aulic council at the Priory, at which Heraclius convinced the king that he should send English troops to a new crusade but was unable to persuade the barons to allow Henry to lead them personally (even when Henry was offered the crown of Jerusalem in return, and even after Heraclius shouted in a rage "Here is my head, here is my head; treat me, if you like, as you did my brother Thomas. It is a matter of indifference to me whether I die by your orders or in Syria by the hands of the infidels; for you are worse than a Saracen.") Thomas Malory was one of those later buried in this church.
Medieval heyday[edit]
Matthew Paris recounts a party of Hospitallers setting out from the Priory in 1237 for Crusade thus: