The destruction of the site
In January 1538/9, about two months after the Suppression of Byland,
Sir Nicholas Fairfax wrote to Thomas Cromwell requesting preferment
for Byland’s lands and demesne, which lay near to his house.(79) Nicholas’s
request was refused and the site was instead granted to Sir William
Pickering in 1539.(80) The destruction
of the abbey was thorough. It began at the time
of the Dissolution and continued until the eighteenth century.
An exception was the abbot’s lodgings, which was spared for use
by a local farmer but was in ruins by the nineteenth century
and no longer survives.(81)
The monastic community
Most of the monks of Byland were given dispensation to hold a benefice,
providing they renounced their monastic state. Not all took up
the offer. Some, including Richard Leitheley, died soon after
the Dissolution, others
decided to embark on an alternative route. Abbot John,
for example, retired to his country estate and lived off a substantial
pension.(82) By
1563 the former
abbot was living in William Calverley’s house, where he made his will.
He left his vestments to the parish church and various pieces of
silverware to William, on the understanding that should he live,
William would return
these valuables. (83)
Character defamation
Robert Baynton, a former monk of Byland, can perhaps be identified with
the Robert Baynton who was a chantry priest of St Katherine’s
in Wharram Percy, and was accused in 1545 of evil living. His defamer
maintained that Robert had fled from his previous parish on account
of his malevolent ways. Robert, however, successfully sued his accuser
for defamation of character, and the slanderer was compelled to kneel
before Robert at High Mass on a Sunday and repent for calling him a ‘false
priest.’
[Cross and Vickers, Monks, Friars and Nuns, p. 102.]
It is extremely
difficult to establish with certainty what became of the former monks of
Byland, for there are often a number of
individuals of the same name in the same locality, occupying positions
that might plausibly have been filled by former members of the
community. A number of these men held benefices, serving as curates
or vicars. Prior Robert seemingly held the vicarage at Driffield,
and Christopher Crombock may have been vicar of Monk Fryston.(84) Robert
Baynton was evidently a chantry priest at St Katherine’s
chapel in Towthorpe and also at Hinderskelfe, and held a living
at Hutton-on-the-Hill. John Cleveland was perhaps a chantry priest
at Batley Parish church and the curate of Burnby, and Richard Judson
may have kept the school at Pickering Church.(85) William
Wetherall, it seems, served as a curate in Gilling, but may have
officiated
as chaplain to the Fairfax family at Gilling Castle. There was
a curate in Carwood called William Wetherall, who was vicar of
Laneham, Nottinghamshire, and was awarded a living in Epperstone,
Nottinghamshire.(86)
