The Register of Thetford Priory

The annual expenditure accounts recorded in this Register provide a marvellously complete picture of a Cluniac monastery during its last 60 years.

A medium-sized house containing about 15 monks, Thetford Priory was well-endowed and under the patronage of the Howard Dukes of Norfolk, but the Register was probably compiled to help regulate expenditure at a time of financial strain. The accounts provide important evidence for many aspects of monastic and outside life, including liturgy, obits and corrodies, the provisioning of the household, farming, taxation, legal disputes, and entertainments.

Part 1 contains an introduction, glossary, and accounts for the years 1482-1517. The accounts up to 1540, in which can be traced the priory's strenuous attempts to survive, will be published in Part 2, which will also include biographical and other appendices and full indexes. Together these volumes will provide an invaluable resource for historians of Norfolk and of monastic life in the run up to the Reformation.