Of course,
on the one side, there was an inclination to raise the dues; on the
other, a desire to repudiate them altogether. Hence bad blood was
sure to arise between the monks and the townsmen, and sooner or later
serious conflicts between the servants of the monasteries and the
people outside. Thus, in 1223, there was a serious collision between
the Londoners and the Westminster monks; the mob rushed into the
monastery, and the abbot escaped their violence with difficulty by
slipping out at a back door and getting into a boat on the Thames. On
another occasion there was a very serious fray between the citizens
of Norwich and the priory there, in 1272, when the prior slew one man
with his own hands, and many lives were lost. At a later time there
was a similar disturbance at Bury St. Edmunds, and in the year 1314
the great abbey of St. Alban's was kept in a state of siege for more
than ten days by the townsmen, who were driven to frenzy by not being
allowed to grind their own corn in their own handmills, but compelled
to get it ground by the abbey millers, and, of course, pay the fee.
Thirty years later, again, that man of sin, Sir Philip de Lymbury,
lifted up his heel against the Abbey of St. Alban's, and actually
laid hands upon Brother John Moot, the cellarer; and on Monday, being
market day at Luton in Beds, did actually clap the said cellarer in
the pillory and kept him there, exposed to the jeers and contempt of
the rude populace, who, we may be sure, were in ecstasies at this
precursor of Mr.
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