Flixton Priory was a nunnery under a prioress following the Augustinian rule, which formerly stood in the parish of Flixton in the north of the English county of Suffolk, about south-west of Bungay. It was founded by Margery de Creke in 1258,W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum, New Edition Vol. 6 Part 1 (T.G. March, London 1849), pp. 593-94 (Google).D. Knowles and R.N. Hadcock, Medieval Religious Houses: England and Wales (Longmans, Green and Co., London 1953), p. 228. and was dissolved in 1536–37.'Houses of Austin nuns: Priory of Flixton', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Suffolk Vol. 2 (V.C.H., London 1975), pp. 115-17 (British History Online, accessed 16 June 2018).A.I. Suckling, The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, 2 vols (John Weale, London 1846), I, pp. 189-97 (Google). It was the poorest of the nunneries within the Diocese of Norwich. The site of the priory, which was enclosed by a moat, was at the present Abbey Farm, where little apart from the position in the landscape and a small section of standing wall remain to be seen. It was scheduled as an ancient monument in 1953.'Flixton Priory', English Heritage National Monument Record. It is privately owned and is not open to the public. It is suggested that some parts of the masonry may have been re-used in St Peter's Hall at St Peter, South Elmham.
There are plentiful charters and other deeds and documents relating to the history of the priory. Eighty-four charters collected by Thomas Martin of Palgrave which were purchased by Thomas Astle entered the Stowe Collection,Press III, XCVII: "Flixton Charters", in C. O'Conor, Bibliotheca MS. Stowensis. A Descriptive Catalogue of the Manuscripts in the Stowe Library (J. Seeley, Buckingham 1819), II, pp. 164-65 (Google). and passed from the Ashburnham CollectionEighth Report of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts (HMSO, London 1881), Part II, Appendix III, p. 27, no. 8 (Internet Archive). to the British Library. An 18th-century abstract of their contents is bound into the miscellaneous volume Stowe MS 1083, at fols. 56–84.A short itemized abstract of the Stowe charters relating to Flixton Priory, together with other sources, is found in W.A. Copinger, County of Suffolk: Its History as Disclosed by Existing Records, 6 Vols (Henry Sotheran, London 1904), II, pp. 382-91 (Internet Archive). Other Flixton charters owned by Thomas Astle are in the British Library "Carta Antiqua"; there is also a small but important series in the Lord Frederick Campbell collection. Several manorial rolls, rentals and other documents are among the Adair papers in the Suffolk Archives at Ipswich.
Flixton was among the feudal possessions of the Bishop of East Anglia at the time of the Domesday Book of 1086, and together with Homersfield "is embedded in the tight-knit bundle of estates and churches of the bishop's fee known as South Elmham." The claim thus laid by Norman Scarfe is that this historic endowment of the bishops originated in a 7th-century grant to the first East Anglian bishop, St Felix, Bishop of Dommoc c. 631–648, and that Flixton itself (and also the other Flixton, in Lothingland) take their names from him.N. Scarfe, The Suffolk Landscape, The Making of the English Landscape (Hodder and Stoughton, London 1972), pp. 122-27.N. Scarfe, Suffolk in the Middle Ages (Boydell Press, Woodbridge 1986), pp. 25-26 (Google). While this does not decide the various claims of South Elmham in Suffolk and North Elmham in Norfolk to be the seat of the second East Anglian Episcopal see of Helmham established by Archbishop Theodore,Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, Book IV, Chapter V. it does provide a context which in the 13th century may have recommended Flixton as an appropriate site for a religious foundation, in a commanding manorial seat a short distance from the pre-Conquest parochial church.
The patron family Margery de Hanes (de Anos), daughter of Geoffrey de Hanes of Hillington, Norfolk,'Freebridge Hundred and Half: Hillington', in F. Blomefield (ed. C. Parkin), An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, Vol. 8 (William Parkin, London 1808), p. 462 (British History Online, accessed 16 June 2018). by her marriage to Bartholomew de Creke brought her inheritance to the principal heir of a house associated with the formerly rival powers of the Bigod and Glanvill families. The de Creke family were lords of the manor of Creak at North Creake, Norfolk,'North Creak', in F. Blomefield (ed. C. Parkin), An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, Vol. 7 (William Miller, London 1807), pp. 66-78 (Internet Archive). adjacent to the estate upon which Sir Robert de NerfordA.J. Musson, 'Nerford (Narford), Robert (d. 1225)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography established a Hospital of St Bartholomew after 1217, which his widow Dame Alice developed as the Augustinian abbey of Creake.S. Watson, 'A mother's past and her children's futures: female inheritance, family and dynastic hospitals in the thirteenth century', in L. Smith and C. Leyser (eds), Motherhood, Religion and Society in Medieval Europe, 400-1400 (Routledge, 2016), at pp. 213-236 (Google).
Bartholomew de Creke, and his sisters Margaret and Isabel, were the children of Robert de Creke and his wife Agnes de Glanvill, daughter and heir of William, son of Hervey de Glanvill. Agnes had first married Thomas Bigod, son of Roger Bigod, 2nd Earl of Norfolk. Roger Bigod's father Hugh Bigod, 1st Earl of Norfolk (died 1177) made a second marriage to Gundreda, daughter of Roger de Beaumont, 2nd Earl of Warwick. This Countess, in her widowhood, married Roger de Glanvill, the uncle of Agnes, and with his assistance founded her nunnery at Bungay Priory. When Glanvill died, around 1195, certain Glanvill estates descended to Agnes as his heir, and Gundreda sued her for a share of them as her dower. At much the same time Thomas Bigod died and Agnes remarried to Robert de Creke.S.J. Bailey, 'The Countess Gundred's lands', The Cambridge Law Journal Vol. X no. 1 (1948), pp. 84-103. Roger de Glanvill's lands were, however, tied up in grants to Ranulf de Glanvill's monastery at Leiston Abbey, or else not disponible owing to Roger's debts to the crown.Bailey, 'The Countess Gundred's lands', at pp. 95-101.
Robert de Creke also held Glanvill lands at Combs, Suffolk, on behalf of the heirs of Agnes, but after 1210 paid his scutage and farm erratically,T.D. Hardy (ed), Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi Asservati I: MCCIV-MCCXXIV (Commissioners, 1833), p. 347b (Mecklenburg-Vorpommern). and made a second marriage. Not until 1221 was account rendered for Combs in Bartholomew's name.'Inquisitions: 296: Robert son of John de Thorp', Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Vol. VII: Edward III (HMSO 1909), pp. 214-18 (Internet Archive). Bartholomew's sister Isabel married the heir of Theobald de Valoines, founder of Hickling Priory and of the nunnery at Campsey Priory, and in 1229 Bartholomew obtained the manor of Helmingham Hall (Creke Hall), Suffolk, from Theobald's sister Joan, prioress of Campsey, in exchange for rents out of his lands at Combs.W. Rye, A Calendar of Feet of Fines for Suffolk, p. 29, 13 Henry III, no. 141. View original at AALT (Anglo-American Legal Tradition website). His marriage to Margery de Hanes added her family manor of Hillington to their assets, and also that of Flixton. He settled a dower on his stepmother Richemaia on his return from service in Ireland in 1234.Blomefield, 'North Creak', p. 67: Close Rolls of the Reign of Henry III, 1231–1234 (HMSO 1905), p. 40 (Internet Archive); Final Concord (Norfolk), PRO 25(1)/156/57, 18 Henry III. View original at AALT. In 1240 £14 a year was owed to Bartholomew for Margery's maintenance out of the manors of Creake, Helmingham, Hillington and Flixton, payable at Fundenhall.Ipswich Eyre, 1240: P.R.O. JUST 1, no. 818, memb. 29, front. View original at AALT. These were held from him in part by William le Blund, whose sister was, before 1247, married to Bartholomew's cousin Robert de Valoines, son of Isabel de Creke.'Inquisitions: 585. William le Blund', Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, I (HMSO 1904), pp. 184-85 (Internet Archive).'Inquisitions: 392. Roger son of Peter son of Osbert', Calendar of Inquisitions Post Mortem, Edward I, IV: 1300–1307 (HMSO 1913), pp. 266-268, at p. 267 (Helmingham) (Internet Archive).
The foundation phase, 1256–1292 Foundation charter Bartholomew died around 1252 leaving three sons and a daughter, while Margery de Creke retained control of the manors which were hers by inheritance. She held the fee of Flixton from Robert, son of Sir Robert de Tateshal, on nominal service. In 1256 he granted her licence to found a house of religion there, at a site of her choosing, and granted her the fee to appropriate to the house.Page, 'Priory of Flixton', citing Suckling, who makes no mention of these facts. The source is Copinger, County of Suffolk, II, pp. 390-91, citing British Museum, Lord Frederick Campbell Charters xii.20 and i.4. By charter of 1258 she gave the whole of her manor of Flixton, which she held by hereditary right, to the religious women professing the rule of St Augustine and certain other rules, serving God and St Mary and St Katharine and All Saints at her capital messuage in Flixton. The grant was made for the good of her own soul, for that of her father Geoffrey de Anos and mother, for her late husband Sir Bartholomew de Creke, for her children and other family. She did this with the full consent of her first-born son and heir Robert de Creke. Robert de Valoines and William le Blum (Blund) were two of the principal witnesses, and Margery's two younger sons Geoffrey and John de Creke also attested.Lansdowne Manuscript 447, and Stowe Charter 291. Text of Charter in Suckling, History and Antiquities, I, p. 190 (Internet Archive). Page, 'Priory of Flixton', misquotes the source as Lansdowne 477.
The monastery was limited to 18 nuns and a prioress, the first of whom was Alianora.Suckling, 'Flixton', pp. 191, 196. The dwelling-house with its moated enclosure stood at the northern edge of the ancient cluster of parishes of South Elmham known as The Saints, on the brow of the plateau where it falls into the valley of the River Waveney. Two miles to the south stood the moated palace of the Bishops of Norwich at St Cross, South Elmham, built by Herbert de Losinga. That was a favourite residence of Bishop Walter Suffield (Calthorpe), who lived there in great splendour and died in May 1257.'South Elmham St Margaret,' in A.I. Suckling, The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk I (1846), pp. 221-26 (Google). Margery's charter of foundation was therefore given under his successor Simon de Wanton, elected in June 1257 and consecrated in March 1258, who lived until 1266 and assisted Margery in her early benefactions. Bishop Roger Skerning later granted confirmation.Copinger, County of Suffolk, II, pp. 390-91, citing Stowe Charters 292-294.
Early endowments