In 1124 the first Clare Earl of Hertford moved a small community of Benedictines from the great abbey of Bec out of his castle at Clare and established them alongside the church in Stoke. In the fourteenth century this was one of those foundations classified as an alien priory during the Hundred Years War. When the remaining ones were merged or dissolved and their estates reassigned to other religions houses by legislation in 1415 the Earl of March as Lord of Clare and successor to the original founder secured the refoundation of the Priory as a college of secular canons. Incidentally the final Papal approval of the new statues was secured by “my” Bishop Fleming of Lincoln as he left the household of Martin V to travel to his new diocese in 1420. He appears to have been a friend of the first Dean of Stoke, and requested that at the end of each day, the community should recite the Salve Regina in the Lady Chapel.
That there was a particular devotion to Our Lady at Stoke us recorded but virtually nothing more about it is known. I suspect it originated with the monks, and it may be one of the reasons Earl Edmund sought to refound the community.
Stoke by Clare Church
Image: A Church Near You
The largely fifteenth century church of St John the Baptist is a handsome and sizeable one with transepts and side chapels, and the college founded by Earl Edmund in 1415 seems to have had in part an educational intent for the local community.
The college was dissolved in 1548 and its last Dean was Matthew Parker, who in 1559 became holder of the see of Canterbury
The church from the south east
Image: thornber.net
May Our Lady of Stoke by Clare intercede for us and our intentions
Jesu mercy, Mary pray
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