St Radegund - Maplebeck, Nottinghamshire - Legacy of Medieval Spiritual Warriors on Waymarking.com

"The village is situated on a belt of sandstone called Keuper Marl or Skerry and this rock has been quarried since medieval times, the stone being used not only to build the church but also Trent bridge and Bishop Alexander’s Castle at Newark and the Old Bishop’s Palace at Southwell. The old names of some of the fields such as ‘Cliff Close’ suggest that the stone was quarried within the village and this can be seen in the level of the roads leading out of the village as they are much lower that the surrounding land.

The piece of land bordering the south side of the churchyard is known locally as the place where a monastery once existed. It may be that there could be some truth in this belief. The Rufford Abbey records show that in 1239 there was an agreement between Abbot Geoffrey of Rufford and Brother Terry de Nulla, Prior of the Knights Hospitaller in England, concerning tithes from lands held and worked by the monks in Maplebeck. A later agreement between Matilda Burdon and the Prior of the Hospital of St John states: ‘a chaplain will celebrate daily at the chapel of Maplebeck and will minster the sacraments and will honestly officiate at the office pertaining to the chapel, and will continually reside in the town of Maplebeck in a suitable house for the friar and brothers’. Whilst this may not evidence a monastery as such, it does suggest that some church-owned establishment did exist. The estates of the Hospitallers certainly included Maplebeck church as recorded in 1338 by Prior Philip de Thame to the Grand Master Elyan de Villanova where he states: ‘Item ecclesia de Wynkebourn in proprios usus, cum capella de Mapelbeck…’

During the 12th and 13th centuries considerable grants of land in Maplebeck were made over to Rufford Abbey in return for the right of the Burden family – then Lords of the Manor – to be buried in the abbey. In 1404, Sir Nicholas Burden was killed at the battle of Shrewsbury and his daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, married Sir Robert Markham, and so the manor passed into that family. Their son John, became Lord Chief Justice of England. Earlier, in 1352, one Robert de Maplebeck was the abbot of Rufford.

There is no record of Maplebeck paying tax in the 1291 Pope Nicholas IV taxation, probably because it belonged to the Knights Hospitallers who were exempt. In the 1341 Nonae Rolls, Maplebeck is joined with Winkburn and was not taxed, but the yearly value of the ninth of sheaves, lambs and their fleeces (the same value as the tithe) is given as £6 3s 4d with income from altar fees worth £3 3s 4d. In the 1428 subsidy returns, Maplebeck (chapel) is associated with Kneesall church."

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"Both the church of St John of Jerusalem in Winkburn (visit link) and the chapel in Maplebeck were recorded as belonging to the Hospitallers in a 1338 return to the Grand Master, Elyan de Villanova. Even earlier, a Pipe Roll of 1184 refers to a “hospital” at Winkburn and, in 1239, monks at Rufford held and worked land at Maplebeck, with the agreement of the Hospitaller Prior of England, Terry de Nulla.

Maplebeck and Winkburn therefore have an honourable lineage, with historical links which can perhaps be imagined when contemplating the largely unchanged Norman architecture of Winkburn’s church of St John of Jerusalem."

SOURCE - (visit link)

Name of Military Order: Knights Hospitaller Link documenting charitable acts: Not listed

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