Notes on Bermondsey Abbey. 97 
The Cluniacs were a most rigid sect of Benedictines, so called 
from their Abbey at Clugni. 
Bermondsey was therefore an alien priory acknowledging the 
jurisdiction of, and collecting revenues for, the Priory of La 
Charité sur la Loire, thus encouraging the export trade—an 
economical proceeding which afterwards led to difficulties. 
Reference is made to, in ‘ Domesday,’ Alwin Child’s church 
where it is described as ‘‘ Nova et pulchra Ecclesia,’ but no 
traces of this church have been preserved. 
In 1094 William Rufus endowed the monastery with the 
Manor of Bermondsey, and from this date we may trace the 
rise in power and influence of the prior and monks until the 
dissolution of the monastery by Henry VIII. The grant of 
the manor was confirmed by Henry I. in 1127, who also gave 
to the priory the Manors of Rotherhithe and Dulwich, and 
William Maminot at the same time gave it a moiety of the 
Manor of Gravesend. 
At this date also began a connection between the monastery 
and Croydon, which lasted for upwards of four hundred years, 
for in the twenty-seventh year of his reign Henry I. granted to 
the priory the Manor of Whaddon, or Woddens, in Croydon, 
which they kept possession of until the 14th of Richard IIL, 
when they exchanged it to the Archbishop of Canterbury for the 
Rectory of Croydon. The priory became so closely related with 
various properties in Surrey, that it may interest you if I refer 
to its different Surrey possessions more particularly. 
In 1144 William de Watteville gave the convent the Manor of 
Warlingham with the consent of Robert, William, and Otwell, 
his sons, which manor in the 11th of Edward II. the monks 
had licence to devise to Robert de Kelesey for life; and in 1152 
the convent appears to have had two carucates of land at Legham, 
in the parish of Godstone, in Surrey, probably given to them at 
about that date. In 1159 King Henry II. confirmed to the 
priory the donation of the church of Camberwell and others; 
and Henry III. granted the monks a market every Monday at 
their manor of Charlton, in Kent, and a fair on Trinity Sunday 
yearly. I should mention that this fair had no connection with 
the celebrated “‘ Horn”? fair at Charlton. 
In 1178 the priory received from King Henry II. a charter of 
free warren over all their lands in Surrey. 
In the reign of Edward III. the priory of Bermondsey was 
sequestered with other alien priories for the use of the Crown ; 
but Richard III. re-established it, and subsequently, in 13880, for 
a fine of two hundred marks, enfranchised it, thus enabling its 
members to purchase and possess lands in their own right. 
In 1399 Henry IV. converted it into an abbey, and thus the 
monks were more fortunately placed than other alien priories 
