350 On the Succession of the Abbesses of Witton, Sfc. 



Digest., p. 871). It was under the presidency of this abbess that 

 the scandalous affair occurred of the abduction of two nuns of the 

 monastery by a knight, Osborn GifFord. For this offence he suflPered 

 a severe penance, a part of which was publicly performed in the 

 churches and market places of Wilton and Shaftesbury. In Pal- 

 grave's Par. Writs, p. 336, we find the name of Osbertus Gifford 

 returned as holding lands in Dorset and Somerset, twenty-eighth 

 of Edw. I. Supposing this to be the culprit, and that his Dorset 

 property was near to Shaftesbury, this would account for a part of 

 his public penance being carried out at the latter place. 



Lady Emma Blounde or Blount. The name of this abbess is 

 not found in any previous list; her name occurs in a Pem. charter 

 as having died second Edw. II. — 1308-9 (may be earlier). This, 

 no doubt, is the abbess of whom Hoare gives some particulars, but 

 had not met with her actual name. It forms No. 7 of his list, he 

 says her election is dated Forfar, twenty-fourth Edward I. — 1295. 

 In 1303 the abbess was summoned to send her service against the 

 Scots ; muster at Berwick-upon-Tweed at "Whitsuntide, in the 

 thirty-first of Edw. I. 



Alice db Parham. The name of this abbess has not previously 

 been met with in any list. It occurs in a Pembroke charter of the 

 time of Edw. II. or III. A grant to John de Parham,' of Alvedistone, 

 of a burgate of land. Witnessed by Matthew Wake,^ Stephen of 

 Bayeux, and others. This abbess is afterwards mentioned as having 

 preceded Constance. 



Constance de Percy. This abbesses name is found in a Pem. 

 charter of the eighteenth Edw. il. — 13:^4-5, and again on the sixth 

 of Edw. III. — 1332. She is named No. 8 in Hoare^s list, as having 

 succeeded her predecessor in 1321, but her name is met with in a 



^ In the twenty-fifth Edw. I. — 1297 — we find the name of John de Parham 

 returned from the counties of Dorset and Somerset as holding lands or rents to 

 the amount of £20 yearly, either in capite or otherwise, and as such summoned 

 to perform military service in person, with horses and arms, &c., in parts beyond 

 the seas. In the Nomina Villarum, 1335, John de Parham, with others, held 

 lands at Alvediston. 



^ The family of Wake were lords of the manor of Ebbeshourne from the time 

 of King John until the middle of the last century. 



