268 History of the Priory of Monkton Farley. 



perty of tlie Grifford and Buckler families, and now Sir Francis 

 Astley's. Whether Maud Bohun actually began the building I 

 cannot say. It was founded about the year 1125,^ but the dates 

 of her husband's and her own death are not known. It was cer- 

 tainly finished and principally endowed by her son Humphrey de 

 Bohun the Third, who married Margaret, daughter of Milo of 

 Gloucester, then Earl of Hereford. 



Monkton Farley Priory was a house of Cluguiac monks of the 

 Order of St. Benedict, and was dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene. 

 It was what was called a "cell," or house subordinate, to the great 

 Priory of Lewes in Sussex. 



The Order of Monks called Clugniac derived their name from 

 a place called Clugni, in Burgundy, a little north of Lyons, where 

 a celebrated Benedictine house had been founded in a.d. 890. The 

 Order of St. Benedict had become through the disturbances of those 

 times, so disorderly as almost to have lost all discipline, when it 

 was revived in fresh vigour at Clugni. That new monastery had 

 enjoyed for 200 years an European fame, when about the year 

 1070, WilKam Earl of Warren, and his wife Gundreda (the Con- 

 queror's daughter), went on a pilgrimage to Rome. They visited 

 various monasteries (the only inns in those days), and being unable 

 to proceed, owing to some disturbances in the country, they turned 

 aside from their road and took up their abode at St. Peter's of 

 Clugni. Yery hospitable entertainment and the good things of Bur- 

 gundy left an agreeable impression upon the palates of William de 

 Warren and the Lady Gundreda; so, upon their return to England, 

 being minded to found a religious house at Lewes, they sent for 

 some of the brethren of Clugni, and in that way Clugniac monks 

 were introduced into this country. The house at Lewes was the 

 greatest of the Order, and was called one of the first "five daughters 

 of Clugni." It was built in 1072, and though to a certain extent 

 subordinate to its parent monastery in France, it enjoyed its own 

 revenues, paying to its Superior only a small annual acknowledg- 

 ment, and submitting to his appointment of a Prior. Clugniac 

 monks were very precise in their ceremonies. They wore a black 



' Kegister of Lewes Priory. 



