80 PAPERS, ETC. 
produced one of the murderers of Thomas ä Becket), early 
in the list of the Abbots of Cleeve, we may fairly conclude 
that this Abbey, founded by a great Norman noble, occu- 
pied by an order of monks in which the proportion of 
Normans was possibly greater than in most others, was 
one in which men of Norman blood and Norman connec- 
tions formed the majority. And as the monks of the 
middle ages were the almost exclusive possessors of all the 
seience and literature existing in those times, and also were 
far better and kinder landlords and masters than the feudal 
barons around them, nothing could have been better 
adapted to the wants of the times or more likely to alle- 
viate the miseries of the lower classes; and at the same time 
induce a more just and lenient spirit into their conquerors, 
than such an establishment as that founded by Romara at 
Cleeve. 
I have been able to discover but little of interest re- 
corded of this Abbey, but that does not in any degree show 
that the good work of eivilisation and conciliation did not 
prosper in their hands; indeed, it is rather a proof that it 
did, for it can hardly be that a body of men superior in 
learning and intelligence to their neighbours, possessed of 
great wealtb, performing the duties of their profession with 
even ordinary propriety, in peace and quietness, through a 
. long series of years, should fail of ameliorating the condi- 
tion, both mental and bodily, of the wretched serfs and 
brutal soldiers by whom they were surrounded. The chief 
benefactors of the Abbey were William de Romara, the 
founder ; Hubert de Burgh ; Richard, Earl of Cornwall; 
Reginald de Mohun ; and King Henry II. ; all, it may be 
observed, Normans of the highest rank. According to the 
taxation of Pope Nicholas, the temporalities of this Abbey 
were in the diocese of Exeter, lands at Branton, the Manor 
