TAUNTON PRIORY. 21 



HywhySj William de Combe, Hugli de Reigny, Walter atte 

 Walle, and William de Haleswelle. Who say upon their 

 oath that the Priory of Taunton is not of the foundation 

 of the progenitors of our lord the king, kings of England, 

 or of the progenitor of some one king. But they say 

 that the aforesaid Priory is of the foundation of one 

 William Gyffard, formerly Bishop of Winchester, before 

 the time of King Edmund Iryneside, from which time 

 memory is not extant, of all his land in the northern 

 part outside the east gate of his vill of Taunton, for the 

 erection in the same place of a monastery, and its site 

 by bounds and divisions contained and named in the 

 charter of the same Bishop, for a pure and perpetual alms ; 

 which very foundation and gift Henry King of England and 

 Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine and Earl of Anjou con- 

 firmed by his own charter for a pure and perpetual alms, 

 as in the charter of the aforesaid Bishop touching the 

 aforesaid foundation and gift is more fuUy contained. 

 And they say that the said Priory hath no lands or tene- 

 ments of the foundation or gift of any progenitor whom- 

 soever of the King of England, or of the progenitors of 

 any whomsoever of the Kings of England. In wltness 

 whereof the aforesaid Jurors have to this Inquisition 

 aflSxed their seals." * 



The attribution by the Jurors of Bishop Gyffarde, who 

 is known to have been consecrated in the year 1107, to 

 a period anterior to that of King Edmund Ironside, 

 although properly characterized by Dugdale as " error 

 maximus," is nevertheless in some measure to be under- 

 stood and accounted for. For, although the historians of 

 the Anglo-Saxon aira are silent on the subject, there is 



* Inquis. ad q. d., 10 Edw. II., n. 172. 



