A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



to the church of Holy Trinity, Rouen, 401. of 

 English money. 4 



Confirmation charters of Kings Henry II, 

 John, and Edward I, together with other bene- 

 factions, are cited from the chartulary in the 

 Monasticon* 



Roger the founder died in 1098 ; he left a 

 son who died without issue in 1102, and was 

 succeeded by his brother Arnold, who was one 

 of the witnesses of the foundation charter. 

 Arnold's son John, weary of the world, entered 

 his uncle's priory as a monk, giving at the same 

 time a gift of land. On the day of his burial 

 Richard, his eldest son, laid his father's grant 

 upon the altar, and confirmed it by attaching his 

 own seal. 6 



This Richard de Builli was one of the joint 

 founders of the neighbouring Yorkshire Abbey 

 of Roche. John de Builli his son built the two 

 chapels or churches of Bawtry and Austerfield 

 in Blyth parish, giving them to the monks of the 

 priory. Idonea his daughter, who married, in the 

 reign of John, Robert de Vipont, a great lord in 

 Westmorland, confirmed this gift in the time 

 of her widowhood. She died in 1235, and with 

 her ended the family of de Builli. 7 



It may be noted here that the cathedral 

 church of St. Mary of Rouen became possessed, 

 in the course of the 1 2th century, of an interest 

 in the neighbourhood of Blyth, which at first 

 sight seems inconsistent with the dependence of 

 the priory upon the abbey of the Holy Trinity. 

 In 1174 Henry II granted to his clerk Walter 

 of Coutances 'the chapelry of Blyth' with its 

 appurtenances. After Henry's death his son 

 John, as Count of Mortain, confirmed this gift 

 to the cathedral church of Rouen and to Walter 

 of Coutances, then archbishop of that see. 8 In 

 an original charter issued by Count John between 

 1191 and 1193, the 'chapelry of Blyth' is 

 defined as ' the church of Harworth with the 

 chapels of Serlby and Martin.' ^ It is clear that 

 this grant was never intended to convey any 

 rights over the priory of Blyth, and the history 

 of the churches comprised within the chapelry is 

 well ascertained, and is quite distinct from that 

 of the priory. 



In the time of Henry III and Edward I 

 this priory is several times referred to as sub- 



4 Harl. MS. 3759,fol. 48. Harleian MS. 375918 

 a well-written and well-preserved register or chartulary 

 with rubricated headings, of 1 5 3 parchment folios, in 

 various hands, most of the end of the 1 3th and begin- 

 ning of the 1 4th century. The first part chiefly 

 consists of a series of rentals and lists of tenants of the 

 reign of Edward I. At folio 48 begins the chartulary 

 proper, which extends nearly to the end of the book ; 

 it contains copies of abstracts of about 375 charters. 



4 Dugdale, Mm. iv, 623-5. 



6 Harl. MS. 3759, fol. 105. 



7 Raine, Hist, of Blyth, 17. 



8 Cat. of Doc. France, no. 30, 46. 

 8 Ibid. no. 6 1. 



84 



ject to the abbey of St. Katharine of Rouen, 

 and occasionally at that period and later to the 

 Abbot of Holy Trinity, Rouen. These two 

 titles refer to one and the same place. This 

 Benedictine abbey, on a hill-side near Rouen, 

 was originally dedicated in honour of the Holy 

 Trinity, being consecrated by the Archbishop of 

 Rouen in 1130. At a later date, early in the 

 1 3th century, the religious of St. Katharine 

 were transferred here by Simon, monk of Mount 

 Sinai, and hence the abbey was more frequently 

 known as St. Katharine of the Mount. 9 



The alien priories are generally divided into 

 two kinds, dative or conventual. The majority 

 were of the former style, and mostly quite small 

 houses whose priors and monks were removable 

 at will by the superior and convent of the foreign 

 house to whom they owed allegiance, and for 

 whom they chiefly acted as stewards of their 

 English possessions. The second or conven- 

 tual class acknowledged the supremacy of the 

 mother house, paying an annual apport or 

 tribute, but possessing their own English property 

 and usually electing their own superior. Under 

 this latter head came the Cluniac monks of Eng- 

 land, and to some extent the Cistercian monks 

 and the Premonstratensian canons. Blyth occu- 

 pied an intermediate position between the two, as 

 will be seen from the following extracts from 

 the archiepiscopal registers at York. Various arch- 

 bishops successfully maintained certain powers 

 which were but rarely exercised by diocesans 

 over alien houses ; but at the same time the 

 Abbot of Rouen claimed the right to remove 

 both the prior and any member of his flock at 

 pleasure. 



This claim of the Abbot of Holy Trinity was, 

 however, contested at an early date. Pope 

 Lucius in the I2th century issued a bull to the 

 Prior of Blyth, strictly forbidding anyone from 

 removing him from his office or appropriating 

 the possessions of his church. 10 



Again, Archbishop Godfrey in 1260 issued a 

 peremptory mandate to Theobald, Prior of Blyth, 

 who had been recalled by his abbot to Rouen, 

 forbidding him under pain of excommunication 

 to cross the seas without his (the archbishop's) 

 permission, for Theobald had been instituted 

 as perpetual prior by the archbishop's pre- 

 decessor. 11 



Blyth was situated on an important early high 

 road, which led from Newark through East 

 Retford to Rotherham and the further north. 

 In 1 249 Archbishop Gray assigned to Blyth an 

 annual pension of 5 marks out of the church 

 of Weston, stating that he was moved to grant 

 this in order to assist the prior and convent in 



9 Migne, Diet, ties Abbayes, 156 



10 Raine, Hist, of Blyth, 46. It is not known 

 whether this was Lucius II (1144-5) or Lucius III 

 (1181-5), but probably the former. 



11 Harl. MS. 6970, fol. 144^. 



