30 CRANBORNE AND TEWKESBURY. 



and endowed it with lands and estates. Having gathered there 

 some brethren under an Abbot, who should strictly obey the rule 

 of our holy Father St. Benedict, he made the Priory of Tewkes- 

 bury, of which he was the patron, entirely subordinate to the 

 Church of Cranborne. These things were transacted about the 

 year 980. Aylward, the first lord, having departed this life, was 

 honourably buried in the church which he had founded, and his 

 son Algar> with his wife Algiva, were his heirs. To Algar suc- 

 ceeded Brihtric, both of them good representatives of the faith 

 and nobility of their ancestors, and, being actuated with a like 

 spirit, they completed the vow of their parents by enlarging with 

 suitable magnificence the church they had begun to build. 



"In the year 1102 Robert FitzHamon, under the influence of 

 the Holy Spirit, resolved, at the entreaty of his good wife Sybil, 

 and Gerald, abbot of Cranborne, that the Church of Tewkesbury 

 should be rebuilt to the honour of God and the Blessed Virgin, 

 and he endowed it with rents, lands, and large estates. And 

 forasmuch as that spot seemed to be much superior to the 

 monastery of Cranborne, in respect to fertility of soil and plea- 

 santness of situation, he translated the brethren, with their Abbot 

 Gerald and certain estates, to Tewkesbury, in the year of Grace 

 before mentioned, leaving here a prior and two brethren for the 

 sake of preserving the founder's memory to posterity; so, 

 changing the Abbey of Cranborne into a priory, he made it 

 subordinate to the Abbey of Tewkesbury, and raised the Priory of 

 Tewkesbury with great splendour to the dignity of an abbey." * 



In the course of a brief comment I have to make on this 

 important record, I beg, in the first place, to invite attention to 

 Aylward's name of Sneaw or Snow. He is elsewhere called Meaw 

 or Meawes, as were also his son Algar and his grandson Brihtric. 

 The discrepancy is so striking as to suggest whether Sneaw can 

 be his correct appellation, or whether these names be not a 

 corruption due to the carelessness or ignorance of translators or 

 transcribers. There is a St. Meaux in Normandy, a Meux or 

 * Dugdale's Monast. Anglic., vol. 1, p. 153, first edition, 



