A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



entered into between Hillary, abbot of Lire, 

 and Gervase, abbot of Quarr, by which the 

 former conceded to the latter, in return for 

 a yearly pension of 40*., the tithes and 

 profits of the manors of Arreton, Haseley, 

 Luccombe, Titchingham and Shalcombe. 

 This arrangement was renewed in 1239 with 

 a further sum of los. a year for the support 

 of the church of Carisbrooke. 1 



In 1238 Gregory IX. issued a bull allow- 

 ing the community to choose a confessor from 

 their own body. 



Edward I. in 1284 granted the abbey free 

 warren over all their manors in the Isle of 

 Wight.* 



At the time of the taxation of 1291, the 

 annual value of the temporalities of the abbey 

 in Winchester, including four mills and the 

 profits of tanneries in the island, amounted to 

 96 y. q.d. The abbot had also temporali- 

 ties at Forwood, in Exeter diocese, of the 

 annual value of 13 6s. 8d. 



The Crown imposed a life pensioner on 

 the community on 13 April, 1330, when 

 Benedict de Glannvyll, who had long served 

 the king and his father, was sent to the abbey 

 to receive such maintenance for life as John le 

 Hunte had had in that house in his lifetime, 

 by the late king's request. 3 



On 9 March, 1339, William Trussel, 

 admiral of the fleet from the mouth of the 

 Thames towards the west, received orders 

 from the king to supersede the exaction made 

 on the abbot of Quarr for finding a ship pre- 

 pared for war with sixty men, mariners and 

 others, well armed and supplied with neces- 

 saries, to set out with other ships under royal 

 command. The abbot had successfully be- 

 sought the king to be released from this 

 obligation, inasmuch as he was already main- 

 taining ten men-at-arms and no small number 

 of archers in the Isle of Wight for its defence 

 at a great expense, and was quite unable to 

 support any further charge. 4 



We find by the feudal aid of 1346 that 

 the abbot held half a knight's fee in perpetual 

 alms in Sheat in Gatcombe. 5 



In 1366 Edward III. granted the abbey 

 licence to crenelate as a safeguard against 

 foreign invasion, and about the same time 



1 For these and other early particulars see 

 Worsley's Hist, of Isle of Wight, app. l.-lxxviii., 

 and Stone's Arch. Anfiq. of Isle of Wight, pt. i. p. 

 1 1 o, note 



* Charter Roll, 12 Edw. I. No. 41. 



3 Close, 4 Edw. III. m. 36d. 



4 Ibid. 13 Edw. III. p. I. m. 35. 

 8 feudal Aids, ii. 339. 



138 



letters patent were issued that all wine ships 

 belonging to the community should come and 

 go free of duty. 6 



The abbots of Quarr held a distinguished 

 position in the Isle of Wight. When a com- 

 mission of array was issued in April, 1380, 

 on information of an intended invasion by 

 France and Spain, the abbot of Quarr headed 

 the list of eight gentlemen nominated by the 

 Crown, preceding even Sir Thomas de 

 Beauchamp, the governor of Carisbrooke 

 castle. 7 John Cheselburgh, abbot of Quarr, 

 occupied a like honourable position, in royal 

 commissions of 1461 and 1462, to summon 

 the king's subjects of the island and of the 

 counties of Hampshire, Surrey and Sussex 

 to defend the Isle of Wight against the 

 French. 8 



The Valor of 1535 gives the clear annual 

 value of the house as 134 3*. i id. 



In December, 1535, Abbot Ripon wrote 

 to Cromwell about farms that the lord privy 

 seal and his nephew Richard had desired to 

 obtain. The abbot protested that the farms 

 in question were the demesnes of the monas- 

 tery by which hospitality and the household 

 were maintained, and that without them the 

 abbot could not continue the house. Besides 

 the demesne, the monastery could not spend 

 yearly above 120, and fifty persons had to 

 be kept, besides such as resorted thither from 

 the country. He trusted therefore that 

 Cromwell's servant would be contented with 

 the reversion of any farms he might have to 

 let, and to secure his favour he would give 

 the fine to him and his nephew. 9 The last 

 abbot's anxiety as to his farms was not how- 

 ever of long duration, for being under 200 

 of annual value the monastery was dissolved 

 in 1536. 



Special efforts were made in the locality to 

 secure the king's good will for this monastery 

 and for Netley on the other side of the 

 water, but all in vain. The particularly good 

 report of the county commissioners, Sir James 

 Worsley and John and George Poulet and 

 William Berners, presented on 30 May, 1536, 

 was treated as so much waste paper. They 

 reported that the abbey of Quarr was : ' A 

 hedde house of Monkes of the ordre of 

 Cisteaux beinge of large buyldinge scituate 

 upon the ryvage of the sees by raporte greate 



6 Pat. 39 Edw. III. pt. 2, m. 23 ; 40 Edw. 

 III. pt. i, m. 15. 



7 Ibid. 3 Rich. II. pt. 3, m. zid. 



8 Ibid, i Edw. IV. pt. i. m. 3d ; 2 Edw. IV. pt. 

 i, m. i yd (Cal.). 



9 Letters and Papers, Hen. VII I. ix. 925. 



