A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



7. THE ABBEY OF BEAULIEU 



It would appear that in 1 203 King John 

 granted to the house of St. Mary of Citeaux, 

 as the head of the Cistercian order, the manor 

 of Faringdon in Berkshire, where some monks 

 of this order had established themselves, upon 

 the condition that a monastery should be built 

 there. 1 In the following year the king founded 

 in the New Forest the monastery of St. Mary 

 of Beaulieu of the same order with provision 

 in it for thirty monks. 2 The foundation 

 charter is dated 25 January, 1 204-5.' By 

 this charter the bounds of the precincts are 

 accurately defined, and the monks were 

 endowed with the manors of Great and Little 

 Faringdon, Great and Little Coxwell, Shilton 

 and Inglesham, and the churches of Shilton 

 and Inglesham and the chapel of Coxwell, 

 and all that the king had in Langford. Beau- 

 lieu being thus founded the monks of Faring- 

 don were transferred to it, and Faringdon 

 was made a cell to Beaulieu. 



The small chartulary of 179 folios, in the 

 Cotton collection,* opens with a transcript of 

 the charter of King John, dated 2 November, 

 1203. This is followed by three charters of 

 Henry III. and an elaborate confirmation 

 charter of Edward III., dated 23 February, 

 1328. The particulars with regard to the 

 different vicarages, and more especially as to 

 the customs of the numerous manors (Shilton, 

 Great and Little Faringdon, Great and Little 

 Coxwell, Langford, Inglesham and Westbrook), 

 which are given in great detail, are of con- 

 siderable interest but pertain to the history of 

 Berkshire. 



Among the Harley MSS. is a transcript of 

 a register or chartulary of Beaulieu, copied 

 from one in the possession of the Duke of 

 Portland, in 1739, and collated with the 

 original in 1836 by Sir F. Madden. 5 It 

 opens with the long foundation charter by 



1 See King John's charter of confirmation to 

 Beaulieu enrolled on Charter Roll, 53 Hen. III. 

 m. 1 3, and printed in Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 

 683. 



* Chron. Job. de OxeneJes (Rolls Series), 118. 



3 Printed in Dugdale's Monasticon, v. 683. The 

 legend as to the first establishment of this important 

 house is to the effect that King John, having grossly 

 illtreated some Cistercian abbots at a parliament at 

 Lincoln, was so alarmed at a dream about the crime 

 and its consequences, that he resolved to found an 

 abbey of that order at Beaulieu for thirty monks. 

 The story, as told originally in a Kirkstall chartu- 

 lary, is not improbable, for the innately cruel are 

 usually superstitious. 



4 Cott. MS. Nero A. xii. 



8 Harl. MS. 6603, ff. 253-398. 



John, relative to the important cell at Faring- 

 don. This is followed by the charter of 

 Henry III., regarding the New Forest, and 

 confirming the grants of Bishop Peter and 

 William Briwer. The third charter is that 

 of the same king confirming 239 acres of land 

 in the New Forest, granted at the dedication 

 of the church, when the king and Queen 

 Eleanor and Prince Edward were present. 

 The charters referring to the possessions of 

 the abbey in Berkshire are numerous ; there 

 are also many pertaining to Soberton, Bucks; 

 Blacheford, Hants ; the town of Southamp- 

 ton, and the church of St. Keverne, Corn- 

 wall. 



In 1204 John gave the monks a hundred 

 marks towards the construction of the abbey, 

 a gold chalice, and a hundred cows and ten 

 bulls for their dairy; in 1205 they obtained 

 the royal gifts of twenty additional cows and 

 two bulls, further money, and a large grant 

 of corn ; in 1206 came the first gift of a tun 

 of wine for the use of the church from the 

 officers of the king's prisage at Southampton ; 

 and in 1207 further large grants of oxen 

 and corn. 6 On 16 August, 1205, the king 

 sent letters to all the Cistercian abbots entreat- 

 ing their assistance in the building of the new 

 abbey. 7 



In March, 1 208, came the famous interdict 

 of Innocent III. over all England which lasted 

 until the king's submission in May, 1213, at 

 which time Hugh, the first abbot of Beaulieu, 

 acted as an intermediary between the king 

 and the pope. On 4 April, 1 208, the abbot 

 obtained the royal passport for the conveyance 

 of himself and servants and five horses across 

 the Channel at Dover, evidently on a mission 

 to Rome touching this business. 8 In the 

 following month the pope issued a monition 

 to King John to fulfil his promise to the 

 abbot of Beaulieu to receive the cardinal Arch- 

 bishop of Canterbury and to make due restitu- 

 tion, and again in the following August 

 he instructed the Bishops of London, Ely and 

 Worcester to warn and induce the king to 

 carry out at once his various promises made to 

 the abbot of Beaulieu. 9 Meanwhile the king, 

 whilst staying at Waverley, the earliest of the 

 English Cistercian foundations, on the imme- 

 diate confines of the county, issued an order 

 by which he restored to the monks all the 

 lands which had been seized by occasion of 

 the interdict. Abbot Hugh returned to 



8 See entries from the Close Rolls cited in 

 Woodward's History of Hants, iii. 78-9. 



7 Close Roll, John (Rec. Com.), 3zb. 



8 Ibid. io8b. 



8 Cal. of Papal Letters, i. 31. 



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