A HISTORY OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE 



county up to 46 5/. The largest item in this revenue was the church 

 of Aylesbury, which was endowed with the manor of Stoke Mandeville, 

 8 hides, and worth 20 ; the church of Buckingham had only the small 

 hamlet of Gawcott, i hide, worth 30^. The manor of Wooburn, 8| 

 hides, worthji 5, was part of Harold's forfeited property ; the bishops of 

 Lincoln kept it until the Reformation and had a palace there. 



The abbey of Westminster held two manors Denham, 10 hides, 

 worth 7, the gift of a thegn in King Edward's day ; and 8 hides in 

 East Burnham, worth loos. z%d, 



The abbot of St. Alban's had three manors : Grandborough, 5 

 hides, worth iocs. ; Winslow, 15 hides, worth 11 13^. 4^. ; and Aston 

 Abbots, 10 hides, worth 6. Nothing is said about Little Horwood, 

 which was reckoned a century or so later amongst the earliest gifts to 

 the abbey. 



The abbess of Barking held the manor of Slapton, 6 hides, worth 

 6, from this time till the dissolution of the religious houses. 



The canons of St. Frideswide held at this time only the manor of 

 Upper Winchendon, 10 hides, worth 6 ; this also was under the 

 same tenure till the dissolution. 



This completes the tale of church lands held in capite ; but several 

 of the greater feudal tenants had already endowed foreign monasteries 

 with portions of their lands. So the monks of St. Nicholas, Angers, had 

 already z\ hides in Crofton, worth 4, which afterwards formed a part 

 of the endowment of the priory of Wing. The monks of Grestain held 

 6 hides in Ickford, worth 6, and 1 1 hides in Marsh Gibbon, worth 8. 

 The monks of St. Peter, de la Couture, held 5 hides in Woolstone, worth 

 3, under Walter Giffard. But it seems that up till the time of the 

 Survey there was no religious house actually founded within the county. 1 



Immediately after the Conquest began the work of church building 

 and re-building all over the country ; and it is possible in the twelfth 

 century to reckon numbers with a fair degree of accuracy. There are, 

 indeed, about forty churches and chapels in Buckinghamshire which 

 even now bear traces of the Norman period* : but there is larger evidence 

 than this. The monastic chartularies, the Lincoln Episcopal Registers, 

 and the Taxatio of Pope Nicholas IV., supplementing one another, give 

 us a total of 183 parish churches existing before the thirteenth century, 

 with a very large number of parochial chapels appendant. It is note- 

 worthy that neither at this nor at any time before the nineteenth century 

 did any of the larger towns of Buckinghamshire possess more than one 

 parish church. Aylesbury had, indeed, four important dependent 

 chapels, and the vicarage of these was severed from that of the mother 

 church in 1294*; but Buckingham, Amersham, High Wycombe, and 

 Newport Pagnel had only one church apiece. The two churches of 



1 The Domesday survey alludes to the minster of ' Stanes ' and the minster of St. Firmin at Crawley ; 

 but Mr. Round is of opinion that the word is used here, as elsewhere, only in reference to a parish church. 

 1 See Records of Bucks, viii. 221-233. 



1 Line. Episc. Reg. Inst. Sutton n8d. Both vicarages, however, were under the same rector. 



282 



