A HISTORY OF DORSET 



Bishop Osmund records the names of two of the earliest archdeacons of the 

 county, Adam, about the year 1097, and John, about 1120.'^ Adelelm, 

 archdeacon of Dorset, occurs in a charter of Bishop Roger of SaHsbury, 

 1130-35,'^ and WiUiam witnessed a deed of Bishop Hubert about 1190." 

 Later on, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the abuse of papal 

 provision was at its height we find the archdeaconry constantly held in 

 succession by Roman cardinals and ecclesiastics. 



In passing we may note that the strong wave of monastic feeling and 

 sympathy which swept over the country in the twelfth century left its trace 

 in Dorset in the number of foreign cells and dependent priories which then 

 sprang into existence. The two centuries that elapsed between the Survey of 

 1086 and the Taxatio of 1291 witnessed the introduction of an alien 

 community at Loders belonging to the abbey of St. Mary of Montebourg ; 

 the grant of Povington to the abbey of Bee, Spettisbury and Stour 

 Provost to the abbeys of St. Peter and St. Leger of Preaux, and of Winter- 

 borne Monkton to the Cluniac priory of Wast or de Vasto ; the Norman 

 abbeys of Tiron and Lyre were also among the ecclesiastical landowners 

 of the county. As regards the older and pre-Conquest foundations, many 

 of the changes brought about in the earlier part of the century were 

 doubtless necessary modifications and adjustments in face of altered cir- 

 cumstances.'' 



For information as to the spread of parish churches and the systematic 

 organization and adjustment of parochial endowments in Dorset in the 

 twelfth and thirteenth centuries one turns again to the Register of St. Osmund, 

 as well as to the collection of deeds and charters relating to the cathedral of 

 Salisbury with their many references to this county, as the most available 

 source.'' The foundation charter of Salisbury in 1091 enumerates, among 

 the endowments of the cathedral, the churches of Sherborne, Bere Regis, and 

 St. George of Dorchester, the last generally identified with the church of 

 Fordington which, united with the manor of Writhlington in Somerset, made 

 up a prebend in Sarum.^"" The parish churches of Yetminster, Alton Pancras, 

 Charminster, Beaminster, and Netherbury, the manors of which were also 

 included among the possessions of the cathedral in 1091,'"' are afterwards 

 found among the peculiars of the dean and chapter of Salisbury.^"' The 

 Norman abbot of St. Wandragesil or Fontanel in 1200 released to the 

 chapter the church of Whitchurch Canonicorum,^"^ already in his hands at 



"Jones, Fasti Eccl. Sarisb. 137. Le Neve quoting from the same register gives Adam as the firot 

 archdeacon of Dorset ; Fasti Eccl. Angl. ii, 637. 



'' Reg. of St. Osmund (Rolls Ser.), i, 349. " Ibid. 241. 



'' Thus Bishop Roger of Salisbury endeavouring to restore the loss of status consequent on the removal 

 of the see constituted Sherborne into an abbey and annexed to it as a dependent cell the former abbey 

 of Horton, now evidently in a state of decay. The bishop's action in appropriating Abbotsburj' to the 

 episcopal see 'as far as he could' does not on the other hand appear to have had a lasting effect [William of 

 Malmesbury, Hist. Novella (Rolls Ser.), ii, 559]. Another modification took place in 1122 when the former 

 abbey of Cranhorne was reduced to a priory and made subordinate to Tewkesbury, of which formerly it had 

 been the head house. 



" The general scheme of organizing and adjusting the estates of the cathedral church at this period had 

 the effect of adding many more churches to those already held by the cathedral chapter in Dorset. 



"" Reg. of St. Osmund (Rolls Ser.), i, 195. "" Ibid. 



'" Falor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), i, App. p. 458. 



" Of the four churches belonging to this Norman abbey in the Domesday Survey two were granted, 

 Whitchurch Canonicorum, and Burton Bradstock by charter of the Conqueror to the abbey ' for the sake of 

 Guntard my chaplain,' monk of the monastery ; Reg- of St. Osmund (Rolls Ser.), i, 231. 



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