A HISTORY OF DORSET 



hermitage ' at Blackmoor, although stated to have been under the rule of 

 St. Augustine, does not seem to have belonged to the Austin ' Friars Hermits,' 

 nor yet to have become a house of Austin canons, as was sometimes the fate 

 of such hermitages. 



Some twelve hospitals are known to have existed in this county, but 

 they were mostly small, and some were apparently unendowed lazar-houses. 



A considerable amount of property was held in Dorset by alien houses, 

 and in five or six cases the parent house established a cell or small priory 

 upon its estates. These instances were at Frampton (the abbey of St. Stephen 

 of Caen), Loders (St. Mary of Montebourg), Spettisbury (the abbey of 

 Preaux), Wareham (the abbey of Lire), and possibly Povington (the abbey 

 of Bee Hellouin). The latter is only called a priory in 1467, more than 

 fifty years after it had been separated from the Norman abbey, and it is 

 probable that it was never more than a grange or estate managed by the 

 abbey's chief English cell, the priory of Ogbourne. In the same way the 

 lands given by Roger de Beaumont in Stour Provost to the nuns of St. Leger 

 of Preaux, and those in the neighbourhood of Winterborne Wast bestowed 

 upon the Cluniac priory ' de Vasto,' near Boulogne, were never the site of any 

 cell and priory. At Muckleford, which estate was granted with the advow- 

 son of Bradford Peverell to the Norman abbey of Tiron," a cell was said to 

 have been established,' but it is clear that the estate was really under the 

 control of the abbey's cell of Andwell in Hampshire.* Similarly, the sup- 

 posed cell of the Carthusian priory of Sheen at Shapwick ' was clearly no 

 more than a grange. 



HOUSES OF BENEDICTINE MONKS 



I THE ABBEY OF ABBOTSBURY In the above account we have the name of the 



founder of Abbotsbury as generally accepted : 



Coker states in his Survey of the Countte of ' Sir Ore ' or Ore, Orcus, Orcy or Urce, steward 



Dorset, quoting the register of the monastery, un- of the palace of King Canute and Tola or Thola 



fortunately destroyed with the mansion-house of his wife. The date of their foundation however 



the Strangeways at Abbotsbury in the civil wars varies with different historians. Reyner, in his 



of Charles I, that here history of the Benedictine order in England, 



..... • ■ r • r.".L • .- •.• . gives the year 1026,* Tanner states that about 



was built in the verie mfancie of Chnstianitie amongst ^ r^ ^ • ■ ■, ■ r i 



the Britains a church to St. Peter by Bertufus an ;°26 Orcus instituted a society of secuar canons 



holie priest unto whom the same saint had often ap- ^ere which he or Tola his widow changed to 



peared and amongst other things gave him a charter » monastery of the Benedictine order in the 



written with his owne Hande, reign of Edward the Confessor ' Again, accord- 

 ing to Coker, the monastery was built by Orcus 



professing therein ' to have consecrated the church in 1044 and ' stored ' with Benedictine monks 



himself and to have given it to Name Abodes- from the abbey of Cerne.* It would seem from 



byry.' Afterwards the rules drawn up by Orcus for his gild or 



King Canute gave to Sir Ore his Houscarle this Maternity of St Peter at Abbotsbury' that a 



Abotsbury as alsoe Portshara and Helton ; all which society existed here previously which was later 



the said Ore and Dame Thole his wife having no issue converted into a monastic establishment, 



gave unto the church of St. Peter at Abotsbury, longe , , 



before built but then decayed and forsaken by reason , ^M'l^l' Benedict. T.^ct n, sec. v,, m. 3. 



the Rovers from the sea often infested it.' , /"""^ (^^- ' 74+). Donet, 105 Orcus the steward 



01 King Canute having expelled secular canons in- 



' Ca/. Doc. France, 358. troJuced monks. He was buried here with Thola 



' Hutchins, Hijt. of Dorset, ii, 536. his wife. Leland, Collect, iii, 254. 



* Arch. Journ. ix, 250. ' Surv. of Dorset (1732), 30. 



' Hutchins, Hist, of Dorset, iii, 166. ' Dugdale, Mon. (Charters under Abbotsbury,. 



' Particular Surv. of the Ccurtie of Dorset (1732), 30. No. iii), iii, 35. 



48 



