A HISTORY OF DORSET 



the sea-coast called 'At Lyme.''' The nine 

 manors specifically assigned to the living of the 

 monks, apart from the ' land of the bishop of 

 Salisbury,' in the Domesday Survey are returned 

 as follows : — Sherborne with 9^ carucates of 

 land valued at £b lOJ., Oborne with 5 hides, 

 Thornford with 7, Bradford with 10, Comp- 

 ton with 6 hides and 3 virgates, Stalbridge 

 with 20 hides, Weston with 8, Corscombe 

 with 10 hides less I virgate. Stoke Abbas with 

 10 hides ; the value of the whole amounting to 

 ,^63 lOJ.** It was reported that 3 virgates of 

 land in the manor of Stalbridge, held by Man- 

 asses, had been taken from the church by W. 

 the king's son, without the consent of the bishop 

 or the monks. 



The loss of influence and position that might 

 have been expected to follow the removal in 1075 

 of the episcopal see from Sherborne to Old Sarum 

 was in a great measure obviated by the readjust- 

 ments initiated by Roger of Salisbury in the suc- 

 ceeding century. The bishop in 1 122, with the 

 consent of Henry I, united the former abbey of 

 Horton to Sherborne as a dependent cell, and 

 raised the latter house, of which he as diocesan 

 was titular head, to the dignity of an abbey, '^ 

 Thurstan being consecrated the s.ame year its first 

 abbot. ^ Various other arrangements and agree- 

 ments on the part of successive abbots and the 

 bishop and chapter of Salisbury followed this 

 change. Clement, then abbot, quitclaimed tojoce- 

 lin the bishop and the cathedral church of Salis- 

 bury, about the year 1 1 60, the castle of Sherborne, 

 formerly built by the great Roger of Salisbury ; -' 

 and the same bishop by his charter recited and 

 confirmed the rights and privileges of the abbot 

 as holder of a prebend in the cathedral, consti- 

 tuted by Bishop Osmund from the parish church 

 of Sherborne and its tithes and chapels, which 

 entitled the superior of the abbey to a stall in the 

 cathedral choir and a place in the chapter, the 

 grant expressly stipulating that on the decease of 

 an abbot no portion of the profits of the prebend 

 should fall to the communa because it was con- 

 ferred on the monastery itself and not expressly 

 on the abbot." The patent rolls record that on 

 22 July, 1386, the abbot and convent leased 

 their house in the cathedral close in favour of 

 John de Cliilterne, canon of Salisbury.-' In 



" Leland, Itin. ii, 51, 52. 



'* Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, fol. 77. 



" Jnn. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), i, 10. William of Malmes- 

 bur}', who mentions other changes, by mistake ascribes 

 it to the fourth year of King Stephen, 1 139 ; Gesta 

 Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 559. 



™ Cott. MS. Faust. A. ii, fol. 2 5 a'. 



" Reg. St. OsmunJ. (Rolls Ser.), i, 235. 



" Ibid. 250. The abbot is mentioned among 

 those prebendaries present at the framing of the New 

 Constitution {Nofa Constitutio) in 1214 (ibid. 374). 

 The prebend was assessed at ^40 in the Ta.xatio of 

 1 291. Pope Nick. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 182. 



" Pat. 10 Rich. II, pt. I, m. 35. 



1191 the monks made over the churches of 

 Lyme and Halstock to the bishop and chapter to 

 constitute a prebend in the cathedral church of 

 Salisbury to the honour of God and the 'glorious 

 virgin,' "^ and on the same date received a grant 

 appropriating the church of Stalbridge and Stoke 

 to the use of the abbey — saving a reasonable sus- 

 tenance to be provided for the perpetual vicar 

 ministering in the aforesaid churches — and a 

 licence to receive 2 marks annually from the 

 church of Corscombe when it should next be- 

 come vacant.-' Though by no means incon- 

 siderable, the rent-roll of the abbey of Sherborne 

 was comparable at no time to that of Shaftes- 

 bury, and even at this early date ' the poverty 

 and narrowness of means of the house of Sher- 

 borne ' are alluded to in the bishop's grant. In 

 1238 a composition between the convent and 

 the bishop of Salisbury released to the former all 

 amercements of the assize of bread and ale in 

 the hundred of Sherborne and Beaminster which 

 had been claimed against them, in return for 

 which they agreed to pay the bishop and his 

 successors half a mark annually at Easter.-'' The 

 bishop claimed the right to instal all superiors on 

 their appointment ; and in or about the year 

 12 1 7 Philip, abbot of Sherborne, acknowledging 

 that he had incurred the displeasure of the 

 diocesan by entering on the abbacy without his 

 authority, pledged himself that no abbot in 

 future should be enthroned save by the bishop of 

 Salisbury or by his special mandate.^' The 

 cathedral chapter, too, had their prerogative, and 

 in 1242 the prior and convent were required to 

 certify that the rights of the church of Salisbury 

 should not in future suffer infringement because 

 the abbot-elect, John de Hele, had recently 

 received the benediction at Ramsburyon account 

 of the ill health of the diocesan instead of in the 

 cathedral.-* 



The bull of Pope Eugenius III in H45 recites 

 that at the request of the monks he has con- 

 firmed to the monaster)' of St. Mary of Sherborne^ 

 which he has taken under the protection of 

 St. Peter, the following possessions : — The monas- 

 tery itself with all its lands, rents, and liberties 

 conferred by the kings of England and the bishops 

 of Salisbury ; the church of Stalbridge and of 

 Horton with its chapels of Knowlton and 

 ' Chesilberie ' ; the chapel of Oborne ; the church 

 of St. Mary Magdalen by the castle with its 

 two chapels and appurtenances ; the church of 

 St. Andrew in Sherborne ; the churches of Brad- 

 ford, Halstock, Corscombe, and Stoke with the 

 chapel and all its appurtenances ; the churches of 

 Lyme and Fleet (Dorset), Littleham and Carswell 

 (Devon), and ' Cadweli ' or Kidwelly in Caer- 



" Reg. Rubrum, fol. 335. 



'^ Ibid. fol. 333-4. 



"^ Ibid. fol. 158. 



" Reg. St. Osmund. (Rolls Ser.), i, 265. 



" Reg. Rubrum, fol. 160. 



64 



