A HISTORY OF DORSET 



The account, however, of William of Malmes- 

 bury, from which all subsequent accounts are 

 drawn,' seems rather to imply that the abbey 

 was the work of Ordulph or Edulph, son of 

 Ordgar, and should consequently be dated a 

 little later ; possibly the two accounts may be 

 reconciled by supposing that it was begun by 

 the elder man and carried on to completion by 

 the younger in deference to his father's wishes. 

 Horton, dedicated to St. VVolfrida, the mother 

 of Edith abbess of Wilton, was situated, like 

 Little Malvern and other foundations of that 

 age, in the midst of forest ; ' centuries later 

 Leland writes of the abbey as four miles distant 

 from Wimborne ' much by woody ground.' * 



The earlier chronicler relates some of the 

 stories that have been handed down anent the 

 enormous strength and prowess of the younger 

 founder, the giant Edulph,' but adds ' spite of 

 this matchless physical strength death carried 

 him off in the flower of his age, and he ordered 

 that he should be buried at Horton.' Abbot 

 Sihtric of Tavistock, however, foreseeing the 

 advantage that would thence accrue to the 

 smaller foundation, stepped in and ' by violence ' 

 caused the body to be transferred to his own 

 church where Earl Ordgar already lay buried. 



In all probability Horton shared the fate of 

 Tavistock, which was destroyed in the Danish 

 raid of 997.° To return to the account of 

 William of Malmesbury, Abbot Sihtric added to 

 his crime in robbing Horton of the body of Edulph 

 by turning pirate in the reign of William the 

 Conqueror, whereby he ' polluted religion ' and 

 'defamed the church.'^ 



At the time of the Domesday Survey the 

 abbey was in possession of the manor of Horton, 

 which was taxed at 7 hides and valued at £4., 

 ' the king holds two of the best hides in the 

 forest of Wimborne.'* The church would go 

 with the possession of the manor as was then the 

 custom and the monks held at the same time a 

 little church or chapel {eccUs'iola) in Wimborne 

 and land with two houses, the church of Holy 

 Trinity, Wareham, and five houses paying a 

 rent of 65</., and a house in Dorchester' besides 

 estates in Devonshire. 



Among the changes in his diocese introduced by 

 Roger, the great bishop of Salisbury and chan- 

 cellor of Henry I, was the reduction of Horton 

 from an abbey to a priory and its subsequent 

 annexation as a subordinate cell to Sherborne, 

 which in the same manner was raised to the 



' Will, of Malmes. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Ser.), 202-3. 



' Ibid. * Itln. iii, 73. 



' Will, of M.ilmes. Gesta Pontif. (Rolls Sen), 203. 



' Matt, of Westm. Floret Hut. (Rolls Ser.), i, 524. 



' Owing to a misreading of the text, the abbot in 

 many accounts is charged with firing the church {infla- 

 maz'it instead of inj'amavit). 



' Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, jU. 



' Ibid. 



position of an abbey, the transference taking 

 place in 1 1 22 according to the Annalsof Margam,'" 

 in 1 1 39 according to William of Malmesbury." 

 By this change the lands and possessions of Horton 

 passed over to Sherborne, as we may gather from 

 a bull of Pope Eugenius III in 1 145 and again 

 of Pope Alexander III in 1163, confirming the 

 possessions of Sherborne and enumerating among 

 them the manor and church of Horton with the 

 adjacent chapel of Knowlton, the chapel of Holy 

 Trinity, Wareham, and the church of St. Mary 

 Wimborne.'^* The faxatio of 1 29 1 gives the prior 

 of Horton temporalities at Horton valued at 

 j^4 17J. 4^^.,^^ the church of Horton belonging 

 to Sherborne was valued at ;^io, the endowment 

 of the vicarage amounting to £s-^* In I535 

 the rectory was not worth more than £<) 5/. 4^., 

 the vicar only receiving 17$. j^d. ; ^' the gross 

 value of the manor at that time was returned at 

 j^22 10s. 6d., out of which 2s. was paid to the 

 hundred court, and a fee of l6s. Sd. to Giles 

 Strangweys, knt., steward of the manor." 



From the date of its annexation to Sherborne 

 the priory sinks into that obscurity mostly at- 

 tending the existence of small dependent cells 

 from which it rarely emerges.^' In April 1286 

 we read that simple protection, until the Feast of 

 St. Peter ad Vincula, was granted to Hugh prior 

 of Horton, going beyond seas, and appointing 

 John de Chegy and Henry son of William de 

 Horton his attorneys during his absence.'* A 

 commission was issued in February, 1348,00 the 

 complaint of Alesia countess of Lincoln, that the 

 abbots of Sherborne and Milton, John de Brade- 

 ford, prior of Horton, and others, had broken 

 her park at Kingston Lacy, cut down her trees 

 and hunted her deer.'' Again in 1401 dispen- 

 sation was granted to John Cosyn, Benedictine 

 prior of Horton, ' who is also a monk of Sher- 

 borne,' to hold another benefice, office, dignity. 



" Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), i, 10. 



" Cott. MS. Faust. A. ii. The account given 

 by the chronicler in his Hisloria Novella (Rolls 

 Ser.), ii, 559, is that Roger of Salisbury first destroyed 

 Horton and then added it to Sherborne ; he may be 

 expressing the same thing in his other account of 

 Horton which speaks of the abbey so being </«/ri!)r<i' 

 at the time in which he was writing the Gesta Pontif. 

 (Rolls Ser. 202), meaning that the status of Horton 

 as an abbey had been done aw.-iy with and not that 

 its existence had ceased. 



" Dugdale, Mon. under Sherborne, i, Nos. v, ri, 

 338-9. 



" Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.), 184^. 



"Ibid. 174*. 



•' Valor Eccl. (Rec. Com.), 1, 281. 



'= Ibid. 287. 



" Various references given by Tanner under this 

 house belong to Monks Horton, a Cluniac foundation 

 cell to Lewes with which the Dorset Horton is 

 frequently confounded. 



" Pat. 14 Edw. I, m. 18, 19. 



" Ibid. 22 Edw. Ill, pt. I, m. 43 d. 



