ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY 



making it dependent on the cathedral monastery of Worcester. 1 Before then 

 there was but a single priest, and he seldom said mass.* Wulfstan built many 

 churches on his own lands, 8 of which 231 hides lay in Gloucestershire,* and 

 dedicated a great number of stone altars in place of the old wooden ones.' 

 He also urged on the lords of manors the duty of building churches,' and the 

 Domesday Survey is to some extent a measure of his success. Out of a total 

 of about sixty parish churches, thirteen were on land belonging to religious 

 houses, 7 the remainder on the property of the crown and of laymen. 8 It is 

 probable that a number of other churches were already built,' for in Gloucester- 

 shire, as in many counties, there is evidence of some which are not entered in 

 the survey, among them Deerhurst and Westbury-on-Trym, Pucklechurch and 

 Churchdown. 10 



In iioo there were churches at Standish, Hartpury, Brookthorpe, 

 Churcham, and Taynton, and chapels at Nympsfield, Matson, Eycote, and 

 Bulley, 11 and it may be that they were already built at the time of the survey. 

 Of the churches of Berkeley and Berkleherness, which were granted to the 

 monastery of St. Augustine, Bristol, about 1 148," only Berkeley is mentioned 

 in the survey, and yet it was a prebendal church before the Norman Conquest." 

 Some of these parish churches were well endowed, the priests at Bibury and 

 Cheltenham having three hides and a hide and a half, while those of Marsh- 

 field and Stow-on-the-Wold had each a hide. 14 The Church already owned a 

 third of the profitable land of the county." 



The growth in wealth and importance of the religious houses in the first 

 fifty years after the Conquest is remarkable. In 1072, when Serlo, a Norman 

 monk of Mont St. Michel, became abbot of Gloucester, he found only two 

 monks and eight novices ; in 1 100 there were more than sixty monks, a vast 

 new church had been built and dedicated, and the possessions of the house 

 had greatly increased. 1 ' Tewkesbury was but a small priory dependent on the 

 monastery of Cranbourne in Dorset, until Robert Fitzhamon added largely to 

 the endowment, and built a great church for the monks, who chose Tewkes- 

 bury for the mother-house and made Cranbourne a cell. 17 From Winchcombe 



1 Wharton, Angl. Sacr. ii, 262 ; cf. V. C.H. Ghuc. Rellg. Houses, Westbury, 107. 



' Thorpe, Diplomatarium Angl'uum aevi Saxonici, 447. 



1 Wharton, op. cit. ii, 253, 262. 



' Taylor, Analysis of the Domesday Survey of Gloucestershire, 93. 



' Wharton, op. cit. ii, 264 ; cf. Wilkins, Concilia, \, 365. * Wharton, op. cit. ii, 262. 



' Bibury, Withington, Cleeve, Prestbury, Olveston, Littleton-on-Severn, Stow-on-the-Wold, Bourton-on- 

 thc-Water, Broadwell, Upper Swell, Willersey, Weston-sub-Edge, Minchinhampton. Taylor, Domesday 

 Survey, 101. 



Cheltenham, Awre, Berkeley, M.mhfield, Bristol, Coin Rogers ?, Stanway, Clifford Chambers, Fairford, 

 Dymock, Tidenham, Beckford and Ashton-under-Hill, two at Ampney, Bisley, Driffield, Rodmarton, Las- 

 borough, Lower Guiting, Shipton Oliffe, Temple Guiting, Painswick, Quenington, Stratton, Siddington, 

 Oakley, Hampnett, Tetbury, Tormarton, Stoke Gifford, Brlmpsficld, Southrop ?, Harrington, South Cerney, 

 Frampton Cotterell, Badminton, Brockworth, Salperton, Siddington, Greenhampstead, Side, Haselton, Bitton, 

 Whitminster. Taylor, Domesday Survey, 100-102. 



* Ibid. 102-104. " Ibid. 102. 

 " Hiit. et Cart. Mon. Glouc. (Rolls Ser.), i, 250 ; ii, 40. 



" Wotton-under-Edge, Beverstone, Ashleworth and Almondsbury with dependent chapels. Red Book of 

 St. Augustine'i, Bristol, fol. 33 ; MSS. at Berkeley Castle. 



u cf. charter of Adela, wife of Henry I, to Reading Abbey, Dugdale, Mon. iv, 42. ' Sciatis me concessisse 

 et dedisse ecclesie de Redyng . . . ecclesias de Berkelei hcrncsse scilicet ecclesiam de Berkeley cum prebendis 

 eidem ecclesie pertinentibus et prebendis duarum monialium et ecclesiam de Chamma. . . .' Earl Godwin 

 seized the possessions of the nuns ; cf. supra, p. 3. 



" Taylor, Domesday Survey, 104. " Ibid. 98. 



" y. C. H. Glouc. Refig. Houses, Gloucester, 53. " Ibid. Refig. Houses, Tetckesbury, 62. 



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