A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



traced, Collinson declared that the minster was 

 founded by Alwyn, a Saxon thane, in the reign 

 of King Egbert. 1 In the middle of the thirteenth 

 century the tradition of the monastery was that 

 it had been founded for three hundred years. 3 

 The college was but slenderly endowed, possessing 

 in the reign of Edmund the Confessor, and again 

 in 1086, only two hides of land in the hundred of 

 Cirencester, six acres of meadow, and a vill in 

 Wick, besides a portion of wood given by King 

 William. 3 The dean of Cirencester 4 was Regen- 

 bald, the chancellor of Edward the Confessor, 

 who has been called the first great pluralist ; 6 in 

 1086 he held sixteen churches, and lands in five 

 different counties. 



Henry I was a great benefactor of the Order 

 of Augustinian canons, which was first established 

 in England in Iio8. 6 At Cirencester, as in a 

 number of other minsters, they were introduced 

 in place of the secular canons. In 1117 Henry I 

 began to build a new church and monastery at 

 Cirencester. 7 Though the church was not dedi- 

 cated until 1176, the buildings were so far 

 advanced in 1131 that Serlo was consecrated as 

 the first abbot, and the Augustinian canons 

 entered into possession of them. 9 In 1133 

 Henry I gave a charter to the abbot and convent, 

 granting them all the possessions of Regenbald. 10 

 The endowment included two hides in Ciren- 

 cester, a third part of the toll from the Sunday 

 market, two-thirds of the tithe of the royal 

 demesne of Cirencester, and the whole tithe of 

 the parish ; the churches of Preston, Driffield, 

 Ampney St. Mary, and Cheltenham, besides lands 

 in those places, and at Norcote, Driffield, Wadle, 

 Aldsworth, Elmstone, and Wick in Gloucester- 

 shire ; the churches of Latton, Eisy, Penesey, and 

 Avebury, with lands in those places, and two 

 houses in Cricklade in Wiltshire ; the churches 

 of Milborne, Frome, and Wellow, and lands in 

 Somerset ; the church of Pulham with ten hides, 

 wood and meadow in Dorsetshire ; the churches 

 of Cookham, Bray, Hagbourne, Shrivenham, 

 besides ten hides at Eston in Berkshire ; Boicote, 

 with one hide and a mill in Oxfordshire ; the 

 churches of Rowell and Brigstock in Northamp- 

 tonshire ; and three messuages in Winchester. 

 The king added from his own demesne ' the sheriff's 

 hide,' in Cirencester, for gardens and a mill ; a 

 stream and the wood of Oakley, reserving to 

 himself the right of hunting and of making 

 assarts. He also reserved among Regenbald's 

 possessions the life interests of Roger, bishop of 



1 Collinson, Hist, of Somerset, ii, 191. 



2 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xvi, 221. 

 ' Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), \66b. 



4 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xiv, 227. 

 6 Round, Feudal England, 426. 



6 Gasquet, English Monastic Life, 225. 



7 Flor. Wigorn. (Eng. Hist. Soc.), ii, 70. 



8 Roger ofHoveden (Rolls Ser.), ii, 101. 



9 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, xvii, 47. 

 10 Dugdale, Man. vi, 177. 



80 



Salisbury, William FitzWarin, and Nicholas, 

 nephew of the bishop of Winchester; and he 

 safeguarded the life interest of the secular canons 

 in their prebends. 



During the greater part of the reign of 

 Henry II the abbot and convent held the manor 

 of Cirencester of the crown at a fee farm rent. 11 

 In 1190 they purchased from Richard I the 

 town and manor of Cirencester with Minety, 

 the seven hundreds, for ^100, and a fee farm 

 rent of ^30 a year. 13 In 1203 the abbot bought 

 the right of excluding the sheriff from his 

 liberties except for pleas of the crown. 13 In 1222 

 Henry III allowed the abbot to build a gaol. 14 

 The trade of the town, which increased rapidly in 

 the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, 15 was entirely 

 under the abbot's control. He took the profits 

 of the weekly market in virtue of Richard I's 

 grants of the manor. In 1215 Abbot Alexander 

 Neckham obtained the right of holding a fair for 

 eight days at the feast of All Saints, 18 in 1253 

 Abbot Roger secured the privilege of holding 

 another fair on the vigil, feast, and morrow of 

 St. Thomas the Martyr, and the five following 

 days. 17 These successive grants of privileges put 

 the town entirely into the abbot's power. 18 



Alexander Neckham, one of the most learned 

 men of his age in England, was abbot from 1213 

 to 1217. He was a Master of Arts of the 

 University of Paris, and had taught in the 

 grammar school at Dunstable and St. Albans 

 before he entered the monastery at Cirencester. 19 

 He was interested in science rather than in history, 

 and in his chief work, ' De Naturis Rerum,' x he 

 aimed at compiling a manual of scientific know- 

 ledge. There is no evidence to gauge his influ- 

 ence at Cirencester, no writings of the canons 

 are known to have survived, and it nowhere 

 appears that they kept a chronicle. 



Cirencester was subject to the visitation of the 

 bishops of Worcester. The letter written by 

 Bishop Giffard, after his visitation of the monas- 

 tery in 1276, reveals maladministration and weak 

 government. 21 Under the rule of Abbot Henry 

 de Munden, the prior, William de Haswell, 

 had exercised, or perhaps usurped, great power, 



11 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, ix, 298. For 

 the history of the relations between the monastery and 

 town of Cirencester cf. Fuller, The Manor and 

 Town (Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans. 298-344), 

 drawn from the chartularies of the monastery, now 

 at Thirlstane House, Cheltenham, as well as from 

 public records. 



11 Cart. Antiq. Ric. I, S 1 2. 



13 Cart. R. 5 John, 2. 



14 Close R. 6 Hen. Ill, m. 13. 



16 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, ix, 319. 



16 Cart. R. 1 7 John, 4. 



17 Ibid. 37 Hen. Ill, 10. 



18 Brist. and Glouc. Arch. Soc. Trans, ix, 300-21. 



19 Hardy, Catalogue of Materials (Rolls Ser.), iii, 58. 

 80 De Naturis Rerum (Rolls Ser.). 



" Wore. Epis. Reg. Giffard (Wore. Hist. Soc.), 

 86, 87. 



