A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



Robert, 1183 (died same year) 



Robert, 1183 



Richard, 1187 



Alexander Neckham, 1213 



Walter, 1217 



Hugh of Bampton, 1230 



Roger of Rodmarton, 1238 



Henry de Munden, 1266 



Henry de Hamptonet, 1281 



Adam Broken borough, 1307 



Richard of Charlton, 1320, resigned 1335 1 



William Hereward, 1335 



Ralph of Estcote, 1352 



William de Marteley, 1358 



William de Lynham, 1361 3 



Nicholas of Ampney, 1363 



John Leckhampton, 1393' 



William Best, 1416 



William Wotton, 1429 



John Taunton, 1440 



William George, 1445 



John Sobbury, 1461 



Thomas Compton, 1478 



Richard Clive, 1481 



Thomas Aston, 1488, resigned 1504 



John Hakton, 1504 



John Blake, circa 1522 



A seal of the fourteenth century represents 

 the Coronation of the Virgin, in a canopied 

 niche on a carved corbel. 4 



8. THE PRIORY OF ST. OSWALD, 

 GLOUCESTER 



The minster of St. Oswald at Gloucester was 

 founded and richly endowed by Ethelfleda, the 

 Lady of the Mercians, and her husband 

 Ethelred.' In 909 they brought thither from 

 the ruined monastery of Bardney the body of 

 Oswald, king of Northumbria. 6 Their church 

 was served by a body of secular canons. 7 



In the reign of Edward the Confessor, Stigand, 

 archbishop of Canterbury, a great pluralist, ob- 

 tained possession of the lands of the canons. 8 

 After his disgrace in 1070, the property passed 

 into the hands of Thomas, archbishop of York, 9 

 and was entered under the estates of the church 

 of York in the Domesday Survey of Gloucester- 

 shire, together with the lands of the monastery of 



1 Cal. of Pat. 9 Edw. Ill, pt. i, m. 5. 

 1 Wore. Epis. Reg. Barnet, fol. 2$d. 

 1 Cal. of Pat. 17 Ric. II, pt. ii, m. 34. 



4 Birch, Catalogue of Seals in British Museum, \, 511. 



5 William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontif. Angl. (Rolls 

 Ser.), 293. 



6 Ibid. Angl. Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.) ii, 77. 



7 Hunt, History of the English Church, 291. There 

 is no evidence to support William of Malmesbury's 

 statement that Ethelred and Ethelfleda put monks at 

 St. Oswald's. 



8 Taylor, Domesday Survey of Gloucestershire, 95. 



9 Ibid. 95. 



St. Peter, which had been appropriated by Arch- 

 bishop Aldred. 10 For a long period before the 

 Norman Conquest, the sees of Worcester and 

 York were held jointly ; the house of St. Oswald, 

 Gloucester remained under the jurisdiction of 

 the see of York until 1536. In 1094 Thomas, 

 archbishop of York, claimed jurisdiction in the 

 diocese of Lincoln, and to end the controversy 

 William Rufus gave the new monastery of Selby 

 and the minster of St. Oswald, Gloucester to 

 the see of York. 11 The minster was accounted 

 a free chapel royal, 12 and by the act of the king 

 was created a peculiar of the see of York. In 

 1095, Archbishop Thomas was compelled to 

 restore the manors of the monastery of St. Peter 

 at Gloucester, 13 and William of Malmesbury said 

 that the canons of St. Oswald's raged because 

 the archbishop parted with lands which ought 

 to have been theirs. 14 It is certain that they had 

 a real grievance because the archbishop retained 

 for his see a considerable portion of the lands of 

 the canons, which was afterwards known as the 

 barony of Churchdown. 16 



The jurisdiction of St. Oswald was confirmed 

 to the archbishop of York by Pope Paschal II in 

 1 1 06, by Calixtus II in 1120, and again by 

 Alexander III in H77. 16 The archbishops of 

 Canterbury and the bishops of Worcester were 

 unwilling to surrender their claims, 17 and did not 

 finally abandon them before the beginning of 

 the fourteenth century. 



Until the accession of Henry Murdac to 

 the see of York in 1147, the minster of St. 

 Oswald was served by secular canons who were 

 supported out of their own prebends. 18 The 



10 Ibid. 94. 



11 Historians of the Church of fork (Rolls Ser.), iii, 21 ; 

 Wharton, Anglia Sacra, i, 295. 



18 Suppression of the Monasteries (Camden Soc.), 1 24. 



13 Hist. ofCartul. S. Petri Glouc. (Rolls. Ser.), i, 1 1. 



14 William of Malmesbury, Gtst. Pontif. Angl. (Rolls 

 Sen), 263 n. 



14 Taylor, Domesday Survey of Gloucestershire, 95. In 

 1536, the archbishop's barony of Churchdown was 

 valued at .186 l8/. oj<^., while the temporalities 

 and spiritualities of St. Oswald's were only worth 

 90 io/. i\d., cf L. and P. Hen. VIII, x, No. 86. 

 Valor Eccles. (Rec. Com.), ii, 487. 



16 Historians of the Church of York (Rolls. Ser.), iii, 

 28,43,85. 



"In II 74, Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, 

 coming to Gloucester, suspended the clerks and 

 officials of the archbishop of York because they refused 

 him the canonical obedience of other clerks of his 

 province. Strife between the archbishops followed, 

 the canons successfully appealed to the pope cf. 

 Twysden. Decem. Scriptores, 1 1 oo, 1101, 1102,1167. 

 In 1242 Walter Cantilupe, bishop of Worcester, held 

 an ordination at the priory, cf. Wharton, Angl. 

 Sac. i, 491. 



18 Historians of the Church of Fork (Rolls Ser.) ii, 386. 

 The prebend then held by Nicholas consisted of a 

 mill, a hide and a virgate at Norton, and the tithe 

 of a hide at Pirton ; York Archiepis. Reg. Melton, 

 425. 



