RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



Norman invasion, its lands had not been added 

 to by the Conqueror or his followers. 



William Rufus, Henry I, Stephen, Maud, 

 Henry II, Richard I, Henry III, and Edward I 

 all granted charters confirming the monks of St. 

 Benet in their liberties. Stephen granted them 

 the two hundreds of Foley and Happinge, with 

 their rents and customs, and also a small portion 

 of land in Yarmouth. Henry III, in 1247, 

 granted the abbey two fairs to be held at Grab- 

 bards Ferry — instead of in the immediate neigh- 

 bourhood of the abbey, where they had been 

 found to disturb religious tranquillity — one on 

 the vigil and day of the translation of St. Bene- 

 dict, and the other on the vigil and day of 

 St. James ;^ he also granted them, in 1253, 

 free warren over all their Norfolk lordships. 



The chartulary contains transcripts of various 

 papal bulls of a confirmatory nature, or extend- 

 ing certain special privileges to the abbey. The 

 earliest of these is one of Eugenius III, 1145. 

 The most important is one granted by Lucius 

 III in 1 1 83, whereby divine service might be 

 celebrated in the abbey (with doors closed, and 

 without ringing of bells) during an interdict ; it 

 also contains a proviso strictly prohibiting the 

 exaction of any fee by bishop, archdeacon, or 

 any official, when the abbot sought benediction 

 at the hands of his diocesan.^ 



The taxation roll of 1291 showed that the 

 abbey had property in seventy-six Norfolk 

 parishes, and that its annual income was 

 ^^326 4.S. 35^^., which sum was much aug- 

 mented by further grants and the rise in value 

 of the abbey's estates, so that the Valor of 1535 

 shows a clear annual income of ^^583 ijs. O^d., 

 though it is notable that its spiritualities had 

 much decreased, only eleven churches being in 

 the monks' hands at this date. 



Elsin is called the first abbot by Oxenedes, 

 and was abbot in 1020, when there were twenty- 

 six monks in the convent, of whom twelve, 

 under the control of their good Prior Uvius, 

 were sent by King Cnut with half the books 

 and other furniture of the house to form the 

 nucleus of that monastery which afterwards at- 

 tained to such fame as the abbey of Bury St. 

 Edmunds. Under Elsin the church, which had 

 previously been of mud {ecclesia lutea\ was recon- 

 structed in stone, and he was still abbot in 1046, 

 at the time of the Confessor's charter.' 



' Chart. R. 31 Hen. Ill, m. 13. 

 There are numerous charters and rolls relative 

 to this abbey at the Bodleian ; Cal. of Bodl. Chart. 

 239—49. Among them are confirmatory bulls of 

 Gregory I, Innocent IV, and Alexander IV. 



^ Oxenedes, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 291-2. There is 

 a full account of the early abbots down to Richard de 

 Bukenham, in the chronicle of John of Oxnead, 

 291-300, a monk of this house. This chronicle 

 (Cott. MS. Nero D, ii) V!z% printed and edited by 

 Sir Henry Ellis in the ' Chronicles and Memorials ' 

 series, in 1859. 



33 



Thurstan de Ludham, the second abbot, was 

 assiduous in the construction of the monastic 

 buildings. He died on 7 October, 1064, and 

 was buried before the altar of St. Michael ; 

 Oxenedes gives the epitaph which was on his 

 tomb in the thirteenth century. His successor, 

 Ethelwold, is described as prudent and honour- 

 able in everything he undertook. He com- 

 pleted the various buildings undertaken by his 

 predecessors, including an eastern campanile 

 for the church ; but left a western tower 

 half finished. Harold entrusted Abbot Ethel- 

 wold with the defence of the sea-coast, on 

 which account he had many differences with 

 the Conqueror ; but he retained the abbacy 

 until his death, which took place on 14 No- 

 vember, 1089,* when Ralf, the first abbot of 

 Norman origin, succeeded, who died on 6 Octo- 

 ber, HOI. 



Richard, or Richer, the fifth abbot, completed 

 the western bell-tower of the church which 

 Abbot Ethelwold had begun, and placed therein 

 two great bells. He is said, however, to have 

 alienated monastic lands to relatives. He died 

 on 19 January, 1 126. His successor was Con- 

 rad, sacrist of the church of the Holy Trinity, 

 Canterbury, a man of holy and wise life, and 

 confessor of Henry I. He brought with him to 

 Holm two chasubles and a benedictionary of 

 St. Dunstan, as well as a chalice made by the 

 saint's own hands, and these were still preserved 

 with honour when Oxenedes wrote his chronicle. 

 He died on 16 February, 1128, andwas suc- 

 ceeded by William Basset, who was to some 

 small extent a despoiler of the substance of the 

 monastery. He was originally a monk of Utica, 

 Normandy; he died in 1 134, after a rule of 

 seven years. Anselm, said by Dugdale to have 

 been prior of Dover, was the next abbot ; he 

 began to rule in 11 33, and died on 9 December, 

 1140.'' Daniel, whose profession was that of a 

 glassmaker, and who before his entry into re- 

 ligion had a wife and child, succeeded Anselm 

 as abbot, but was soon followed by Hugh, a 

 nephew of King Stephen, who defended the 

 rights of the monastery with much vigour. He, 

 however, became involved in a painful scandal 

 through the machinations of his enemies, and 

 although innocent according to Oxenedes's 

 Chronicle, was so overwhelmed with shame that 

 he resigned his abbacy and left the neighbour- 

 hood, but was subsequently appointed abbot 



* This is Oxenedes's statement ; it is more reliable 

 than that of William of Worcester, who asserts that 

 he fled into Denmark at the time of the Conquest 

 and never returned. 



' This abbot does not occur in Oxenedes's chronicle 

 or list ; the reference to his name in the extended 

 Dugdale is ' Obit Cant. ' ; the date of his death is 

 given as 1 1 40 in Chron. Minor Set. Benedicti de Hulmo 

 (printed at the end of Oxenedes, Chron. (Rolls Ser.), 

 432). 



