A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



HOUSES OF BENEDICTINE MONKS 



2. THE ABBEY OF BATTLE 1 



When William, duke of Normandy, looked 

 from the high ground of Telham Hill upon the 

 forces of King Harold, he vowed that if God 

 gave him the victory he would found a monastery 

 upon the place of battle. Amongst those who 

 heard this vow was a monk of Marmoutier, 

 William called ' the smith,' who when William 

 had obtained the crown of England urged him to 

 fulfil his promise ; the king willingly agreed and 

 entrusted William with the execution of his 

 design. The monk, therefore, brought over 

 from Marmoutier four of his brethren, but as 

 the actual site of the battle seemed to them un- 

 suitable for a great monastery, they began to 

 build on the lower ground to the west. When 

 the Conqueror heard of this he angrily insisted 

 that the foundations should rest upon the very 

 spot where he had achieved his victory, and upon 

 the monks pleading a scarcity of water he re- 

 plied, 'If God spare my life I will so amply 

 provide for this place that wine shall be more 

 abundant here than water is in any other great 

 abbey.' 2 The further complaint of lack of 

 building stone was met by the king's undertaking 

 to provide stone from Caen, but a quarry was 

 actually found close to the site of the abbey. 

 The Conqueror at the same time bestowed upon 

 his new foundation all the land within a radius 

 of a league (i miles), the valuable estate of 

 Alciston in Sussex, the royal manor of Wye in 

 Kent with its member of Dungemarsh on the 

 coast, Limpsfield in Surrey, Hoo in Essex, 

 Brightwalton in Berkshire, Crowmarsh in Ox- 

 fordshire, 'churches in Reading, Cullompton 

 (Devon), and St. Olave's, Exeter. 3 For various 

 reasons, however, building progressed slowly, and 

 it was not until 1076 that things were suffi- 

 ciently advanced for an abbot to be appointed. 4 

 Robert Blancard, one of the four monks who had 

 first come over, was elected, but on his way back 

 from Marmoutier he was drowned. Accordingly 

 William 'the smith' was sent to Marmoutier to 

 fetch Gausbert, who came with four of his 

 brethren and was consecrated abbot of St. Mar- 

 tin's of the place of Battle. 5 



1 Dugdale, Man. iii, 233-58 ; Cott. MS. Domit. 

 A, ii translated by M. A. Lower and published in 

 1851 as The Chronicle of Battle Abbey this MS. is 

 imperfect, but goes down to the year 1 1 76. The 

 splendid collection of original deeds relating to the 

 abbey, now in the Phillipps Library at Cheltenham, 

 was catalogued by Thorpe in 1835. Two chartu- 

 laries are in the P.R.O. and a third in Lincoln's 

 Inn. The Custumal of Battle Abbey, published by 

 the Camdcn Soc. is of great economic interest. 



* Lower, Chron. of Battle Abbey, 10. 



'Ibid. 35. 'Ibid. n. "Ibid. 12. 



At first Stigand, bishop of Chichester, endea- 

 voured to compel Abbot Gausbert to come to 

 Chichester for consecration, but the king com- 

 manded that the consecration should be in the 

 abbey church, and further ordered that the 

 bishop and his attendants should not even have 

 lodging or food within the monastery that day, 

 to show the complete exemption of the abbey 

 from episcopal jurisdiction. 6 The privileges 

 granted to Battle 7 were indeed more remarkable 

 than the extent of its endowments : within the 

 Lowey (a circle of i miles radius round the 

 abbey) the abbot was absolute ; neither bishop 

 nor royal officer could interfere there, danegeld 

 and other dues were not levied. When the 

 abbot was summoned to attend the king's court 

 he was to have an allowance of food, wine, and 

 wax candles for himself and two monks, and his 

 attendance was further simplified by the grant of 

 a residence in London and in Winchester ; but 

 perhaps the most striking privilege was that the 

 abbot when passing through the king's forests 

 might kill and take one or two beasts with his 

 dogs. 



The remoteness of the abbey's estates in Exeter 

 and Cullompton necessitated one of the brethren 

 residing there to manage them, and it was soon 

 found advisable to convert St. Olave's into a cell 

 (dedicated in honour of St. Nicholas), 8 and the 

 same course was followed with the church and 

 estates given them in Brecknock. 9 



When the Conqueror died he bequeathed to 

 his votive abbey his royal embroidered cloak, a 

 splendid collection of relics, and a portable altar 

 containing relics, probably the identical one on 

 which Harold had sworn his famous oath. 10 

 Rufus further added the monastery of Bromham 

 in Wiltshire, and in February, 1095, when at 

 last the abbey church was consecrated in the 

 presence of the king, the primate, and seven 

 bishops, gave nine churches and twelve dependent 

 chapels in Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. 11 Though 

 the abbey had thus a considerable number of 

 churches in its gift its Sussex patronage was sur- 

 prisingly small, consisting only of Alciston with 

 the chapel of Lullington, until in Henry I's reign 

 Wening, by permission of William son of Wibert, 

 added the church of Westfield with a wist of 

 land and the remarkable accessory of a pit for the 

 ordeal by water. 12 The church of Icklesham was 

 given by Nicholas Haringod in 1 226," and the 

 chapel of Whatlington by Simon de Eching- 

 ham. 14 



The temporalities of Battle were swollen by 



6 Ibid. 30. 7 Ibid. 27,28. 'Ibid. 36. 'Ibid. 38. 



10 Ibid. 41. "Ibid. 45. "Ibid. 59. 



11 Suss. Arch. Coll. xxii, 106. 



" Pat. 14 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 18. 



