A HISTORY OF SUSSEX 



Bodiam and Echingham. It would seem that as 

 a consequence of their increased wealth the monks 

 removed to another site, as a charter 4 of 1314 

 refers to 'the chapel in the said vill (of Sale- 

 hurst) on the spot where the abbey was originally 

 founded.' 



Besides grants and purchases from laymen the 

 abbey was frequently brought into contact with 

 other religious houses, seVeral agreements being 

 made with the canons of Hastings, the abbot of 

 Battle, the prior of Leeds in Kent, and the 

 abbot of T report in Normandy, from whom the 

 Sussex abbey purchased lands in Playden and 

 Bexhill. Though their lands were thus increas- 

 ing there was the drawback that many of them 

 lay exposed to the ravages of the sea, entailing 

 heavy expenditure for the maintenance of sea- 

 walls towards which the earl of Arundel left 

 a sum of ^2O in 1396' and even then not 

 always proving productive, so that in 1257 

 Pope Alexander IV, considering the sterility 

 caused by influx of the sea, excused the monks 

 from payment of tithes upon those lands which 

 they had ' inned ' and brought under cultivation. 6 

 But in spite of losses the abbey at the time of 

 the Taxation of 1291 held property worth nearly 



ll - 



The ravages of the sea, however, during the 



great storm of 1287 and in subsequent years so 

 reduced the monks' revenues that in 1309 they 

 obtained the royal licence to acquire lands to no 

 less a value than ^ioo, 7 and in the same year 

 their patron, Sir William de Echingham, obtained 

 licence to grant them the advowsons of the 

 churches of Salehurst, Udimore, and Mountfield 

 with their appurtenances, valued at 50 marks. 8 

 This valuable gift, however, proved for some 

 time a source of expense rather than profit, as 

 it involved twenty years' litigation, 8 and necessi- 

 tated journeys to the papal court, where the 

 abbot had to make a longer stay than he had in- 

 tended, as money gave out and he had to send 

 to England for further funds, and to the royal 

 court at London,Waltham, York and elsewhere 

 one abbot dying suddenly while engaged upon the 

 business. At last, after they had gained the consent 

 of the bishop of Chichester, the dean of Hastings 

 College of which the three churches formed a 

 prebend and Sir Simon de Echingham as patron 

 of the churches and prebend, the king, whose 

 claims as patron of the college of Hastings had 

 been the cause of all the difficulty, allowed the 

 abbey to appropriate the three churches in 1333. 

 In the course of the negotiations the monks had 

 incurred in addition to monetary losses, consider- 

 able obligations of a spiritual nature. In 1314 



4 Cat. Chart. No. 300. 



1 Dallaway, Hut. of West Sussex, ii, 1 36. 



6 Cal. Papal Let. i, 342. 



7 Pat. 2 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 13. ' Ibid. m. 6. 



' For a full account of these proceedings see 

 Ardaeokpo, xlv, 430-42. 



Sir William de Echingham bargained that in re- 

 turn for his benefactions they should maintain 

 two chaplains, monks or seculars, to perform ser- 

 vice for the souls of himself, his wife Eva and 

 his heirs in the chapel in Salehurst where the 

 monastery was first founded, providing vestments 

 and other necessaries. 10 These privileges were 

 extended in 1325, when the abbot undertook to 

 find two chaplains to celebrate daily except on 

 Good Friday and Easter Eve for the souls of 

 Sir William and Lady Eva, the one at the altar 

 of the Holy Cross the other at that of St. Giles, 

 and a third in the chapel of St. Mary at the 

 abbey gate, besides two others to do service in 

 the abbey church at the altar of the Holy 

 Martyrs on the right side of the choir where the 

 bodies of Lady Eva and of Sir William's daughter 

 Joan lay ; all these chaplains were further to say 

 before the said altar of the Holy Martyrs 

 ' Placebo ' and ' Dirige ' with the commendation 

 on the days customary in the Cistercian order. 11 

 By a further agreement in 1356 the monks were 

 relieved of the maintenance of the two chaplains 

 for the original chapel of Robertsbridge, but con- 

 tinued bound to provide the other five. 12 More- 

 over, the abbot, in return for the privilege of 

 being a non-resident canon of Hastings, was 

 bound to provide a fit secular priest to serve the 

 prebend, 13 and in 1501 the abbot agreed to pay 

 the dean of Hastings 4 marks yearly for the cele- 

 bration of services and in discharge of all claims. 14 

 Another obligation had been incurred in 1304, 

 when the abbot had secured the bishop of Chi- 

 chester's favour by a gift of a yearly rent of 100*. 

 for the support of two clerks in the cathedral 

 church to cense the host at the time of its eleva- 

 tion during high mass. 15 



During the early years of its existence the 

 abbey of Robertsbridge plays some considerable 

 part in history, its head being sent with the abbot 

 of Boxley in 1192 to search for King Richard, 

 whom they found in Bavaria, and by whom they 

 were sent back to England with the news of his 

 treaty with the emperor. 16 The same two 

 abbots in 1198 acted as the archbishop's agents to 

 the pope on the occasion of his quarrel with the 

 monks of Canterbury over the church of Lam- 

 beth. 17 In 121 2 the abbot of Robertsbridge was 

 dispatched abroad as the king's messenger, and 

 was given 2 marks with which to buy a palfrey, 18 

 and he was selected for the same purpose in 

 I222, 19 and again in I225, 20 in which latter 



10 Cal. Chart. No. 300. " Ibid. No. 321.. 



18 Ibid. No. 362. 



" Pat. 7 Edw. II, pt. ii, m. 7. 



14 Cal. Chart. No. 397. 



15 Feet, of F. file 37, No. 29. 



16 Walter of Coventry (Rolls Ser.), ii, 25, 28. 

 " Eplst. Cant. (Rolls Ser.), 459. 



18 Cole, Doc. lllust. Engl. Hist. 260. 



19 Pat. 7 Hen. Ill, m. 8. 

 M Close 9 Hen. Ill, m. 6. 



