A HISTORY OF 
our Lady crowned and seated in a canopied 
niche, with a sceptre in her left hand, and the 
holy Child standing on her knee. On the 
left an abbot with crosier, and another figure 
on the right, under smaller canopies. Legend : 
S. COMUNE ABBATIS ET COVETUS DE WARDEN. 
The counter-seal shows a shield bearing 
a crosier between three Warden pears. 
Legend : spEs MEA IN DEO EST. 
5. THE ABBEY OF WOBURN 
The Cistercian abbey of Woburn was 
founded in the year 1145," under the patron- 
age of Hugh de Bolebec. It was a colony 
sent from the abbey of Fountains in York- 
shire, and its first abbot, Alan, was a monk of 
that house.2 To the manor of Woburn 
other gifts were soon added: Ralf Pirot of 
Harlington, William of Flitton, Henry and 
Stephen of Pulloxhill were amongst the ear- 
liest benefactors, whose charters were con- 
firmed by Henry II. before 1162 ;% and 
Ralf Pirot (who was a considerable feudal 
tenant of Robert d’Albini) himself became a 
monk in the abbey before his death.* On the 
manor of Medmenham in Bucks, granted by 
the daughter of Hugh de Bolebec, another 
abbey was built in the reign of King John.® 
The early history of the abbey is obscure. 
A few stray facts relating to the twelfth cen- 
tury and the early part of the thirteenth may 
be gathered from the annals of Waverley 
and Dunstable : as, for instance, that a prior 
of Woburn was made abbot of Combe in 
1183°; and that a long suit went on from 
about the same date until 1225, concerning 
the advowson of the church of Chesham, be- 
tween the abbots of Woburn and St. Alban’s, 
and the prior of Dunstable.” The final agree- 
ment gave the church to Woburn, the other 
27, no longer exists. A small seal of the twelfth 
century in white wax, representing an abbot with 
staff and book, encircled by the legend sicittvm' 
ABBATIS * DE * SARTIS * GARDONI, is mentioned by 
Gorham, History of St. Neot’s, II. lxxiv. as existing 
among the evidences at Montague House, Pyx 
xxv. 
1 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 231. 
2 Dugdale, Mon. v. 301. 
3 Ibid. p. 478. One of the witnesses to the 
charter is Thomas the Chancellor, whose name 
limits the date to this year. 
4 From a note kindly furnished by Mr. Round. 
5 Rot. Chart. 2 John, m. 17, gives permission 
to build; Assize Roll, 13 John, 480, r. 4 in dorso, 
speaks of the abbey of Medmenham as built, and 
as the gift of Isabel de Bolebec (Countess of Ox- 
ford). 
8 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 243. 
7 Ibid. iti. 74, 93, 96; Cott. MS. Julius, D iti. 
f, 123b. 
BEDFORDSHIRE 
houses receiving pensions. The abbots of 
this period, like all other heads of large and 
well known religious houses, took a consider- 
able part in public affairs, and were made ar- 
biters in local disputes as well as matters of 
wider interest. In 1202 an abbot of Woburn 
went to Worcester to inquire into the mir- 
acles which were alleged to have taken place 
at the shrine of St. Wulfstan, and in the next 
year he was made one of the papal commis- 
sioners for the process of canonisation.2 In 
1215 another abbot is mentioned in one of 
the Letters Patent of King John, as having 
been an intercessor with him for Simon de 
Pateshull.® 
In 1234 the house was reduced to great 
poverty ; Abbot Richard, who had evidently 
been a bad manager, was removed, and Roger, 
a monk from Fountains, took his place, while 
nearly all the monks and lay brethren were 
dispersed amongst other houses until their own 
abbey should be able to support them again.*° 
The canons of Dunstable did what they 
could to help their neighbours in distress, and 
presented them with a mill; they may also 
have offered a home for the time to some of 
the monks. But the abbey was not long in 
recovering its prosperity ; for in 1240 acanon 
of Dunstable fled there, to escape from taking 
the oath imposed by Bishop Grossetéte." 
Fifty years later it was one of the wealthiest 
houses in the county.’? ‘There is no indica- 
tion of the number of monks at this time ; 
but as Warden Abbey, with very nearly the 
same income, held probably forty or fifty, we 
may conclude that Woburn had accommoda- 
tion for about as many. At the time of the 
dissolution there were it would seem less than 
twenty. 
Nothing can be gathered from the Lincoln 
Registers as to the internal history of the 
abbey during the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries, as it was exempt, like all Cistercian 
houses, from visitation. One of the unfor- 
tunate Templars was placed there in 1311,!° 
from which we may perhaps infer that the 
house was in good order at that time ; other- 
wise its history is almost a blank sheet, ex- 
cept for a few notices of loans to the king, 
impropriations of churches, etc., such as are 
common to all religious houses. But the cir- 
cumstances which led to the suppression of 
the house furnish us happily with a very full 
& Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 391 ; Cal. of Pap. 
Letters, 1. 13. 
9 Litt. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i. 138. 
10 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iii. 140. 
11 Tbid. 157. 
12 Pope Nich. Tax. (Rec. Com.) 
13 Linc. Epis, Reg., Memo. Dalderby, 194. 
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