THE RELIGIOUS HOUSES 

 OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



INTRODUCTION 



IN considering the religious houses of Hertfordshire the main impression 

 is that of the overwhelming pre-eminence of St. Albans Abbey. The 

 abbey indeed had more than a great local position, which was of 

 course insured by its possessions and its ecclesiastical and secular 

 jurisdiction. In virtue of the saint over whose relics it arose it held the first 

 place among English abbeys, while the fame of its culture and discipline 

 at one period reached foreign countries. Its name deserves to be honoured 

 to-day for the service rendered to history by the literary labours of its 

 monks. The other Benedictine monasteries were all dependent houses : 

 Hertford and Redbourn Priories were cells of St. Albans, the second practically 

 an annex of the abbey ; the priory at Ware, the one alien priory in the 

 county, was a cell of the abbey of St. Evroul in Utica ; and the small 

 community at Salford in Standon, a dependency of Stoke in Suffolk. From 

 a reference about the middle of the 12th century to 'the monks serving 

 God in the church of Sawbridgeworth ' ^ it is possible that the priory of 

 Hurley or Walden, owners respectively of the tithes * and church of Saw- 

 bridgeworth,' may have maintained a cell here at one time. The existence 

 of this house is, however, quite problematical. Richard Abbot of St. Albans 

 (1097- 1 1 19) contemplated the foundation of a subject monastery at Langley,* 

 but the project was not carried out. 



There were Benedictine nunneries at Cheshunt, Rowney in Little 

 Munden, Flamstead and Sopwell near St. Albans, all founded during the 

 I 2th century, though, if the convent placed at Sopwell was an offshoot of 

 the abbey, as seems likely, it could claim an earlier origin. All were more 

 or less small and poor, but Sopwell's connexion with St. Albans saved it no 

 doubt from pecuniary cares and difficulties and gave it a certain standing. 

 The Cistercians were not represented in Hertfordshire ; nor were the 

 Carthusians, in spite of the avowed intention of the Countess of Pembroke 

 in 1362 to establish monks of this order either at Westmill, Meesden or 

 Little Hormead.' 



^ In a letter of William de Albini Brito to his men of Sawbridgeworth (Madox, Hist, oj Exch. \, 1 20). 

 ' Newcourt, Repert. i, 867. 



' Geoffrey de Mandeville granted the church to Walden Priory, which he founded in 1 136 (Dugdale, 

 Mon. iv, 133). 



* Gesta Abbatum Mon. S. Albant (Rolls Ser.), i, 149. ' Inq. a.q.d. file 365, no. 18. 



