RELIGIOUS HOUSES 



church of ornaments and vestments, many and 

 costly as these were,^* but in all his actions. 



There was great activity at the abbey at this 

 time. A guest-hall, apartments for the queen, 

 the infirmary and its chapel were built.^* An 

 elaborate shrine was begun in 1123,'-^ and on 

 2 August 1 1 29 the body of St. Alban was 

 translated in the presence of four abbots 

 besides Geoffrey, and of Alexander Bishop of 

 Lincoln,^* who gave an indulgence of forty days 

 to all visiting the abbey on the feasts of the 

 Invention or Translation.*' 



The hospital of St. Julian for lepers was 

 founded and endowed by the abbot from a 

 laudable desire to atone for omissions of prayers 

 and alms due from the abbey for its benefactors.** 



Probably a similar motive caused the estab- 

 lishment of the nunnery at Sopwell,** and this 

 priory, always closely connected with St. Albans, 

 was intended to compensate for the removal 

 from the abbey of the sisterhood, to which there 

 is no reference after Abbot Paul's time. By the 

 GestaGeoSieyis credited also with the foundation 

 of Markyate Priory, but with how much truth is 

 doubtful,*** though it is unnecessary to reject 

 entirely the story of the abbot's friendship for 

 the saintly recluse Christina, and their benefits 

 to each other.^ GeoSrey was concerned, too, 

 with the formation of the convent at BeauUeu, 

 which became a cell of the abbey .^ 



No relaxation of the rule was permitted at 

 St. Albans under this abbot.^ He insisted on 

 silence at meals in the infirmary, on abstinence 

 from meat unless such food was needful for 

 health, and on the return to the cloister of the 

 monks as soon as they had recovered from 

 illness. Yet he was anything but a hard man. 

 It was he who assigned the church of St. Peter 



" Among other things he presented 7 beautiful 

 copes, 5 chasubles (one of which was afterwards 

 burned for the sake of its gold), 3 albs, a tunic, a 

 gold chalice and paten, a reredos for St. Alban's altar 

 of gold, silver and gems, a silver-gilt censer, several 

 books, a great hanging, on the gold ground of which 

 was woven the Invention of St. Alban, and 2 smaller 

 tapestries {Gesta Abbat. \, 93—4). 



" Ibid. 79. 



" Ibid. 80. 



" Ibid. 85. 



" Ibid. 92. 



" Ibid. 77-8. 



" Ibid. 80-2. 



'" V.C.H. Beds, i, 358. 



" He is said not only to have founded and 

 endowed the priory in spite of the murmuring of his 

 monks, but to have rebuilt it after a fire. She for 

 her part was his adviser in spiritual matters, and by 

 her prayers saved him several dreaded journeys {Gesta 

 Abbat. i, 103—4). ^'^ influence may, in fact, have 

 had much to do with the formation of the community 

 and foundation of the house {V.C.H. Beds, i, 358). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 78 ; V.C.H. Beds, i, 351. 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 79-80. 



to the infirmarer to provide necessaries for the 

 sick and old ; by him, too, the sums allotted for 

 the convent's food and for alms were increased.^^ 

 He was moreover very charitable.^* During a 

 famine *" he had the partly completed shrine 

 stripped of its precious covering to obtain means 

 to feed the poor.*' 



Such information as there is about the monks 

 is all favourable to them. The shrine was made 

 by an inmate of the house, Anketil, at one time 

 moneyer to the King of Denmark.*' Walter 

 Abbot of Eynsham, present at the Translation 

 in 1129, was an ex-prior of St. Albans *°; and 

 another prior, Godfrey, was made Abbot of 

 Crowland by the Council of Westminster in 

 1 138.*° It is specially noted that the foundation 

 of St. Julian's had the approval of the whole 

 community. 



Geoffrey was succeeded in 1146 by Ralph 

 Gubiun, whose election received the assent of 

 the king when visiting the abbey on Ascension 

 Day.'* Ralph had been chaplain and treasurer 

 to Alexander Bishop of Lincoln, with whom he 

 had remained even after he had become a monk. 

 The bishop had promised to make him abbot ^* 

 and possibly directed the convent's choice. A 

 consciousness that the election had not been 

 quite free would certainly explain the abbot's 

 extreme uneasiness at finding an uncut seal on 

 Anketil's table. Suspecting the prior of a plot to 

 depose him, he removed him from office, and 

 drove him at last to seek refuge from persecution 

 with the Abbot of Westminster.^ He is said to 

 have protected his church manfully,'* possibly a 

 reference to some special occasion for his 

 journey to France to obtain from Pope 

 Eugenius III a bull similar to that of Celes- 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 74-5. 



" The Bishop of Lincoln's ordinance in 1 1 29 that 

 300 poor people should be fed at the monastery on 

 the festival of the Invention was made by the abbot's 

 counsel and assent (ibid. 92). 



'° There was scarcity in 1 1 24 and 1 1 25 {Anglo- 

 Sax. Chron. [Earle and Plummer], i, 254, 256). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 82. The same feeling doubtless 

 prompted the sacrifice of a reredos to save the town 

 from being burned by Stephen's followers (ibid. 

 93-4), apparently in 1 142 (Matt. Paris, Hist. Angl. 

 i, 270-1). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 80. Most beautiful work was 

 done also in the scriptorium, to judge from a specimen 

 still remaining (Herbert, Ilium. Manuscripts, 136). 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 85. 



'° Chron. of reigns of Stephen, Henry 11 and Richard I 

 (Rolls Ser.), iii, 175. In the Gesta Abbat. (i, 

 1 20-1) Godfrey is said to have been appointed in 

 the time of Abbot Robert de Gorham (11 5 1-68) at 

 the wish of Alexander Bishop of Lincoln, who, it 

 should be remarked, died in 1148. 



" Matt. Paris, Hist. Angl. \, 276-7. 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 106. 



" Ibid. 107-8. 



'* Ibid. 106. 



375 



