A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



tine 11." His principal acts besides were the 

 institution of a weekly procession in honour of 

 the Virgin Mary, the building of rooms for the 

 abbot near the church, and the purchase of 

 Bramfield.'* He left the abbey clear of all debt, 

 but he had taken the silver-gilt plates of the 

 shrine to pay for the new estate.*' In 1 1 50 he 

 was attacked by an incurable disease, and it 

 was apparently by his own wish that he was 

 superseded.'* By permission of King Stephen, 

 who came again to St. Albans in 1 1 5 1 , the monks 

 exercised their right to elect, and chose the prior, 

 Robert de Gorham," who received the benedic- 

 tion nineteen days before Ralph's death.*" 



Robert de Gorham was the nephew of Abbot 

 Geoffrey, in whose time he had transferred 

 himself from a continental monastery to 

 St. Albans. Here he had become secretary, and 

 in 1 149 prior." He made a clever, pohtic abbot, 

 devoting all his powers to the aggrandisement 

 of his house and working indefatigably for its 

 material advancement. Early in his abbacy he 

 took the opportunity afforded by the confusion 

 of ownerships and overlordships under Stephen 

 to acquire the church of Luton, with its endow- 

 ment of land in ' Hertevelle,' Battlesden and 

 Potsgrove.*^ 



A prolonged struggle with Robert de 

 Valognes" arose from the abbot's decision to 

 put beyond doubt the abbey's proprietary 

 rights in Northaw Wood, endangered by the hfe 

 grants of his predecessors to various members of 

 the Valognes family. 



The quarrel with the Earl of Arundel seems 

 also to have been caused by the abbot's desire to 

 test and substantiate claims,*^ in this instance 

 unjust ones.*^ 



In both these cases the abbot was victorious,*^ 

 but in the dispute with Westminster Abbey over 

 Aldenham*' he met his match. Laurence, then 

 Abbot of Westminster, had formerly been a monk 

 of St. Albans,** and on succeeding to the 



'' Gesta Abbat. i, 107. Pope Celestine confirmed 

 grants past and future made to St. Albans (Cott. MS. 

 Nero. D vii, fol. 8 d.). 



'^ Gesta Abbat. i, 107-9. 



'' Ibid. 109. 



^* According to the Gesta Abbat. (i, 108) he got 

 the monks to put the prior in his place. 



35 Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. ii, 187. 



*" In the Gesta Abbat. (i, no) he is said to have 

 lived some years after the appointment of his 

 successor, obviously an error if he fell ill in the 

 fourth or the beginning of the fifth year of his rule 

 and died 5 July 1 151. 



*i Gesta Abbat. i, i lo-l I. 



" Ibid. 113-19 ; V.C.H. Beds, ii, 356. 



*3 Gesta Abbat. i, 159-66. 



** Ibid. 166-75. 



^^ V.C.H. Norfolk, ii, 336-7. 



*^ Partly owing to his energy and pertinacity. 



" Gesta Abbat. i, 134. 



"Ibid. 159. 



abbacy had been very kindly treated by Abbot 

 Robert. Expectations, however, that he would 

 be bound by past ties were doomed to dis- 

 appointment. He was as uncompromising and 

 unscrupulous in support of his own house as his 

 opponent, over whom he carried the day. 



Of all Robert de Gorham's struggles that with 

 the Bishop of Lincoln was incomparably the most 

 important. The abbot, sent with other eccle- 

 siasrics to Rome by Henry II on the king's 

 business, seized the opportunity to secure the 

 abbey's independence.** The occasion was 

 propitious. Pope Adrian IV, a native of Abbots 

 Langley, had reason to be interested in St. 

 Albans,^" and was generous with gifts '^ and 

 privileges. ^^ By him an annual procession of 

 clerks and laymen of the county to St. Albans 

 was ordained, the abbey and its cells declared 

 exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of 

 Lincoln, and the abbot authorized to wear the 

 mitre and other pontifical ornaments. The 

 bishop, after remonstrance, agreed to the 

 procession,^ but the abbey's exemption he 

 refused to recognize, and when Pope Adrian was 

 dead ** contested the point. ^^ The abbot is said 

 to have convinced the king that Adrian had not 

 given but restored freedom to St. Albans, though 

 it seems probable that no exemprion existed 

 before this date.^^ However, as the submission 

 of the house to the see of Lincoln at any rate at 

 one period" was an undeniable fact, Robert 

 came to an agreement with the bishop, and in 

 March 1 163 made over to him the manor of 

 Fingest (co. Bucks.) ^* in return for a renunciation 

 of all episcopal rights over the monastery.** 



^' Gesta Abbat. i, 1 26-9. 



'" His father took vows there (ibid. 124-5). The 

 story of his own attempted profession at St. Albans 

 and its frustration by Abbot Robert is obviouily 

 fictitious, for he became Cardinal of Albano in 1 146 

 after a residence of some years on the Continent. 



'^ He gave the abbey relics of the Theban Legion, 

 a beautiful silk cloth sent to him by the emperor, 

 valuable sandals and ring (ibid. 132), and a goblet 

 for the refectory (Matt. Paris, Chron. Maj. vi, 248). 



^^ Gesta Abbat. i, 129-30. 



" Ibid. " Ibid. 1 3 5-6. 



" The question was argued first at Winchester 

 and afterwards before the king at Westminster (ibid. 



139-54)- 



'* References to its exemption before this time are 

 either suspicious or interpolations of a later date. 

 The exercise of jurisdiction by the Bishop of Lincoln 

 over St. Albans at an early period is proved by the 

 bishop's appointment of Wulsin as abbot in the 10th 

 century when there was a dispute in the monastery. 



" Robert and his two immediate predecessors had 

 been blessed by the Bishop of Lincoln and made pro- 

 fession of obedience to him. 



'* Compensation was offered by the king's advice 

 {Gesta Abbat. i, 154-5). 



" Ibid. 155-7 ; Pi"'- <it Q"" ^orr. (Rec. Com.), 

 90. 



