A HISTORY OF SURREY 



conference which ended in the election of 

 Peter des Roches to the bishopric. This 

 famous ecclesiastic was present on two occa- 

 sions during the building of the new and 

 great abbey church, when altars were dedi- 

 cated, and on his death in 1238 the affection 

 which Waverley shared with his own cathe- 

 dral city was expressed by his heart and 

 bowels being buried in the abbey while his 

 body found a resting-place in the cathedral.* 

 On a later occasion there was a great gather- 

 ing of prelates in the abbey church for the 

 consecration of John Breton as Bishop of 

 Hereford on 2 June 1269 by Nicholas, 

 Bishop of Winchester, assisted by the 

 Bishops of Worcester, St. David's, LlandafF, 

 Salisbury, Bath, Exeter, and Coventry and 

 Lichfield.^ In January 1355-6 Bishop 

 William Edendon, in the conventual church 

 of Waverley, assisted by the Bishops of Salis- 

 bury and Chichester, consecrated Thomas de 

 Percy as Bishop of Norwich.^ By the per- 

 mission of William de Raleigh, Bishop of 

 Winchester, and the consent of Peter de 

 Ryevals, rector of Alton, the abbot and con- 

 vent were permitted in 1250 to celebrate 

 divine service in the oratory which they had 

 built within the grange of Neatham, saving 

 the rights of the mother church of Alton and 

 the chapel of Holybourne ; there was to be no 

 ringing of bells, the sacraments were only to 

 be administered to the brethren, confessions of 

 secular persons were not to be received unless 

 on the point of death, and all the servants of 

 the grange were to attend the chapel of 

 Holybourne, to hear divine service and receive 

 the sacraments as hitherto, and to remain 

 subject to it.t Bishop Raleigh died abroad the 

 same year, and was buried at Touraine. Be- 

 fore leaving England he gave a site on the 

 heath within his warren of Farnham to the 

 abbey to make a fishpond, for which the 

 abbot and convent were to pay a rent of half 

 a mark yearly. The fishpond was begun in 

 1250, but not completed that year.° Perhaps 

 the benefactor whose kindness was most 

 gratefully acknowledged by the brethren was 

 bishop Nicholas de Ely, whose generosity on 

 the occasion of the dedication of their church 



» Ann. Mon. (Rolls Sen), ii. 319. It was the 

 intention of Peter des Roches and an object for 

 which he had laid aside money to found two Cis- 

 tercian abbeys which were afterwards erected by 

 his executors under the names of Edwardstowe or 

 Netley and Clarte-Dieu in France (ibid. p. 323). 



2 Ibid. pp. 375-6. 



3 VVinton. Epis. Reg., W. de Edendon, vol. ii. 

 f. 57d. 



< Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 342. 

 5 Ibid. 



in 1278 has been already mentioned. He 

 visited the convent on Maundy Thursday in 

 1274, and consecrated the chrism, afterwards 

 dining in the frater with the brethren, but at 

 his own charges.* On his death on 12 

 February 1280-1 he was buried in the abbey 

 church he had so recently dedicated ; three days 

 later his heart was carried by the Bishop of 

 Norwich and the Bishop of Bath and Wells 

 to the cathedral at Winchester, and there de- 

 posited.' By his will he bequeathed 200 

 marks to the abbot and convent of Waverley. 

 It was not till the year 13 10 that the brethren 

 established a lasting memorial of their great 

 benefactor. A licence having been obtained 

 for Ralph de Staunford, parson of the church 

 of Alton, and Hugh Tripacy,^ parson of the 

 church of Martyr Worthy, to give the manor 

 of Courage with one messuage, 59 acres of 

 land, 5 acres of pasture and 4 acres of wood 

 at Chieveley, to the abbot and convent of 

 Waverley for the sustentation of a chaplain 

 to celebrate daily in the conventual church 

 for the soul of Nicholas, Bishop of Winches- 

 ter,' the monastery undertook that one of 

 the brethren should be deputed by the week 

 for the daily celebration of a mass in the 

 chapel of the Blessed Mary at the gate of 

 Waverley, or failing that in the greater 

 church for the soul of ' Lord Nicholas de Ely, 

 of good memory, late Bishop of Winchester, 

 whose body lies buried in our monastery.' '^ 

 On the bishop's obit spicery was to be dis- 

 tributed to the monks to the value of five 

 marks, and another mark to be delivered to 

 the cellarer as a pittance for the convent ; on 

 the same anniversary twenty shillings' worth 

 of shoes should be distributed by the porter 

 to aged widows and the poor at the abbey 

 gate." Another benefactor of the abbey 

 whose obit was observed by the brethren was 

 a certain Maud of London, described as 'a 

 kind of mother of the monks of Waverley ' 

 [mater quodammodo monachorum)., who died in 

 1263 and was buried in the chapel of the 

 infirmary." ' Almost all her goods as well in 



Ibid. pp. 383-4. 7 Ibid. p. 393. 



8 Two of the bishop's executors. 



« Pat. 4 Edw. II. pt. I, m. 23. 

 i» Winton. Epis. Reg., Woodlock, f. 138. 

 " Ibid. They also engaged to find a wax taper 

 to be set in the brass candlestick erected at the head 

 of the bishop by his executors, to burn there on his 

 anniversary, and on other solemn days at high 

 mass. To maintain a marble cross set up for the 

 soul of the said bishop by his executors at Froyle, 

 and in case of its being injured or thrown dovra by 

 lightning, thunder, or other storm, to erect another 

 in its place (ibid.). 



" Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii. 353. 



86 



