VOL. XIX. ( 2 ) 
LEONARD STANLEY 
^03 
LEONARD STANLEY. STANLEY MONACHORUM, 
OR STANLEY ST. LEONARD. 
BY 
ST. CLAIR BADDELEY, President. 
Introduction. 
The Saint whose name has thus become attached to a 
Gloucestershire village (with the effect of distinguishing it 
from its neighbour, King’s Stanley) may be said to have been 
as popular in Saxon days in Gloucestershire as his contem- 
porary, St. Giles, of equal and similar renown, became in 
London and Edinburgh. No less than six parish churches, 
besides one in Bristol, bore his Dedication : a large proportion, 
and, perhaps, due to some especially local desire for pro- 
pitiation on behalf of captives, and this, again, possibly to 
be accounted for by the Danish invasion and occupation of 
both Gloucester and Cirencester towards the close of the 
ninth century. Nevertheless, at the Conquest, this manor of 
Stanley had as yet no connection with the Saint. It belonged 
to two Saxons, Godric and Wisnod, the former an extensive 
holder of land in the shire. Its T.R.E. value (namely, £$) 
remained the same at the Norman Survey in 1086, when it 
supported 25 males, and could boast that 1,680 acres out of 
a total of 1,690 were under cultivation, the remaining ten 
acres being meadow-land. At this date its possessor was 
Ralph de Berkeley, and its Chapel was not that of S. Leonard, 
but of S. Swithin. It was probably served by Bernard, the 
Chaplain of Berkeley, whose Prebend' (consisting of five hides 
I There was evidently a small prebeiulal, or collegiate, Church in .Saxon-Norinan days at 
Berkele)-, as well as the early Nunnery destroyed by Earl Godwin. Its possessions served by the 
Prebends were gradually parted into three portions; to Leonard Stanley Priory, to St Augustine’s 
at Bristol, and to Reading Abbev. The existence of these institutions, and the fact of the family 
(who were also Lords of Durs’ley) taking their name from Berkeley should point to a protective 
Castellum (not with a keep, or turns), being there before the days of Henry 11 . (1134) and Robert 
FitzHardinge’s late Norman buildings. 
