honour of Arundel, in the time of Richard I. In the year 1439, the market tolls of Midhurst were commuted by John Bohun, Knight, Lord of Midhurst, on the burgesses agreeing to pay him £10 a year, and two law-days to be held every year in the name of Bohun, on the Thursday after Hokeday, and on the Thursday after Michaelmas (MS. Deed). According to an inquest after the death of "John de Bohun of Midhurst, chevaler," he appears to have died on the Tuesday before the Assumption, in 1481, and to have left a widow, Cecilia, and a son and heir, John de Bohun, above twenty-one years of age. Leland briefly describes Easebourne as "Prioratus monialium, Johannes de Bone, miles, fundator primus, modernus David Owen, miles."
We do not know with what revenues it was first endowed, nor indeed how soon they were increased by subsequent benefactors; but at the earliest date when we have an account of them, they appear to have been ample, and indeed out of proportion to the support of the five or six "poor nuns" settled there. Deriving an inference from some names which occur in the lists of the nuns, and from their bibles and books of prayer being in French, it is not improbable that the founder intended the nunnery as a refuge for noble or gentle poverty, and that its few inmates were well born, and selected from important families.
The first trace of any individual admitted is derived from a letter of Archbishop Peckham (1278-92), a Sussex man himself, requesting the Prioress and nuns of Easebourne to admit Lucy, daughter of the deceased knight, Sir William Basset, as a sister into their house.[1] About the same time, Pope Nicholas Taxation, A.D. 1292 (pp. 134-139), estimates the Church of Easebourne, with its chapel, at £26.13s.4d. a year, and the temporalities of the Prioress at £41, besides rents valued at £2 in Broadwater and Worthing.
Half a century later, in 1342, when Henry Husee and the King's Commissioners[2] had to certify the value of property in the parish of "Esburne," the church was valued as before at 40 marcs (£26. 13s. 4d.); and the jury, consisting of Nicholas atte Eelde, Thomas le Fytteler, Richard Kaperon, and Roger
