buildings were founded by some of the secular canons of the order of St. Augustine, probably on a spot used for worship by the Romans.[1] Mention of it is made in Domesday as existing in Edward the Confessor's reign, and as possessing five hydes and one yardland in Thuinam, as also its tithes, and the third of those of Holdenhurst.[2] The present building, however, dates only from the time of Flambard, who rebuilt the church, pulling down the earlier building with its nine cells.[3] and introducing the regular instead of the secular canons. Not till Henry I.'s reign was the change completed, Baldwin de Redvers bringing in the former, and placing them under the first prior, Reginald.
With this change new privileges and grants were made. Riches flowed in on every side. Not only were the Redvers
- ↑ In Archæologia, vol. iv. pp. 117, 118, is a letter from Brander, the geologist and antiquary, describing a quantity of spurs and bones of herons, bitterns and cocks, found on a part of the monastic buildings, showing that the site had been previously occupied.
- ↑ Holdenhurst had ten hydes and a half taken into the Forest (Domesday, as before, iv. a). It then possessed a small church, and, as we find one mentioned in the charter of Richard de Redvers in Henry I.'s reign, we may fairly conclude that this, too, was not destroyed by the Conqueror.
- ↑ Cartularium Monasterii de Christchurch Twinham. Brit. Mus., Cott. MSS., Tib. D. vi., pars ii., f. 194 a. This chartulary was much injured in the fire of 1731, but has been restored by Sir F. Madden. Quoted in Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, vol. vi. p. 303, Ed. 1830.
5d., a price at which it had stood with some slight variations for many years.
To conclude, the smallest things are noted. Thus a thousand "peats," perhaps brought from the Forest, cost, in 1562, 15d., whilst a load of "fursen," still the local plural of furse, perhaps also from the same place, was 8d. Nothing in these accounts escapes notice. In 1586 a "coking stole," the well-known cathedra stercoris, the Old-English "scealfing-stol," is charged 10d.; whilst a collar, or, as it is elsewhere in the same book called, "an iron choker for vagabonds," cost 14d.
