27 JULY 2018 OXFORD, ST GEORGE’S 1 actswilliam2henry1.wordpress.com Release date Version notes Who Current version: H1-Oxford St George-2018-1 27/7/2018 Original version RS/DXC Previous versions: — — — — This text is made available through the Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivs License; additional terms may apply Authors for attribution statement: Charters of William II and Henry I Project Richard Sharpe, Faculty of History, University of Oxford David X Carpenter, Faculty of History, University of Oxford OXFORD, ST GEORGE’S Collegiate church of St George in Oxford Castle; archive of Osney abbey County of Oxford : Diocese of Lincoln Founded in late eleventh century The church of St George in the castle at Oxford began as a house of secular canons. What is always said about its origins depends wholly on statements in annals of Osney abbey, which, when still a priory, took over the college. Here we are told that Robert d’Oilly built the castle in 1071 and founded St George’s church in 1074, and also that Osney priory was founded by Robert II d’Oilly (nephew of the first), in 1129 (Osney Annals, Annales monastici, iv. 9–10, 19; Salter, Ctl. Oseney, iv. 1, 11). In 1149 the same Robert II d’Oilly and one Geoffrey d’Ivry, the narrative says, gave the church to the canons of Osney (Annales monastici, iv. 26; Salter, Ctl. Oseney, iv. 24). The names of the patrons who made this gift and the year are contradicted by charters of the Empress Matilda and of King Stephen, but they represent the level of falsehood in the history invented for Osney. Many of the documents, royal and private, concerned with the early years of that foundation are forgeries, though they are older than the narrative with which they were overlaid. The three acts printed below in favour of the canons of St George are also, it must be concluded, all forgeries. Since Salter had accepted all of them as authentic, there is risk that his flawed dates for them have influenced the dating of other documents. 27 JULY 2018 OXFORD, ST GEORGE’S 2 Robert d’Oilly appears in the Abingdon chronicle as castellan of Oxford during William I’s reign, and in two writs he is addressed as sheriff, seemingly serving in Oxfordshire and Berkshire (W1/4) as well as in Warwickshire (W1/5). Along with Roger d’Ivry he conferred lands in Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire on the canons of St George’s, and these remained in the possession of the canons of Osney in later years. The lands are specified in the charter by which the Empress confirmed the gift of the collegiate church to the canons of Osney (EM/632, at Devizes, 1142 × 1148, an original, drafted by a scribe who also worked for Osney), ‘just as Henry d’Oilly [son of Robert II] and John de Saint- Jean [successor of Roger d’Ivry] granted in my presence and confirmed by their charters’. The principal lands are three hides at Walton just north of Oxford, where Roger held four hides in 1086 (DB, i. 159a; Oxon § 29. 22); a manor at Cutteslowe, held by Roger’s tenant Alfred (§ 29. 17) and a manor at Cowley, held by Roger as a tenant of Count Eustace (DB, i. 157c; § 19. 1); one hide at Sandford-on-Thames and two hides at Arncott were held by Roger and Robert jointly as tenants of the abbot of Abingdon (DB, i. 156d; § 9. 4, 10) in accordance with the gift of Abbot Adelelm (Hudson, ii. 32–5, § 29), who died in 1083. All these lands are in Oxfordshire. Stowe in Buckinghamshire they held jointly as tenants of Bishop Odo of Bayeux (DB, i. 144d; Bucks § 4. 31), and it is likely that the two hides in Maids Moreton ({3} § 7) were part of the manor of Stowe. Land at Cassington (Oxon) was still held in 1086 by Wadard, tenant of Bishop Odo, and probably came to Robert or Roger only after Odo’s forfeiture in 1088 (DB, i. 156a–b; Oxon §§ 7. 32, 37). Besides these lands Robert and Roger also conferred their two-thirds interest in the demesne tithes of many manors. The parcels clauses of a forged charter in Henry I’s name ({3}) gives a long list of them, located in eight counties, which derives corroboration from the record of manors held by the founders in 1086. The list represents a majority of the manors held by Robert and Roger in 1086, including some where they held only as tenants.1 Domesday Book makes no mention of land-holding canons of St George, so the date of 1074 given by the Osney annals must be doubted, and no clear evidence has been traced to confirm the actual date of foundation. From the fact that some manors still formed part of Bishop 1 One or other of the patrons also held more than a dozen manors in Oxfordshire whose tithes were not conveyed to the canons. It is difficult to understand why, for example, the tithes of Eaton, whose lands were shared between Robert and Roger (Oxon §§ 28. 5, 29. 7), were not given along with so many others. 27 JULY 2018 OXFORD, ST GEORGE’S 3 Odo’s fee in 1086 and presumably until his forfeiture in 1088, we may infer that the canons were not endowed with those tithes until after 1088 at the earliest. According to the Abingdon chronicle Robert d’Oilly died in September in an unspecified year (Hudson, ii. 34, § 29), 1091 or 1092 (ODNB), or maybe 1093, which narrows the possible date-range to the early years of William II’s reign.2 Roger d’Ivry, co-holder of lands and co-founder of the church, may have lived into the first years of Henry I’s reign, though not as late as has been sometimes thought.3 The interconnexion of their tenures is peculiar but clearly documented in Domesday Book. The compiler of one of the Osney cartularies refers to them as ‘fratres iurati et per fidem et sacramentum confederati’ (Ctl. Oseney, iv. 1). It has been suggested that the church they founded in the castle was the successor to an earlier church with parochial rights within the city and outside it (J. Cooper, ‘The church of St George in the castle’, Oxoniensia 41 (1976), 306–8). The tower that bears the name of St George has also been thought likely to predate the Norman castle and, indeed, the Norman conquest (D. F. Renn, ‘Burhgeat and gonfanon: two sidelights from the Bayeux tapestry’, ANS 16 (1994), 177–98, at pp. 179–81). Recent excavation supports both ideas (D. Poore, ‘Excavations at Oxford castle’, Oxoniensia 74 (2009), 5–6, 8), so that it now appears likely that the tower was built in association with the pre-Conquest west gate of the city and a nearby church and that it was later absorbed by the Norman castle. 2 Robert d’Oilly witnessed William II’s diploma for Bishop John of Bath in January 1091 (W2/000, Regesta 314, 315). Sanders, Baronies, 54n, supposed him to be alive in April 1092 on the insecure evidence of W2/000, Regesta 328 for Lincoln, attested also by his brother Nigel, a tenant of the bishop of Lincoln (W2/000, Regesta 466 for Lincoln). Nigel probably inherited as early as 1093–4, when he attested at Salisbury (W2/000, Regesta 410 for La Sauve Majeure). 3 VCH Oxon vi. 258, ‘in about 1120 or possibly earlier’; Sanders, Baronies, 9, adds further confusion by dividing Roger d’Ivry into two, father and son. He would have the father die c. 1089 (which would be relevant to the date of the foundation), the son Roger before 1112, and a ghost son Geoffrey before 1120. There is little evidence to support any of this and none to indicate the actual year of Roger’s death. D. C. Douglas, Domesday Monachorum, 56–7, describes the career of Roger d’Ivry and concludes that he probably died not long after 24 April 1089, the date of his last known occurrence, when he attested a charter of Duke Robert (Regesta 308). He was almost certainly dead in 1101 × 1104 when Henry I confirmed a gift to Gloucester abbey made by Aelina, wife of Roger d’Ivry (000, 000, Regesta 678, 1006). On 28 August 1110 Adelina d’Ivry made a gift to Abingdon abbey confirmed by King Henry some little time afterwards (000, Regesta 973). 27 JULY 2018 OXFORD, ST GEORGE’S 4 The canons of St George’s appear to have been well provided for. Just how well is difficult to establish. The major source of income must have been the demesne tithes, but, despite the fact that the foundation followed so soon after the survey behind Domesday Book, the data available are insufficient to allow estimates. In many cases Robert and Roger had demesne interests that were only a part of an individual manor. Where the number of hides in demesne falls short of the potential number, it is not always clear whether this represents underexploitation of the land or missing information about tenants on the ground. In other cases the manor was held by a single tenant in 1086, so that one might infer that nothing from such a manor was held in demesne by either Roger or Robert, yet such are included in the list. Manor by manor there is uncertainty as to what share of the demesne tithes came to the canons. Individual canons have left some memory of their names.