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INTRODUCTION 13 ginally ran,1 continuously from i on the present f6 to 231 on f223 and thus covers the whole of the two parts, excluding the probable extension of the second part. As far as number 71, however, it is written over an erased but exactly equivalent foliation in Roman numerals. Though difficult to date precisely, the Arabic foliation appears to belong to the late fourteenth century, suggesting that the two parts were put together not many decades after each was writ- ten. It also suggests that the missing sections of the main part had been removed for some reason by the end of the fourteenth century. The same Arabic numerals are used in the incomplete table of con- tents, mostly in index-form, which appears on ff 2V-5V, that is, on the folios subsequently bound in at the front of the cartulary preced- ing the commencement of the Arabic foliation.

// The 's foundation and initial endowment This necessarily brief introduction is not the place in which to attempt either a general history of the abbey or a detailed account of the growth of its endowment. Nevertheless, some preliminary remarks on the circumstances of its foundation are called for, since they provide both the context for its early charters in general and, more particularly, the background against which discussions of pos- sible forgery must be set. No valid interpretation or criticism of its charters can be complete without an appreciation of the founder's overall scheme for the house, from the type of monasticism he se- lected to the scale of privilege he granted. was founded by King Henry I in 1121, although for nearly two years it existed as a priory. It was among the last Black Monk houses of first rank to appear in England in the Middle Ages and owed its origins to the king's desire to establish a rich, respected and highly privileged monastic community befitting the royal dignity and charged with special obligations in relief of the poor and reception of pilgrims and guests.2 More than this on his

1 Parts of the medieval Arabic sequence are missing, indicating losses of folios since it was provided, namely, the numerals 145 (after the present f 150), either 149 or 150 (after f 153), 153-156 (after f 156), and 158-163 (after f 157). In the last case physical evidence remains of the removal of some folios after the present f 157, which bears also the medieval Arabic numeral 157. •A passage in the foundation charter (below, no. 1) specifically requires the to devote the resources of the monastery to this end: '... non cum suis secularibus consanguineis seu quibuslibet aliis elemosinas monasterii male utendo disperdat, sed pauperibus et peregrinis et hospitibus suscipiendis curam gerat.' Moreover, in estab- lishing a hospital at the abbey gate 'ad relevandam pauperum inopiam et subsidium peregrinorum' in the late , Abbot Hugh II cited 'susceptionem hospitum transeuntium, precipue tamen pauperum Christi ac peregrinorum' as one of Henry

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 14 READING ABBEY CARTULARIES I aims one cannot say with certainty, but since the king's body was eventually to be brought from in very difficult winter conditions for burial in the abbey,1 and since both his father, William I, and his nephew and successor, Stephen, were each laid to rest in their favourite foundations,2 it is highly probable that Henry intended from the first to be buried at Reading. If such was the case, then the monastery was to be not simply a new royal abbey but more particularly a royal mausoleum.3 The loss of Henry's only legitimate son in the wreck of the White Ship in November, 1120, which affected him deeply, may well have given a spur to his plans, but is unlikely by itself to have been the cause of so ambitious a project as the king undertook at Reading.4 For his new foundation Henry chose monks of the Cluniac ob- servance. Given his links with Cluny and the high reputation which Cluniac monasticism then enjoyed in the Anglo-Norman world,5 the choice was a natural one, but it was also one singularly well suited

Fs main purposes in founding the abbey (below, no. 224). See also William of Malmesbury's elaborate tribute to the hospitality of Reading in its early years (Gesta Regum, ed. W. Stubbs. (RS, 1887-9), '• 4^9) and, for further discussion, see K. Leyser, 'Frederick Barbarossa, Henry II and the hand of St James', EHR xc (1975), 494-5. 1 Henry died at Lyons-la-Foret, in eastern Normandy, on 1 December 1135, having given instructions on his death-bed that his body was to be buried at Reading. It was taken first to Rouen for disembowelling and embalming, and thence to Caen where, the winds being contrary, it was lodged in St Stephen's abbey until after Christmas, when a crossing to England became possible (Orderic Vitalis, vi. 448-50; William of Malmesbury, Historia Novella, ed. K. R. Potter (1955), 12-14, 16; Henry of Huntingdon, Historia Anglorum, ed. T. Arnold (RS, 1879), 256-8; The Letters of Peter the Venerable, ed. G. Constable (Harvard, 1967), i. 22). The king was buried at Reading on 5 January 1136 ('Annales Radingenses', 11; continuator of Florence of Worcester, in Florentii Wigorniensis ... Chronicon ex Chronicis, ed. B. Thorpe (Eng. Hist. Soc, 1848-9), ii. 95; 'Winchcombe Annals', ed. R. R. Darlington, Med. Misc. for D.M. Stenton, 127). The date usually given for his burial is 4 January, which is derived from Gervase of Canterbury (Historical Works, ed. W. Stubbs (RS, 1879-80), i. 95), but this is strictly the date which Gervase gives for the bringing of the body from Normandy to England. 2 For William I's burial at St Stephen's, Caen, see Orderic Vitalis, iv, 102-6. Stephen was buried at Faversham, where the original plan of the abbey church included what appears to have been a large royal funerary chapel occupying much of its eastern arm (E. M. Hallam, 'The burial places of English kings', History Today (July 1981), 46; B. Philp, Excavations at Faversham, igfc

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 INTRODUCTION 15 to his purpose. Although Henry was later to patronize both the Cistercians and the Austin canons,1 it was the typically Cluniac combination of reform and splendour which evidently appealed to him for his most important foundation. The first monks arrived in Reading on 18 June 1121. Of the initial community seven monks with a prior, Peter, had been sent from Cluny in response to Henry's request to Abbot Pons, and had been joined on their arrival in England by several others from the Cluniac priory of St Pancras at Lewes.2 The community lived under the rule of Prior Peter until 15 April 1123, when Hugh of Amiens, formerly prior of Lewes, was appointed first abbot and Peter returned to Cluny.3 It is clear that, whatever had been the case in the first two years, the appointment of an abbot entailed the liberation of the house from juridical de- pendence on Cluny.4 Reading was the first Cluniac house in Eng- land to achieve independent abbatial status and the change was undoubtedly made at the king's insistence. He seems to have desired the best of two worlds, namely, all the benefits of the Cluniac ob- servance but without the juridical ties to Cluny. That the final solution took nearly two years to achieve may indicate either a gradual development of the king's ideas in this respect or an element of resistance from Cluny, but the result was later to serve as a convenient model for King Stephen's foundation at Faversham, which was similarly colonized by Cluniac monks but was designated an abbey ab initio.b Shortly after the appointment of its first abbot, Reading received a papal confirmation from Calixtus II, dated 19

•For the Cistercians, see Knowles, ibid., 175; Gallia Christiana, xi, 307-8 (for Mor- temer in Normandy, although this did not become a full member of the Order until after Henry's death). For the Austin canons, see Knowles and Hadcock, 2nd edn, 156 (for Dunstable); The Cartulary of Cirencester Abbey, ed. CD. Ross (1964), i. 21; The Cartulary of the Priory of St Denys near Southampton, ed. E. O. Blake (Southampton Records Ser., 1981), i, p. xxxv; ii. 211. *'Annales Radingenses', 10. * Ibid. The precise date is given in Flor. Hist., ii. 49; this work is now known certainly to be by Matthew Paris, who is presumed to have taken material from a lost chronicle of Reading (R. Vaughan, Matthew Paris (Cambridge, 1958), 37-41, 104), presumably that listed in the late 12th-century list of books at Reading as Gesta regis Henrici et ystoria Rading' in uno volumine (Egerton 3031, fgr; see below, no. 225). 4 This is clear from the tone of Peter the Venerable's carta societatis to Abbot Hugh and the convent of Reading (no. 218) and, more precisely, from the charter of La Charite cited in note 5. 'Faversham was founded in 1148 (Heads of Relig. Houses, 49 n.3) and was settled by Cluniac monks from , a dependency of La Charite-sur-Loire. Both the abbot of Cluny and the prior and convent of La Charite granted the new abbey complete freedom from all obedience and subjection to Cluny and La Charite, the latter adding that it was to enjoy the same freedom as Reading Abbey, also settled by Cluniac monks (Saltman, Theobald, 82-3; Mon. Ang., iv. 575).

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 l6 READING ABBEY CARTULARIES I June 1123, and two years later the formal 'foundation charter' from the king.1 The endowment which Henry conveyed to his new abbey was generous by any standards. It comprised initially the manors and churches of Reading, Cholsey and Leominster, the manor of That- cham and the church of Wargrave, to which were added later the church of Hanborough and, probably, the manor of Bucklebury and the manor and church of Pangbourne.2 What made the initial en- dowment so significant, however, given the king's pious intentions, was its inclusion of the sites and properties of three old abbeys, Reading, Cholsey and Leominster, which had been destroyed on account of their sins, as the foundation charter has it, and whose lands had for long been in lay possession—in fact, in royal posses- sion.3 By giving the lands of these former abbeys to his new house Henry was at the same time satisfying the demands of the Gregorian Reform movement for the restitution of alienated Church property. This is the first of many indications in the foundation charter that Henry was prepared and willing to implement much of the monastic reformers' programme. Moreover, the king went to some lengths to provide his monks with neatly rounded endowments by removing the claims of other religious houses in the manors he intended to give. He recovered the church of Reading and its land from Battle

1 See below, nos. 139, 1. 2Hanborough church (Oxon.) was given in C.1130X33 (see no. 494). No charter evidence survives for Bucklebury and Pangbourne (Berks.). Both were treated separ- ately in and cannot, therefore, have come to the abbey as appurte- nances of Reading: Bucklebury and one Pangbourne estate were held by the Crown, the other Pangbourne estate by (VCHBerks., i. 330, 334, 355). In 1212 both Bucklebury and Pangbourne were said to have been given to Reading Abbey by Henry I (Fees, i. 107-8), but this record is not uniformly accurate regarding other royal gifts to Reading. The monks' possession of Bucklebury can certainly be traced back to 1169 (PR 75 Henry II, 80) and probably to 1151 x 54, when they obtained the church by exchange from St Albans Abbey (see no. 688). They had demesne in Pangbourne by 1158x65 (BL Cotton Vesp. E v, fig) and, according to a diocesan confirmation of 1193, had held the church since the time of Roger bishop of Salisbury (see no. 204). Great uncertainty surrounds the history of the two Domesday estates in Pangbourne in the twelfth century, but since no lord of Pangbourne other than Reading Abbey is mentioned after that time, they must both have come to the monks. The Crown's holding could well have been given by Henry I, while Miles Crispin's holding may have been detached from his other estates, which became the Honour of Wallingford, when they were in the control of his widow's second husband, , a protege of Henry I (Sanders, English Baronies, 93); against this, however, a Richer of Pangbourne was listed among the knights of the Honour of Wallingford in 1166 (RedBk. Exch., i. 310). 3 All were Anglo-Saxon houses, Reading and Leominster being nunneries, whose lands were held by the Crown in 1086. See Knowles and Hadcock, 2nd edn, 62, 69, 74. For Leominster, see also B. R. Kemp, 'The monastic dean of Leominster', EHR, lxxxiii (1968), 505-6.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 INTRODUCTION 17 Abbey, another estate in Reading from , and the church of Cholsey from the abbey of Mont St Michel, all by ex- change for lands elsewhere.1 In one case, however, he either failed or did not attempt to pursue this policy, for, although he gave the monks the manor of Thatcham, he did not include the church, which was held by his right-hand man, Roger bishop of Salisbury,2 whom he may not have wished to disturb, and apparently substi- tuted the church of Wargrave, which he had also recovered from Mont St Michel.3 The king's gifts were vastly more important than the bald recital of their names might suggest. In particular, the manor of Reading included not only the small town and central estate but also the later manors of Tilehurst, Beenham and Sulhamstead , while the church of Reading was the ancient mother church of a parochia formerly extending to the south and west of Reading, over much of which it still retained at least residual rights.4 Leominster was even more complex, for the manor consisted of a caput with several mem- bers and the church was, like Reading, an ancient mother church whose extensive parochia, unlike Reading's, was still remarkably in- tact in the .5 In fact, the temporal and ecclesiastical endow- ment at Leominster was rich enough to support a dependent priory, which was established in fully conventual form in 1139.*

1 Battle was first given Funtington, which was very soon exchanged for Appledram, both in [The Chronicle of Battle Abbey, ed. E. Searle (Oxford, 1980), 122); Tutbury received the unidentified Brincheale (see below, no. 18 n. 1); and Mont St Michel was given £12 worth of land at Budleigh (Devon) in exchange for the churches of Cholsey and Wargrave (see nos. 3, 771). 1 See no. 1108. 3 See above, n. 1. 4The later manors of Tilehurst, etc., are not mentioned in Domesday Book, but all appear in the abbey's possession in the twelfth century—Tilehurst by 1130X 35 (see nos. 1132-9, etc.), Beenham by 1158x65 (BL Cotton Vesp. E v, fi9), and Sulham- stead Abbots by 1173 (see no. 1075)—anc^ presumably formed parts of the 43'hides which made up Reading in 1086 (VCH Berks., i. 334). By virtue of its possession of the ancient minster church of St Mary in Reading, from which Minster Street in the town was named, the abbey acquired not only the younger churches in the lands of Reading but also the right to receive pensions from other churches formerly payable to St Mary's (see nos. 179, 797-9). 5 For the manor and members of Leominster in Domesday Book, see VCH Herefs., i. 314; an analysis of the charters in the Leominster cartulary (BL Cotton Domit. A iii) reveals that at least ten of the sixteen members which had belonged to Leominster in 1066 came with the caput into Reading's possession. For the church of Leominster and its parochia, see below, no. 354. •See Kemp, 'The monastic dean of Leominster', 512-13, citing 'Annales Rading- enses', 11. Henry's brother-in-law, King David I of Scotland, endowed Reading Abbey with possessions in Scotland which enabled a second dependent priory to be founded on the Isle of May (see below, no. 1276 n., and I.B. Cowan and D. E. Easson, Medieval Religious Houses, Scotland (2nd edn, 1976), 59-60).

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 l8 READING ABBEY CARTULARIES I Henry accompanied his gifts of manors and churches with an elaborate grant of immunities for the abbey and its possessions and of high liberties to be exercised by the monks over their lands and men. Although the king probably did not explicitly grant 'all im- munity, power, quittance and liberty that the royal power can con- fer upon an abbey', as one of Reading's fabricated charters claims,1 nevertheless, an exalted grant of individual liberties which together approximated to the same thing would have been wholly appropri- ate to his other plans for the abbey. Considered in this light, even the inclusion of utfangenetheof, which historians have thought fatal to the foundation charter's authenticity, becomes credible. The concept was certainly known in the late 1130s2 and no compelling proof of its anachronism in the 1120s has been adduced. Indeed, one cannot exclude the possibility that its first known occurrence is in the early Reading charters, since, if it was being formulated in the 1120s, as is possible, it would have been entirely fitting for the king to grant it to the new house which he favoured so highly in other ways. The detailed instructions in the foundation charter regarding the abbey's constitution reflect equally the king's desire to establish a house in impeccable conformity with reforming sentiments, an aim in which he was no doubt advised and encouraged by the first abbot, Hugh of Amiens. Much of the charter reads like a programme of contemporary monastic reform in a Black Monk context, containing as it does several provisions which distinguish Reading from older houses of similar type. Reading held its lands in free alms and not by feudal tenure, nor was it to create knights' fees within them. There was to be no division in the possessions of the house between the abbot and the convent; all were to be held in common, and during abbatial vacancies the prior and convent were to have cus- tody. The appointment of abbots was to be by canonical election. The abbot was not to reward his lay relatives out of the abbey's lands, but to devote its resources to relief of the poor and reception of pilgrims and guests. There were to be no hereditary offices in the abbey or its possessions, but the appointment and dismissal of officials were to be in the sole control of the abbot and convent. The abbot was to take care not to accept boys into the community, but only adults of sound mind, whether clerks or laymen.3 It is from such reforming provisions as these that the foundation of Reading derives at least part of its importance and significance in English monastic history. The king's concern to establish his house on a proper footing 'No. 2. 2 See no. 1 n.3. 3 For these provisions, see the foundation charter (no. 1).

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808 INTRODUCTION ig would equally have extended to the provision of relics. In the course of the twelfth century Reading built up an impressive collection of relics drawn from a variety of sources and, although Henry Fs in- volvement can be demonstrated only in the case of a few, many others are likely to have been given at the king's request in the early years of the abbey's life.1 Certainly it would have been very odd if he had not taken an interest in this aspect of the abbey's endowment. From this point of view the arrival of the monks' most important relic, the Hand of St James, falls into place, despite the doubts which have been cast on Reading's claim to have received it from Henry I. If, as has been suggested, the king was keen to favour the abbey in other respects, nothing would be more natural than his deciding to send the relic to Reading after it had been brought to England by his daughter, the . He may not have given it outright to the monks, as their fabricated charter alleges, but that he lodged it with them on some kind of semi-permanent basis is entirely possible and consistent with his general aims for the house.2

/// A note on forgery The vexed question of forgery can hardly be avoided in any collec- tion of charters dating back to the first half of the twelfth century. In Reading's case, however, although some of its twelfth-century original charters and cartulary texts are certainly spurious, forgery does not appear to have been rife among its muniments. In parti- cular, very little is evident among its title-deeds to lands and churches, and this is not surprising since the abbey was founded at a time when gifts of real property to the religious were increasingly accompanied by written acts, often no doubt at the request of the recipients.3 It is a fair assumption that the bulk of Reading's acqui- sitions of this kind were recorded in charters given at the same time or very soon afterwards, and further that, even when the texts sur- vive only as cartulary copies, they are for the most part authentic, since where it is possible to compare cartulary texts with extant originals there is very little or no evidence of alteration apart from spelling and the like. Moreover, since the monks did not apparently attempt to fabricate charters for the few gifts where they were 'The late 12th-century list of relics is preserved in Egerton 3031, ff6v-8r (see below, no. 227). For a valuable discussion, see D. Bethell, 'The making of a twelfth- century relic collection', Studies in Church History, viii (1971), 61-72. Bethell discerned several different elements in the collection, including Anglo-Saxon, Cluniac, Byzan- tine and Holy Land groups. For Henry I's certain or probable involvement in the acquisition of particular relics, see ibid., 69. 1 See no. 5 and n. * M. T. Clanchy, From Memory to Written Record (1979), 38.

Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.34.90, on 25 Sep 2021 at 12:22:19, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500005808