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 abbey'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. Reading Abbey 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 abbot 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 12th century, 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 Normandy 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<j (Kent Archaeol. Research Group's Council, 1968), 15-17, 37). 3 For evidence of Henry's concern that royal burials should only take place in suitably noble churches, see E. M. Hallam, 'Royal burial and the cult of kingship in France and England, 1060-1330', Journ. of Medieval History, viii (1982), 360. 4 For a detailed account of the wreck of the White Ship and the king's grief at his son's death, see Orderic Vitalis, vi. 294-306. It is interesting in this respect that, according to the foundation charter, among the souls for whose welfare Reading Abbey was founded was that of Henry's son, William (below, no. 1). 5D. Knowles, The Monastic Order in England. (2nd edn, Cambridge, 1963), 174. 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.