This article was downloaded by: [Northwestern University] On: 15 January 2015, At: 19:53 Publisher: Routledge Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK Archaeological Journal Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/raij20 Original DocumentsCharter of Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington, temp. Henry II Rev. E. Venables Precentor of Lincoln Published online: 14 Jul 2014. To cite this article: Rev. E. Venables Precentor of Lincoln (1876) Original DocumentsCharter of Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington, temp. Henry II, Archaeological Journal, 33:1, 183-189, DOI: 10.1080/00665983.1876.10851742 To link to this article: http:// dx.doi.org/10.1080/00665983.1876.10851742 PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content. This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http:// www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 19:53 15 January 2015 ©riginal JBocumenis, CHARTER OP HUGH OP BAYEUX TO THE CHURCH AND CANONS OP ST. MARY OF TORRINGTON, temp. HENRY II. Communicated by the Rev. E. VENABLES, Precentor of Lincoln. THE following document is especially interesting from its connection with the founder of the Gilbertine Priory of St. Catherine's, Lincoln, as well as with Gilbert of Sempringham himself, the founder of that order, and from the circumstance of its proving the existence of a religious foundation in Lincolnshire which was unknown either to Dugdale or Tanner. It came into my possession through the kindness of a gentleman, who bought it, with a large number of other documents, at an auction, somewhere in Herefordshire. Seeing its intimate connection with Lincoln, he was good enough to forward it to me, and it will for the future have a place among the muniments of the Chapter. It is a grant of an oxgang of land together with a dwelling and the right of pasturage in the parish of Caburn, made by Hugh of Bayeux to the Church and Canons of St. Mary of Torrington. Caburn is a small village of Lincolnshire, situated in one of the Wold valleys, about a mile and a half north-east of Caistor. Torrington is another Lincolnshire village, or rather a union of two villages, East and West Torrington, three miles north-east of the small town of Wragby. Although this document is the first proof of the existence of a religious foundation at Torrington, local tradition points to a moated area near the Grange as the site of a religious house, and I have been informed by the incumbent, Rev. T. W. Mossman, that he believes it to have been a Gilbertine foundation. This is strengthened by the appearance of the name of Gilbert of Sempriugham, the founder of the order, as one of the witnesses. The grantor, Hugh of Bayeux, was the eldest son of Ranulph of Bay- eux, by his wife Ma.rgaret, daughter of Alan of Lincoln, who was, accord- Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 19:53 15 January 2015 ing to Dugdale, " an eminent baron in those parts.'' The Bayeux family had large possessions in the northern part of Lincolnshire. Among the lordships was that of Goxhill, in which five knights' fees were held of Ranulph of Bayeux by Peter of Goxhill, the founder of the first house of the Premonstratensian order in England, situated at Newhouse in the parish of Goxhill. Ranulph, the father, gave an oxgang of laud to this house, in the same parish of Caburn in which the land lay named in the present document, bestowed by the son on Torrington. Hugh of Bayeux was also a benefactor to Sempringham, bestowing on the nuns there lands within that parish and in Billingborough.1 1 Dugdale's " Baronage," i. 573. VOL, XXXIII. Β Β 184 ORIGINAL· DOCUMENTS. The grant is witnessed by persons of no ordinary rank and importance. The first is the fourth Bishop of Lincoln, Robert de Querceto, or de Chesney, the founder of St. Catherine's Gilbertine Priory, at Lincoln. He was consecrated Dec. 19, 1148, and died Jan. 26, 1167. He is fol- lowed by no less a personage than Master Gilbert of Sempringham, the founder of the Gilbertine order, to which, as we have said, the Canons of Torrington may have belonged. Gilbert, not yet Saint Gilbert, died in 1189. His canonization took place in 1202. Of Master Malger, who succeeds, I can say nothing. He was probably a priest, perhaps a canon of the cathedral, and doubtless worthy of the good company in which we find him. The three names that follow are those of some of the first laymen in Lincolnshire. Walter Deincourt, who stands at their head, was the grandson of Walter Deincourt, one of the Norman knights who accom- panied William the Conqueror on the invasion of England, whose dis- tinguished services were rewarded by his grateful sovereign with 36 lordships. Of these seventeen were in Lincolnshire, of which Blankney, near Lincoln (now the seat of the Chaplins) was the chief, being " the head of his barony." The Deincourts were kinsfolks both of the Con- queror and of Remigius of Fecamp, the first bishop of Lincoln, who trans- lated the see thither from Dorchester. This we learn from the remark- able leaden monumental tablet of Walter's son William, who dying w:hile still a youth receiving his education at the court of William Rufus, was buried near the north door of the Cathedral which his kinsman Remigius had erected, and was commemorated by an inscription discovered in 1670, and still preserved in the Cathedral Library. The plate is engraved in " Dugdale's Baronage,"2 as well as more correctly in our own Lincoln volume.3 As it is there stated that William, the son, not Walter, the father, was regia stirpe progenitus, it is probable that the royal kinship was through Walter's wife, who it is suggested in the memoir in the Lincoln volume, may have been a daughter, perhaps illegitimate, of the Conqueror himself. It is possible, however, that the lady in question may have been a member of the Anglo-Saxon royal family. If so the relation- ship to the Conqueror vanishes. The Walter who witnesses the grant before us, was the son of Ralph the eldest son of Walter, the Conqueror's favourite, by Basilia his wife, and consequently nephew to William, of whose epitaph I have been speaking. Richard de Haia, who succeeds, was the son of Robert de Haia, or de la Haye, who obtained from Henry I. the honour of Halnaker, near Good- wood in Sussex, and was a great benefactor to the Abbey of Essaix in Normandy. Richard, together with his brother Robert, founded the Downloaded by [Northwestern University] at 19:53 15 January 2015 Premonstratensian Abbey of Barlings, 6 miles to the north-east of Lincoln, and was the cause of a cell of the same order being erected at Camer- ingham by the gift of his lordship in that parish to the monastery of Blanchelande in Normandy. Richard de la Haye was the father of Nichola, who married Gerard de Camville, a lady who played a dis- tinguished part in the events which signalised the reigns of Richard I. and John. A woman, with the courage and resolution of a man, she was a stout adherent of Lackland through all his varied fortunes, and was rewarded by being appointed to the shrievalty of her county, and, 2 Vol. i. p. 386. 3 Proceedings of Archaeological Institute, Lincoln, 1848, p. 248. 185 ORIGINAL·DOCUMENTS . after the death of her husband, with the .governorship of the castle of Lincoln, which had been bestowed by King John on de Camville, Fulk de Breaute—we could have wished the good lady a better deputy than this ruffianly brigand—being appointed her assistant. The picturesque tale of her surrender of the keys of the castle to King John during one of his visits to Lincoln, pleading her inability to sustain the fatigue and anxiety of so important a charge by reason of her advanced age, and the king's gracious restoration of them to her, and of her retaining the governorship " all the life of King John, and after his decease under King Henry, the father of the King that now is,'' is found in the " Inquisi- tiones," A° 3 Ed. I., 1274-5, and is printed in the Lincoln volume. The energetic old lady died at her manor of Swayton, near Folking- ham, in 1231." The only remaining name, that of William Curceis, cannot be cer- tainly identified.