XXII.-Remarks on some Charters and other Documents relating to the Abbey

of Robertsbridge, in the County of Sussex, in the possession of the Rev. J. H. Blunt, M.A., F.S.A. By CHARLES SPENCER PERCEVAL, ESQ., LL.D., Director.

Read February 2nd, 1871.

THE charters and other documents which Mr. Blunt has kindly exhibited this evening formed a part of the archives of the Cistercian Abbey of Robertsbridge, founded in 1176, at a spot within the parish of Salehurst, in Eastern Sussex, where the high road from Hastings to Tunbridge crosses the River Rother, which here changes its course from south-east to east, and after passing Bodiham Castle forms for a few miles the boundary between Kent and Sussex, until turning sharply to the south it enters the sea at Rye Harbour.

The founder, Alured or Alfred de St. Martin, seems to have been a person of some distinction in his day. In the charter of the first year of King Richard I. now exhibited (see Appendix No. I.) he is styled dapifer noster, and, as Mr. Stapleton observes, he held the same office in the next reign, and was in constant attendance on his sovereign, as is evidenced by the frequency of the occurrence of his name as an attesting witness to royal charters of the time. In 1180, and again in 1184, he is found on the Norman Exchequer Rolls accounting for the issues of the bailiwick of the Pays de Bray, and the præpositura of Drincort or Neufchâtel-en-Bray."

He appears to have been a tenant of the Earl of Eu (Comes Auci, de Auco, de Augo, Auciensis) both in Normandy and in England, and in 1161 he obtained from a kinsman, Geoffrey de St. Martin, in exchange for certain Norman estates, all the land which Geoffrey held of the Earl in England, and which is described in Mr. Blunt's charter (see Appendix No. II.) as the land of Wariland, with the appurtenances, to be held of Geoffrey as freely as his father ever held it, by the

service of one knight's fee. The date of the charter, besides referring to the year of our Lord, is fixed by the statement that it was done in the same year that the Kings of France and England were reconciled (pacificati sunt).a

The Earl of Eu at this date was John, great-grandson of Robert, the "Comes Augi," of Domesday Book. He retained a large estate in England, having at the levying of the aid to marry the King's daughter (12 Henry II.) no less than fiftysix knights' fees there. His father had sixty knights' fees in the rape of Hastings. He married Alice, daughter of William de Albini, Earl of Arundel, by Adeliza of Louvain, the widow of Henry I. After his death in 1170 the Countess Alice married Alured de St. Martin, and became a benefactress to Robertsbridge.b

Though not a formal party to the deed of exchange, the Earl ratified it by affixing his seal, as engraved in the Appendix. It is in brown wax, circular, somewhat dished, and in fine preservation, bearing the Earl's effigy on horseback, with the legend arranged in an unusual manner so as to begin reading in the field

SIGILLVM | JOHANNES : COMES: AUGI.

The seal of Geoffrey de St. Martin also remains appended. It is likewise in brown wax, two inches in diameter. The subject, as will be seen on reference to the engraving, is a lion passant to the sinister, with the legend

+ SIGILLV GAVFRIDI DE SCO MARTINO.

Wariland, the subject of the exchange, is considered by the Rev. G. M. Cooper in his Notices of the Abbey of Robertsbridge, (chiefly compiled, I may here mention, from other charters of the abbey discovered some years ago at Penshurst Castle), as identical with "Walilond," a name which occurs in other deeds, and which he finds at Walland Merse, in the parish of Ivychurch, land afterwards in the possession of the monastery. I venture to think, however, that it must have denoted a territory of some extent in the rape of Hastings, including at all events the site of the abbey.

The charter of Richard I. already referred to (Appendix No. I.), confirms to Alured de St. Martin, dapifero nostro, the gift made to him by Henry, Earl of Eu, in presence of the late King Henry II. after the death of the Countess Alice,

a See Roger de Hoveden, Rolls edition, i. 217, as to this peace of 1161.

b Sussex Arch. Coll. viii. 148.

Sussex Arch. Coll. viii. 141. For Walland Merse, see p. 150, ibid.

of certain lands, Eleham and Bensintone, parcel of her maritagium, for his life. What interest the monks of Robertsbridge had in these lands does not appear.

Prior to the year 1204 the monks obtained from Seffrid (Bishop of Chichester from 1180 to that year) a sort of confirmation of their position in the diocese, in the form of the instrument given in the Appendix No. III. It is a curious document. None of the lands of Robertsbridge were held mediately or immediately of the Bishop, and no act of his could perfect their legal title thereto. Seffrid, however, gave them what he could; in the first place, he takes the Abbat and his monks under the protection of God, of the church of Chichester, and his own, and confirms to them, "eá quá fungimur auctoritate," all their present and future lawfully acquired possessions. He then enumerates the chief existing estates thus:-First, the entire fee of Robertsbridge, where their church is situated, and which his beloved Alured de St. Martin," founder of the house, had given them in frankalmoigne. Next, all the land which Alured had held in feefarm of the canons of St. Mary of Hastings. Then, all Alured's land between Winchelsea and Clivesende, the land of Farleie (Fairlight), the land of Gencelin," and the land of Poclesherse, bought by Alured and given by him to the convent. The instrument concludes by a threat of the divine vengeance and the serious indignation of the see of Chichester against any one molesting the monks in their property or in respect of their franchises and privileges granted by King Henry II. or by apostolic authority.

Passing over the events of the next century, which none of the present documents particularly illustrate, we come to several charters which refer to a disputed claim to certain ecclesiastical property; a business which occasioned great anxiety to the monks for a long space of years.

As already stated, the abbey of Robertsbridge stood in the parish of Salehurst, which seems to have been regarded as the mother church of Mundefeld (now Mountfield), the next parish southwards, and Odymere (now Udimore), lying seven miles off towards Rye. After the fashion of conventual bodies in those days, the Abbat and Convent of Robertsbridge were most anxious to improve their finances by appropriating these churches. For this was required, first, that they should acquire the advowsons, having obtained licence from the lords of the fee to hold them, and then that they should procure from the

a Alured seems from this to have been alive at the date of this instrument.
This estate was in Seddlescombe parish. See Sussex Arch. Coll. viii. 149.

Bishop permission to appropriate the tithes to their own uses, subject, of course, to an arrangement for the performance of divine offices in the churches and parishes appropriated.

Among the Additional MSS. in the British Museum is a small volume (No. 28,550) which formerly belonged to Robertsbridge. It contains copies of records and terriers or rentals of estates of the monastery, prefaced by a few vellum leaves, a portion of a chronicle or narrative of the transactions in which the abbey was engaged relative to the appropriation in question. This document is to some extent fragmentary, the first leaf beginning with the words. "Odymere et Mundefeld," and ending abruptly, one or more leaves being lost. The next five leaves are perfect, and altogether enough remains to make out the story, the accuracy of which is in the most important particulars confirmed by Mr. Blunt's deeds and other records.

There seemed to me to be so much that is of interest in this little domestic chronicle in the way of illustration of medieval and conventual manners that, at the risk of the charge of tediousness, I have ventured to give large extracts from the manuscript, preserving as much as possible the arrangement and diction of the original.

The first step in the business, after procuring a promise of the advowsons from Sir William de Echingham, the patron, head of a family of some distinction, who took their surname from the manor of the same name, about two miles north of Robertsbridge, was to obtain the King's licence in mortmain to take the advowsons and appropriate the churches. This licence was granted, as noticed by Mr. Cooper (Sussex Arch. Coll. viii. 161), in the second year of King Edward II.a

The first fragment of the chronicle, as I have termed it, begins here. After mentioning that Brother Laurence, the Abbat, obtained the King's licence just mentioned, dated May 20, as it would seem, it proceeds to tell how he journeyed to Fotheringhay Castle, where John, Duke of Brittany, and lord of the rape of Hastings (mesne lord, therefore, between the King and Sir William de Echingham), was residing, and how, with great difficulty, "et non sine lacrimis," not without having recourse to the persuasive influence of a flood of tears, he prevailed on the Duke to give his licence in mortmain also.

Sir William, on seeing the charters of the King and the Duke, made his own charters in duplicate, as the chronicler with great precision states, of the advowsons,

a Cal. Rot. Pat. 2 Edw. II. 2a pars, m. 6, " Pro Abbate de Ponte Roberti de appropriatione."