Tamerton, Martynstow, and their granges, taken in the 9th Henry IV.

The common seal was circular, and (says Dugdale) very elegant. The subject of it represented the Blessed Virgin crowned, holding in her right hand the Child; in her left, a stalk with flowers. She is seated under a highly ornamented canopy, and in niches on each side of her are figures praying to her; the whole interior profusely ornamented with tabernacle-work Legend, s. coM'VNE ABBATIS. ET. CO'VENTVS. DE. WARDONE. There is a counter-seal bearing the abbatial arms, viz., a demi-crozier between three warden-pears1 in a shield surrounded with these words, SPES. MEA. IN. DEO. EST. The impression on this seal is on red wax. It is appendant to the surrender in the Augmentation Office, dated 4th Dec. 29 Hen. VIII.2

The gross income of the Abbey at the suppression (26 Hen. VIII) was rated at £442: 11: 11; the net receipts at £389:16:6. It was surrendered by Henry Emery, the last Abbot, and fourteen monks, on the 4th Dec. 1538 (29 Hen. VIII). The Abbot gave as his reasons for resigning, the wickedness and ignorance of the monks.3 Lysons, in his Magna Britannia (published in 1813) says the small remains which were then to be seen of the conventual buildings were of brick, and of no great antiquity. A considerable part of what was represented in Buck's view was pulled down about the year 1790, and the whole of the buildings have since disappeared, "Perierunt etiam ruinæ." The site, now consisting of meadow or pasture-land, was in Lysons' time the property of Mr. Whitbread, and is nearly two miles from the parish church. In 1669 it was the seat of Sir Ralph Bovey.*

1 Otherwise called "abbot's pears".

2 Dugdale, Mon., ed. 1830, vol. v, p. 371; but see Birch's Catalogue of Seals in the Brit. Mus., vol. i, Nos. 4258-9, where is also given a seal of Abbot Robert (No. 4260) from Harl. Ch. 45 A, 27.

3 Bibl. Cotton., Cleopatra, E. iv, 136в, Brit. Mus.
4 Lysons, Mag. Brit., vol. i (Bedfordshire), p. 148.

AN ANCIENT

RECORD CONCERNING ST. AUGUSTINE'S

ABBEY, CANTERBURY.

BY THE REV. J. CAVE-BROWNE, M.A.

(Read 21 Nov. 1894.)

AMONG the MSS. in the British Museum is one (Campbell Charters, VI, 5) only recently unearthed by W. de Gray Birch, Esq., which for its age and its contents is of considerable interest and importance. It is the official record of a suit tried at Canterbury in the year 1176 as to the jurisdiction of the Abbey of St. Augustine over certain of their tenants in the Isle of Thanet, who claimed exemption, and their right to have their case adjudicated in their own local Court, or Halimote, at Minster. The historic value of this MS. lies not chiefly in the settlement of the claim against them and in favour of the Court of St. Augustine, for that is a recognised fact of history, but far more in the list of witnesses appended to it, representing as it does the leading men of the county, especially in East Kent, at that time. The identification and localising of these worthies shall be the work of the writer of the following pages.

Yet a glance at the circumstances which led up to the necessity for this trial may be introduced as a prelude to the list itself. One of the imperious acts of Henry II was his forcing upon the Abbey of St. Augustine, in direct opposition to the monks (on the death of Sylvester) in 1163, Clarenbald as Abbot, whom Berington (Life of Henry II, etc., p. 232) denounces as "a man of notorious depravity". The monks never acknowledged him as their Abbot, never admitted him to their Chapter, nor permitted him to celebrate any offices in their Church; and, though he is by some styled the some styled the "Abbot elect", his thirteen years' occupancy of it is regarded as a "vacancy"

1 "Post mortem Sylvestri quidam Secularis nomine Clarem baldus per potentiam Regis in Monasterium violenter fuit intrusus, set et vacavit de facto Monasterium per quindecim fere annos." (Chronica W. Thorn [Decem Scriptores], p. 1815.)

......

of the Abbatial chair. He was eventually deposed by the Pope, Alexander, in 1173 having utterly neglected the interests of the Monastery, enriched himself by appro priating much of the Abbey lands, and allowed the rents of the rest to fall into great confusion and arrears.

It was during his time that the memorable fire broke out which consumed so much of the Abbey Church in 1168; and two years after, he, in servile sycophancy to the King, received the four conspirator knights into his apartments and consulted with them on their meditated attack upon the Archbishop (Becket).

Such was the state of things at the time when the trial arose of which this is the record.

On the deposition of Clarenbald, Roger of Dover, as he was called, a monk of the Christ Church Monastery, and the appointed keeper of the Altar in the Martyrdom, was elected, and set himself vigorously to recover the lands and dues which the laxness and depravity of his predecessor had allowed to pass away from the Monastery. A considerable portion of these possessions lay in the Isle of Thanet, and against the holders of these lands proceedings were taken.

BRITISH MUSEUM, CAMPBELL CHARTER, VI, 5.

Anno ab incarnatione domini M.C.L.XX°V1°. Anno autem regui H(enrici) regis secundi. vicesimo secundo, mense Decembri in uigilia sancti Thome Apostoli. Rogerus electus beati Augustini Cantuarie & homines de Thaneto qui pertinent ad tenementum beati Augustini tali modo pacificati sunt. Controuersia quippe magna inter ipsum electum & homines de Thanetho diutius agitata est. Ipsis Thanetensibus asserentibus se ad capitalem curiam beati Augustini Cantuarie placitandi causa vel judicium sustinendi nullo modo debere accedere. sed in halimoto suo in Thaneto omnia judicia sua exerceri. Unde idem electus potestatem regiam interpellans obtinuit quod ex regio mandato eadem controversia in comitatu Cantie debitum finem sortiretur. Die itaque constituto Cantuarie in eodem comitatu astantibus utrisque partibus in conspectu Johannis de Cardif. supplentis uicem Roberti filii Bernardi uicecomitis. idem Thanethenses coacti ratione equitatis recognouerunt debere se ad curiam sancti Augustini Cantuarie uenire

1 Pope Alexander's Bull deposing and excommunicating Clarenbald is given in Hardwick's ed., T. Elmham, Hist. Monasterii, p. 415.

"Bona et possessiones Monasterii interius et exterius violenta manu occupavit." (Ibid., p. 1816.)

quotiens summoniti fuerint. & ibidem si querelam de aliqua re erga eos abbas habuerit placitum inire & judicio curie stare sicut homines alterius uille. & recognouerunt quod illud idem dirationatum fuerat contra se tempore Clarenbaldi quondam electi. De rebellione uero sua guagium dederunt abbati in maneiam ipsius & hoc in manu Radulphi seneschalli sui vidente omni comitatu. Hujus actionis testes sunt:

27 & 28. Willelmus Capel & Sam- 69 & 70. Asketinus & Osbertus

85 & 86. Willelmus & Galfridus 90 & 91. Nicholaus & Willelmus

Endorsed in a very old handwriting :

Quod dirationatum est in Comitatu Cantie homines de Thanetho debere venire ad placitandum in Curia sancti Augustini."

Translation of the Canterbury Trial (Br. Mus., Campbell

Charters, vi, 5).

"In the year of the Incarnation of our Lord, 1176, but in the 22nd year of the reign of King Henry II, in the month of December, on the vigil of St. Thomas the Apostle, Roger, the Abbot-Elect of the Monastery of the Blessed Augustine of Canterbury, and the men of Thanet, who held lands under the Blessed Augustine, were reconciled after the following manner. A great controversy had forsooth long been agitated between the AbbotElect and these men of Thanet; the latter asserting that they ought on no account to come before the chief Court of the Blessed Augustine of Canterbury to plead or to receive judgment, but that all their judgments (suits) should be carried out in their own Halimote (or local Court), in Thanet. Whereupon the said Abbot-Elect obtained, by appealing to the King, a royal mandate that the controversy should be brought to a due settlement in the County of Kent."