Clestringham, Arnulf Kade, and others were great benefactors. At the time of the Domesday Survey it probably formed part of the possessions of Earl Godwin, previous to the Conquest."

Dugdale states that William de Erleigh for the love that he bare to the King Henry and his Queen Elinore, his son Henry and the rest of the family, and for the redemption of the life of the said William and his wife, gave the whole land of Buckland and the church of Penitone, with other churches and lands in divers other places, as appears by charter, at that time drawn up at the hand of Thomas the Archdeacon, uncle of William de Erleigh, for the planting and ordering of a religious house at Buckland; and that the said canons so planted and ordered in the same place should possess the aforesaid lands and churches for their own use for pious and perpetual charity. After many years the canons forfeited it by their own fault it appears, because they had slain their own seneschal, a blocd relation of William de Erleigh. At the same time King Henry, moved with the affection that he bare to Brother Garnarius, at that time Prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, with the assent of Richard, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Reginald, Bishop of Bath and Wells, and many others of the highest in the land, both ecclesiastical and lay, gave and granted the same lands and churches for the placing there of a Sisterhood, about the year of our Lord 1180. On condition that neither the said Prior nor any of his successors should have any other house in England for the reception of a Sisterhood of this Order, except in the aforesaid house of Buckland, because the former sisterhoods were dying out at Hampton, near Kingston, at Herebroke, Swyngfield, and other places.

On the suppression of the Order of the Templars as before mentioned in 1312, the lands were escheated to the Crown and given to the Prior and Brethren of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem.

Richard II. was undoubtedly a staunch friend of the new Order, and at the supplication of Robert Hales,‡ then Prior

* Dugdale, Mon., vol. ii., p. 546. Dugdale, Mon., vol. ii., p. 553.

Radolph Roffensis, surnamed Nugax. Prior A.D. 1373 to 1377.

of the Hospital, enlarged their charters and restored to them all the "Jocanalia " (ecclesiastical ornaments), and all other goods whatsoever which were forfeited in consequence of the insurrection in Kent under Wat Tyler, by whom the Preceptory at Clerkenwell had been given to the flames.

The Report* drawn up and forwarded by Philip de Thane to the Grand Master of the Order at Rhodes fortunately enables us to form a just estimate of the importance of this Preceptory in the early part of the fourteenth century, after the finances of the Order had barely recovered under the able administration of Leonard de Tybertis.

BAYULA DE SWENEFELD.

There was a Manor House and Garden of the yearly

value of

With a Dovecote producing per ann.

Rents of tenants in socage

A Windmill of the annual value of..

The value of the Church appropriation

The moiety of the Church of Tilmanston

Voluntary Contributions from the bretheren of the

value of

Also from iiijcxx acres of Land in Coklescomb† worth

And in the same place c acres worth ijs per acre

xli

lxs

Also xxx acres of pasture worth ijs per acre

And pasture worth

The whole of the receipts and profits of the above mentioned bailiwick iiijxxij iiij iiij......

PER CONTRA.

First in house expenses; that is to say, for the Preceptory, one brother Pensioner Henry Reed, one parish Chaplain, and two other Secular Chaplains, and others of the family in the Preceptory House. In the House and for others partaking of the Hospitality.

Larking, pp. 91 and 92.

+ Coklescomb in Lidden.

In baking bread lxx quarters of bread at the price of iijs iiija and x quarters of fine wheat flour at ij

Total xili vjs

xli

Malt for beer and threashed barley c quarters at ijs
For meat, fish, and other requirements for cooking xl
For robes, mantels, and other necessaries for the

bretheren

In stipends to iij chaplains

In payment to Henry de Reed by agreement ....... And rendered in return to divers Lords and for the ward of Dover Castle

For House repairs

And for v portions for the protection of divers
Lords

In stipends to Esquires, and two frier clerks, to each

1 marc...

For officers Stipends, cook, fishermen, porter, bailifs, reapers, and two boys of the preceptory, to

each x3..

In payment to one page

iiijų

iijs

In the Visitation of the Priory, 11 days.

Sum total of all expenditures lij" viijs iiijd
Net amount which remains to be paid to

the Treasurer for the support of the order

xliij mares xijs viijd

The names of the Brother RALPH BASSET, Knight Preceptor. Bretheren are Brother ALAN MOUNCEUXS.

Pensioner, HENRY DE REED.

Of the possessions appertaining to Swyngfield at the suppression of the Order by Parliament in the thirty-second year of Henry VIII., it would appear that the land in Swyngfield attached to the preceptory was thrown out of cultivation for the time being, but the returns of Dover, Ryver, Temple Ewell, Wyngmere, Bloxheme, Belchester, Gate Hurst in Denton, Hoo, and other towns, Brokeland, Canterbury, Ower, Feversham, Tylmanstone, Smalshend, Syberdyswold, etc., etc., amounted to the sum of £60 6s. 9d., out of which certain pensions of 40s. go to the Vicar of

* Exchequer Minister's Accounts, 38 Henry VIII., and Edward VI., Roll 32, m. 78.