Polesworth abbey (Warwickshire) and the Marmion lord of Tamworth castle: using an Anglo-Saxon saint’s cult in the earlier twelfth century^*

Abstract

A fifteenth-century manuscript gives an account of how a post-Conquest lord of Tamworth castle expelled nuns from nearby Polesworth (Warwickshire), later restoring them after he had been admonished in a dream by the nuns’ patron, St. Edith. The story can be tested against copies of twelfth-century charters, which show that the nuns were installed in Polesworth church anew by Robert Marmion (d. 1144), acting with his high-born wife Milisent. Political considerations were probably foremost in this process, and close ties with the royal family help to explain the convent’s association with the prestigious Continental Benedictine house at Cluny.

According to a late medieval story copied by the antiquary William Dugdale in the earlier seventeenth century, nuns were settled by an Anglo-Saxon king at Polesworth under his daughter Edith, later venerated there as a saint. Not long after the Norman Conquest the nuns were forced out by Robert Marmion, lord of nearby Tamworth castle, but the angry saint appeared to Robert in a dream and chastised him roundly, threatening an unpleasant death unless he made amends: the nuns were duly restored to Polesworth, where Marmion requested burial. Edith was indeed venerated at Polesworth in the pre-Conquest period, and her relics may have been looked after by a religious community, perhaps represented by a group of holy women settled at nearby Oldbury in the earlier twelfth century. As can be shown by charters (gathered from various sources and given here in an Appendix), however, it was only in the 1130s that a Robert Marmion and his high-born wife Milisent rebuilt Polesworth church and endowed a convent, evidently installing at least some of the Oldbury women. By drawing on the cult of St. Edith, the Marmions were able to portray their action as the ‘restoration’ of a pre-Conquest community, somewhat unusually favouring an Anglo-Saxon saint as the patron of what was essentially a new foundation. Besides the significant role of Milisent Marmion as co-founder, her family link with Henry I’s second queen perhaps explaining Polesworth’s association with the prestigious Cluniac order, for Robert the foundation almost certainly had a political aspect, helping him to enforce his authority in the area, especially at a time of political uncertainty early in King Stephen’s reign.

In the far north of Warwickshire beyond Watling Street, Polesworth church lies on the north bank of the River Anker, a few miles upstream from its confluence with the River Tame at Tamworth, and it was given as the resting-place of a saint named Edith (Eadgyð) in a pre-Conquest list of such sites known as the Secgan: St. Edith in the place called Polesworth near the River Anker.¹ Her identity is uncertain,² with medieval chroniclers offering several candidates: a sister of the West Saxon king Æthelwulf (d. 858);³ the sister of King Athelstan given in marriage at Tamworth in 926 to Sihtric, the Scandinavian ruler of York;⁴ and a sister of King Edgar (d. 975) and so a niece of her namesake Edith, abbess of Wilton (d. 984 x 987).⁵ All these chronicle sources, however, are unreliable and recently a plausible case has been made for Edith being an otherwise unknown Mercian princess of the mid to late seventh century.⁶

Despite the cult, the existence of a pre-Conquest nunnery at Polesworth has been doubted,⁷ but it is possible that there was one of some kind c.1000 when the will of the Mercian nobleman Wulfric Spot refers to the lease of an estate to a ‘community’ (hired) at ‘Tamworth’, perhaps itself the refuge of his ‘poor (or wretched) daughter’ (earman dehter) who was herself assigned the lordship of land also at ‘Tamworth’.⁸ ‘Tamworth’ need not mean the burh established by Æthelflæd, ‘Lady of the Mercians’, in 913, as there was evidently a larger tenurial complex centred on it both before and after the Conquest, and the community could well have been at Polesworth, its members being guardians of St. Edith’s relics.⁹ Edith did come to be associated with Tamworth itself, perhaps as early as the tenth century if some of her relics were brought for display in the church there by Æthelflæd,¹⁰ but her cult remained centred on Polesworth, where she was buried. Although perhaps ‘discovered’ during the foundation process of Polesworth abbey under the Marmions, there were relics for the taking when the house was endowed in the early 1140s (as discussed later), and writing in the mid thirteenth century the chronicler Matthew Paris noted that miracles were still taking place there.¹¹

The fifteenth-century story with which this article opens refers to Edith’s role in a dispute between the Polesworth nuns and Robert Marmion, who is given as the post-Conquest lord of Tamworth castle.¹² It relates how a monastery at Polesworth survived until Marmion expelled the abbess (named ‘Oseyth’) and all ‘the ladies’, forcing them to retreat to a cell at Oldbury some six miles to the south-east in Mancetter parish. Within a year Edith intervened, appearing to Robert in a dream, demanding that the nuns be restored to their lands, and striking him with her crozier. Suitably chastised, the next day Marmion rode out to Oldbury and escorted Oseyth and her sisters back to Polesworth, asking for pardon and absolution and requesting burial in the chapter house. Charters show that Polesworth abbey was indeed ‘restored’ by a Robert Marmion, but in the earlier twelfth century rather than in William the Conqueror’s reign as recounted in the story. When the story was written in the fifteenth century, Marmion was certainly believed to have been active in the Conqueror’s reign, as contemporary stained glass in Tamworth church depicted the king investing him with the castle there,¹³ but this was the result of confusion with a previous castellan, also called Robert: the Conqueror’s household officer Robert the dispenser (d. 1090s).¹⁴

There is no entry for Tamworth in Domesday Book,¹⁵ and no other documentary evidence for Robert the dispenser holding a castle there by 1086, but it seems very likely that he did and that by the early twelfth century it had passed to the Marmion family, either through the marriage of a daughter or perhaps a daughter of his brother Urse de Abetot, sheriff of Worcestershire.¹⁶ The Robert Marmion who (with his wife) founded Polesworth abbey became lord of Tamworth castle in 1129 or 1130 when he was granted warren in his father’s Warwickshire lands, especially (nominatim) at Tamworth.¹⁷ Not yet a knight and so presumably still a minor, he would have been only a child when Henry I visited Tamworth c.1114,¹⁸ and if the king then in some way took him under his protection, it would help explain Robert’s marriage to Milisent (Milisend), a cousin of Queen Adeliza of Louvain (whom the king married as his second wife in 1121).¹⁹ It was evidently on this marriage that the queen gave ‘Milisent my cognata, the wife of Robert Marmion’ an estate at Stanton Harcourt (Oxfordshire),²⁰ as when confirmed by Duke Henry (the later Henry II) in 1154 it was stated to have been given as her marriage portion (in maritagium) and that she was to hold it as she had under Henry I.²¹ The marriage, therefore, must have taken place before the king’s death in 1135, perhaps in the early 1130s or even late 1120s; certainly, their son Robert was old enough to witness one of his parents’ charters for Polesworth in the early 1140s (Charter A). That the younger Robert styled himself as the ‘son of Robert Marmion and Milisent’ (Charter C), and was still known as ‘Robert son of Milisent’ in the later 1170s,²² might suggest that his father had had a son of the same name by an previous wife, but much more likely it was his mother’s high social status that determined the usage.²³ King Stephen associated the royal family with the elder Robert’s grant to the Polesworth nuns, confirming it not only for his own soul and that of his queen Matilda (who was the leading witness, along with their son Eustace) but also for that of King Henry.²⁴ Moreover, the special favour in which Milisent was still held at court after her husband’s death in 1144 is suggested by her subsequent marriage to Richard de Canville, a member of Stephen’s household,²⁵ and Duke Henry’s 1154 confirmation (already noted) of the Oxfordshire estate given on her first marriage was made ‘at the request and instruction of King Stephen’.²⁶

After Henry I died in 1135, the elder Robert Marmion supported Stephen against the Empress Matilda,²⁷ and he was at court on at least a couple of occasions in the late 1130s.²⁸ He may have been in the garrison which defended the royal castle at Falaise in Normandy (dép. Calvados), not far from the Marmion family seat at Fontenay, when the castle was abortively besieged by Matilda’s husband Count Geoffrey of Anjou in 1138;²⁹ and Robert was evidently there later, as his own castle at Fontenay was razed by Geoffrey in 1140 because he had held Falaise against the count.³⁰ Robert presumably then returned to England and was active in the midlands, his principal military campaigns being against Ranulf, earl of Chester, and it was while attacking the earl’s forces at Coventry that he was killed in 1144. According to William of Newburgh’s graphic account, he fell from his horse into a ditch, where he was ignominiously hacked to death by a servant.³¹ Although lacking that detail, Henry of Huntingdon nonetheless emphatically states (in the psalmist’s words) that as an excommunicate Robert – a warlike and evil man – ‘is being devoured by eternal death’.³² According to the annals of Waverley abbey (Surrey) his body was taken to Polesworth for burial outside the monastic graveyard in the nuns’ orchard (in pomario sanctimonialium), where it remained a long time.³³ Half his body was apparently later (in the 1180s) sent to the family’s monastery at Barbery in Normandy, where it was buried in the chapter house under the abbot’s stall.³⁴

The establishment of a religious house in the twelfth century could be a slow and complex process, especially as many developed from communities associated with recluses or hermits, and what look like ‘foundation charters’ often conceal several stages of development. This is certainly the case with Polesworth, where building work on a new church in the early 1130s may have been the first stage of a process that culminated a decade later in the grant of charters. Two were issued jointly by Robert Marmion and his wife Milisent (Charters A and B):³⁵ the first one, addressed to King Stephen, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the diocesan bishop, deals with the grant of Polesworth church to the nuns; and the second, addressed to the bishop alone, with the institution of a prioress, Osanna. The latter charter also gives the church’s dedication to St. Edith and specifically states that the grant was for ‘restoration’ of religious life (ad restaurandam religionem). As Robert Marmion probably returned to England from Normandy only after the loss of his castle there in 1140, the grants were presumably made shortly afterwards, and possibly in the spring or summer of 1141 during a period of crisis after King Stephen was taken prisoner at Lincoln:³⁶ the leading witness in both Polesworth charters was Ranulf, abbot of Shrewsbury, recorded as holding office 1138 x 1141; and King Stephen confirmed Robert’s gift to ‘the church of St. Edith of Polesworth’ and the nuns in a charter issued at St. Albans,³⁷ perhaps at the council held there soon after Michaelmas 1143.³⁸ Besides granting Polesworth church, Robert also gave the nuns the vill of Polesworth, as was stated in his son’s later confirmation (Charter C), and the younger Robert supplemented the endowment, giving the nuns the adjoining lordship of Warton and the right to profits in a wood there but not to any assarts taken from it (Charter C); he also gave them the church of Quinton (Gloucestershire) (Charter D).

The leading witnesses of both charters made by Robert and Milisent Marmion were the abbot and prior of Shrewsbury abbey, and one charter was also witnessed by the sub-prior.³⁹ Their combined presence suggests a high-profile visit to Polesworth, and they were evidently rewarded with a relic of St. Edith: one was included in a list written up in a mid twelfth-century Shrewsbury abbey lectionary,⁴⁰ and it was presumably she (rather than Edith of Wilton) who appears in a later thirteenth-century Shrewsbury litany.⁴¹ The presence of the Shrewsbury party should be seen in the context of the recent translation in 1138 of the bones of St. Gwenfrewi from Gwytherin (in modern Denbighshire) to their abbey, where she came to be venerated under her English name Winifred.⁴² Founded in 1083 by the earl of Shrewsbury on the site of a minor, extra-mural church, Shrewsbury abbey evidently felt disadvantaged by its lack of saints’ relics,⁴³ especially in contrast to Chester abbey, founded a short time later by the earl of Chester but in a church with an Anglo-Saxon heritage associated with the cult of a Mercian princess, Werburh.⁴⁴ Indeed, it may have been the presence of Werburh at Chester and another female saint, Mildburg, at a nunnery at Much Wenlock (Shropshire) that made the Shrewsbury monks interested in Edith. But if their intention was to carry off all her bones, as they had done with Gwenfrewi/Winifred, they were thwarted, as Edith remained buried at Polesworth.

The reference to the ‘restoration’ of religious life in the institution charter would seem to support the late medieval story of Robert Marmion restoring the Polesworth nuns to what they had previously enjoyed, after only a brief period of exile at Oldbury. It is uncertain whether the story was part of a (lost) ‘foundation legend’ composed for the nuns themselves, but the English version copied by William Dugdale was at Tamworth castle and may have been commissioned by the Ferrers family, as new owners of the castle from the 1420s.⁴⁵ And even if it had drawn on an earlier Latin text, the latter could well have been a fabrication: the refashioning or ‘creation’ of the past was not uncommon in this period as a way of making it useful for present needs, especially by the native guardians of the cults of Anglo-Saxon saints needing to reach an accommodation with their Norman overlords.⁴⁶ Although Anglo-Norman church leaders were by no means hostile to the cults of native Anglo-Saxon saints in houses founded before the Conquest,⁴⁷ it was unusual for new monastic houses of the late eleventh or twelfth centuries to have a native saint as a patron.⁴⁸ The choice of Edith at Polesworth, therefore, rather than a more conventional saint, must have been important, as a means of consolidating not only the nuns’ security of tenure of their endowments but also the Marmions’ status as lords. In much the same way, in the 1130s, the baron Robert of Stafford ‘refounded’ a putative pre-Conquest community at Stone (Staffordshire), reviving the cult of St. Wulfhad for an Augustinian priory.⁴⁹ The precise attraction of Stone for Robert of Stafford is uncertain, but it may well have been its Mercian connection, Wulfhad being the alleged son of the Mercian king Wulfhere (d. 675) and so the brother of the abbess St. Werburh of Hanbury and Chester. A passio of the martyred Wulfhad (along with his brother Rufin) was perhaps written at the time of the priory’s foundation, and what may have been a contemporary antiphon extolling him opens: ‘Rejoice O Mercia in a distinguished royal family / So long as in you illustrious sacrifices are made’.⁵⁰ For the Marmions too there may have been an interest in the Mercian past: Edith was also venerated in the church at Tamworth where they had their castle, and by invoking her they associated themselves with what had been an important Mercian royal centre.⁵¹

Presumably Edith’s cult had either survived the Conquest or was sufficiently well-remembered for the Marmions to be able to make use of it.⁵² But the nuns installed in the new church at Polesworth had their own history, as charter evidence points to them having previously been an independent group of holy women at nearby Oldbury.

Before being settled at Polesworth, the nuns had been living at nearby Oldbury on a site given to St. Laurence and Prioress Osanna and ‘all the nuns fighting for Christ under her guidance’ (omnibus sanctimonialibus sub eius disciplina Christo militantibus) by Walter de Hastings and his wife Hawise (Charter E). Perhaps intended to confirm the nuns’ possession in advance of their transfer to Polesworth, and so made about the same time as the Marmion charters, the Oldbury grant implies that Walter was the manorial lord, presumably as a tenant of Robert Marmion, as lord of Tamworth castle: a William de Hastings held a knight’s fee of the pre-1135 ‘old enfeoffment’ of a later Robert Marmion in 1166, when another member of the Hastings family held Fillongley (Leicestershire) also of the Marmion fee.⁵³ Besides giving bounds for the part of Oldbury assigned to the nuns, the Hastings charter also granted ‘all Stipershill’, a reference to the meeting place of the court for the Marmion fee centred on Tamworth castle.⁵⁴ This charter, however, was not the couple’s first one for Oldbury, as at their request Bishop Roger de Clinton had previously in the 1130s already confirmed a grant of Oldbury (locum de Aldeberi) ‘for the religious life of poor women’ (religioni et conversationi pauperum mulierum).⁵⁵ The earlier grant (according to the bishop’s confirmation) made no reference to professed nuns, nor to a prioress, and was probably for a group of holy women not yet under a monastic rule.

Although it is possible that the Oldbury women were in some way the successors of a pre-Conquest community that had looked after St. Edith’s relics (and were perhaps continuing to do this themselves), such communities were not uncommon in the eleventh and twelfth century at a time of religious fervour,⁵⁶ some female members perhaps being the former wives of priests who were now expected to live celibate lives.⁵⁷ Many such groups comprised both men and women, as at Farewell north of Lichfield (Staffordshire), where possibly about 1140 Bishop Clinton confirmed the holdings of male ‘canons, brothers, [and] converts’ (canonicis fratribus conversis) before installing nuns and holy women (sanctimonialibus et Deo devotis mulieribus) at the behest of three hermit brothers, evidently the group leaders.⁵⁸ The nuns had presumably themselves previously been ‘holy women’, an arrangement certainly encountered by the bishop not far way in Cannock forest, where he granted land to hermits provided they assumed a regular life: he specifically allowed them to receive and teach any ‘holy women devoted to God’ (mulieres Deo devotas religiosas) who might come their way.⁵⁹ That there were also men at Oldbury is suggested by an indulgence made probably by a contemporary bishop of Hereford for those who supported building work there and relieved the poverty of the women (ancillarum): the appeal was on behalf of the ‘brothers and sisters serving God at a place called Oldbury’.⁶⁰ But whatever the role played by men in the Oldbury community, it was clearly Osanna who was the leading force, with the first nuns living under her guidance (disciplina). She was not the only female religious leader in this period. Founded by the abbot of St. Albans in 1145 for a holy woman who took the name ‘Christina’, Markyate priory (Hertfordshire) was endowed for the support of sisters ‘fighting under Christina’s rule and teaching’ (ad militandum sub regimine doctrinaque Christinæ),⁶¹ and when c.1150 Geoffrey de Clinton (d. c.1175) gave land at Bretford (par. Wolston, Warwickshire) to his ‘dearest friend’ Naomi as an endowment for a ‘cell’, her fellow nuns were to observe the ‘rule and ordinance’ that she herself should impose (ordo et institutio quam ipsa constituerit).⁶²

The process of transforming the holy women at Oldbury into nuns following a monastic rule was presumably promoted by Bishop Clinton, most likely the inspiration for the dedication of their church to St. Laurence.⁶³ It may also have been under the bishop’s guidance that Osanna became prioress, although the involvement of the Marmions should not be discounted: having started to rebuild Polesworth church in the 1130s, they may have advanced her at Oldbury as a preliminary to the eventual move to Polesworth, and a man named Ralph the butler who gave two virgates in Warton (in Polesworth) to God, St. Laurence and the ‘holy nuns of Oldbury’, along with his daughter who had been made a nun ‘canonically’ (canonice), may have been a member of the Marmion household.⁶⁴ Certainly, the different stages in the process are revealed in the terminology used in contemporary charters. When the Hastings grant of the Oldbury site was confirmed by Hugh son of Richard and his wife Margaret,⁶⁵ one charter referred to the ‘nuns of Oldbury’ but in a later one addressed to Bishop Walter Durdent (1149 x 1159) they were ‘of Polesworth’;⁶⁶ while confirmations by Wachelin of Mancetter (presumably the Hastings manorial tenant) were made to ‘God, St. Mary, and St. Laurence’ but also separately to ‘the church of St. Edith of Polesworth and the nuns there’.⁶⁷ Perhaps there was some confusion, with the nuns still being referred to as ‘of Oldbury’ even after they had been given the church at Polesworth, but it is more likely that the continued reference to St. Laurence (rather that St. Edith) is evidence for at least some nuns remaining at Oldbury. A version of the Marmion charter (B) noted by Leland c.1540 included the phrase ‘so that the convent of Oldbury may live there’ (Ita quod conventus de Aldeberia ibi sit manens), implying that some of the women stayed at Oldbury,⁶⁸ and later in the twelfth century a neif was granted to Sarra ‘prioress of Oldbury’ and the nuns serving God, blessed Mary and St. Laurence.⁶⁹

Oldbury had not been a chance home for the holy women: both the Hastings grants (Charter E and the earlier one confirmed by Bishop Clinton) were of ‘the place’ (locus) of Oldbury, a word implying that the site was of some significance in the landscape. The place-name refers to an Iron Age hill fort to the west of Hartshill village,⁷⁰ and it was within the fort itself that the holy women had settled and built a church: part of the chapel was still standing ‘on the south side of this fort’ in the mid seventeenth century.⁷¹ Perhaps attractive on account of pre-existing ritual activity conceivably dating to the pre-Christian era, Oldbury may also have been seen as comparable to Hanbury on the edge of Needwood forest further north in Staffordshire, traditionally where the Mercian princess and abbess St. Werburh founded a convent and was buried c.700.⁷² Moreover, Hanbury’s proximity to the probable royal centre at Tutbury parallels Oldbury’s to the Marmion family’s landholding in Polesworth: courts for the honor based on their castle at Tamworth were held not in the castle but on Stipershill,⁷³ a hill overlooking Polesworth church on the east and deriving its name probably from an Old English word meaning a post (stipere), possibly with a pagan religious significance in the pre-conversion period.⁷⁴

Oldbury remained a centre for popular devotion long after the nuns had been fully established at Polesworth: when in 1284 the abbess of Polesworth came to an agreement with the rector of Mancetter regarding oblations and tithes from Oldbury chapel, particular care was taken that whenever omens, signs or miracles (prodigia, signa vel miracula) should occur there, resulting in offerings from a crowd of people (concursum populi), the money was to be divided equally.⁷⁵ No name is given for the saint whose cult had attracted the offerings, although it was presumably Edith and the failure to mention her by name may have been in order to undermine Oldbury as a rival cult centre. The chapel there was suppressed perhaps not long after the agreement, and in 1316 the lord of Mancetter gave ‘the whole site’ (citum) to the abbess of Polesworth.⁷⁶ Nothing survives of the fabric, which may have been incorporated into the eighteenth-century Oldbury Hall, itself demolished in 1984.

Finally, it is worth considering the significance of the name of the first prioress, Osanna. Although she is first recorded as prioress of Oldbury, before the move to Polesworth, the appointment could still (as already noted) have involved the Marmions, and given Milisent Marmion’s royal links and also Polesworth’s association (as discussed below) with the reformed Benedictine house at Cluny (dép. Saône-et-Loire), a nun from a Continental house might have been brought over to head the new convent. Certainly, the Latin ‘Osanna’ could easily have been a translation of the French Ozanne.⁷⁷ Even so, the name may not have been a family one, but rather designed to enhance Edith’s cult: possibly a version of ‘Oseyth’, the abbess expelled by Robert Marmion in the late medieval story copied by Dugdale, and intended to resonate with Edith’s maid ‘Osid’, the subject of one of the saint’s miracles.⁷⁸ On the other hand, another possibility is that the biblical name ‘Osanna’, being ‘ethnically neutral’, would have been appropriate for a native Englishwoman to take once clothed as a nun, and this would tie in with Osanna as the leader of the holy women at Oldbury.⁷⁹ Indeed, although not intended to accommodate the sensibilities of a secular lord, the contemporary female religious leader ‘Christina’ of Markyate, who was certainly English, took that name to mark her entry (after some difficulty) into a religious life; and although she claimed in her Life to have been baptised ‘Theodora’, this is more likely to have been yet another ‘biblical’ name, assumed earlier in her life in order to signify that she was destined for a religious career.⁸⁰ Whatever the origin of the name, Osanna must have been a relatively young woman in the early 1140s, as she was still alive (perhaps in retirement) in the 1170s when as ‘the venerable mother (mater) Osanna of Polesworth’ she was cured of an illness by visiting Thomas Becket’s tomb at Canterbury.⁸¹

Except for houses associated with the new monastic order of Fontevraud, foundation charters and other documents rarely stipulate the order to which early twelfth-century female houses belonged, not least because the nuns themselves might not be too sure.⁸² Affiliations are noted in Gervase of Canterbury’s early thirteenth-century ‘Mappa Mundi’ and this has ‘black nuns’ at Polesworth,⁸³ and given the presence of the Benedictine abbot and prior of Shrewsbury at the ‘restoration’ event, it might be thought that Polesworth was also Benedictine. Although broadly true, more specifically the nuns were associated with the prestigious reformed Benedictine house of Cluny (in Burgundy), albeit not as an official daughter house.

One of the Marmion charters (Charter A) was witnessed by the sub-prior of the Cluniac house of Pontefract (Yorkshire, West Riding), and when, probably before 1150, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury granted protection to the Polesworth nuns, he named their guardians (custodes) as the Cluniac monks of La Charité-sur-Loire (Charter F). Rather than the monks at the priory in France itself (dép. Nièvre), they were most probably those at Pontefract: a Brother Richard named as guardian for the Cistercian nunnery at Nun Appleton (Yorkshire, North Riding) c.1150 was a Pontefract monk;⁸⁴ and when perhaps about the same time Archbishop Theobald confirmed Pontefract’s landholdings, he specifically referred to its monks as being those of La Charité.⁸⁵ Polesworth’s regard for Cluny is further indicated by its grant of confraternity in the 1220s to the mother house itself and several Cluniac houses in England, including Pontefract and also, significantly, the royal foundation at Faversham (Kent).⁸⁶

Other Cluniac houses founded in England by lords at the caputs of their honors were often next to or even within a castle, but the situation at Polesworth was rather different, not least because it was a female house.⁸⁷ One factor could have been that the Marmions wished to emphasize their royal connections, the order being especially favoured by King Stephen, whose brother Henry of Blois (d. 1171) was himself a monk at Cluny before becoming bishop of Winchester in 1126.⁸⁸ Both Stephen and his wife Matilda were buried (with their son Eustace) in the Cluniac house which they founded at Faversham (Kent) in 1148, while the queen’s parents had been buried in Cluniac houses (her mother at Bermondsey, in Surrey) and the king’s mother (and Henry I’s sister) Countess Adele (d. 1137) at the notably aristocratic Cluniac daughter house of Marcigny (dép. Saône-et-Loire), which she had entered as a widow in 1120.⁸⁹ But as Polesworth seems to have been already planned before Stephen’s accession in 1135, a more likely motivation would have been to associate it with Henry I’s male house at Reading (Berkshire), founded with monks from Cluny in 1121.⁹⁰ Reading may already have been in the king’s mind before he lost his only legitimate son in the wreck of the White Ship in 1120, but it was closely associated with his marriage earlier in 1121 at nearby Windsor to Milisent Marmion’s cousin Adeliza of Louvain: apart from motives of penance and its use as a mausoleum Reading was most probably also a means of consolidating Adeliza’s authority as the new queen and hoped-for mother of a male heir.⁹¹ This intention is supported by the distinctive nature of Reading’s endowments, several being estates which had been associated with pre-Conquest queens and sometimes linked to female religious houses (including land at Reading itself, where there had once been nuns).⁹² A similar endowment for Polesworth may support the suggestion that Reading was a model, namely the church at Quinton (Gloucestershire, later Warwickshire) granted by Robert and Milisent Marmion’s son Robert in the late 1150s (Charter D): the Old English place-name means ‘the queen’s tun’,⁹³ and it may have been more than just a coincidence that the church was dedicated to St. Swithin, whose translation was celebrated on the same feast day (15 July) as Edith of Polesworth.

The association with Milisent’s royal cousin Adeliza of Louvain most likely continued after Henry I’s death in 1135 and her remarriage, probably in 1139, to William d’Aubigny, earl of Lincoln (later of Sussex).⁹⁴ As dowager queen, Adeliza made several benefactions to religious houses, often in respect of the late king’s soul, including to the Cistercian house at Waverley (Surrey),⁹⁵ whose annals as already noted uniquely refer to Robert Marmion’s unceremonial burial at Polesworth in 1144. The queen also held property (mansura) next to land with which Barbery abbey, the Marmion family’s monastery in Normandy, was endowed in 1181.⁹⁶

At first a priory, Reading acquired abbatial status in 1123 and Polesworth also became an abbey,⁹⁷ Prioress Osanna being styled an abbess perhaps by 1148.⁹⁸ That Osanna was first a prioress might suggest that Milisent Marmion had intended that she herself, if widowed, should be the first abbess, something that seems to have been planned for by her contemporary Countess Amice of Leicester at Nuneaton (Warwickshire).⁹⁹ Milisent was indeed widowed in 1144 but (as noted earlier) she later married Richard de Canville, one of King Stephen’s closest supporters. Nonetheless, she was clearly a prime-mover at Polesworth, being co-grantor along with her husband in both ‘foundation’ charters (Charters A and B), and not just a wife giving her consent as happened with other new monastic foundations.¹⁰⁰ The latter might occur even when a house was endowed with land from a wife’s patrimony, as with Earl Robert of Gloucester’s foundation at Margam (Monmouthshire) in 1147,¹⁰¹ and so Milisent’s role is perhaps particularly significant as Polesworth was not established on her own land.

If the choice of nuns at Polesworth was something promoted by Milisent, her husband seems to have attempted to establish a male house on his Norman lands, at Barbery (dép. Calvados) about five miles south of the family’s castle at Fontenay. The editor in Gallia Christiana has a monastery there being proposed by Marmion, although there was only a grange in November 1140, when it was assigned to the Savigniac order, perhaps another indication of the family’s close ties with King Stephen who favoured that order. It was not until 1178 that an abbot was appointed, with Robert’s son apparently providing an endowment for building (or completing) the abbey church in October 1181.¹⁰² In fact, the younger Robert (son of Milisent) was probably dead by 1181, and the endowment charter is more likely to have been that of his own son, yet another Robert: the endowment was made because the grantor’s father had not lived long enough to do it himself. ¹⁰³ Certainly, Robert son of Milisent was preoccupied with ecclesiastical affairs in his final years in the 1170s, granting a Lincolnshire church (Thornton) to Lichfield cathedral,¹⁰⁴ and one in Oxfordshire (Checkenden) to Coventry priory:¹⁰⁵ both grants were made pro satisfactione of his father (d. 1144), a reference presumably to the latter’s depredations during Stephen’s reign. Perhaps Robert son of Milisent wished to endow Barbery also with a mind towards making satisfaction for his father’s actions, however belatedly. Interestingly, there were cross-channel links: some of the land assigned to Barbery in 1181 had been acquired in exchange with John de Fontenay, whose sister had become a nun at Polesworth (Polesorde).¹⁰⁶

Besides Robert Marmion not having returned to England until 1140, the precise date of the issue of the Polesworth ‘endowment’ charters (Charters A and B) may have been connected with the crisis following the capture of King Stephen at Lincoln in February 1141: very soon afterwards, during her brief period of ascendancy, the Empress Matilda granted the castle and honor of Tamworth to a rival claimant, William de Beauchamp.¹⁰⁷ This challenge would have required a response on Robert’s part, and by reviving the cult of St. Edith and establishing nuns at Polesworth, he would have been able to draw on the saint’s power to enhance his authority in the area: new foundations were a useful means of eliciting displays of allegiance from tenants whose loyalty may have been under strain.¹⁰⁸ But the 1141 crisis would have only encouraged Marmion to redouble his efforts, as the foundation process had clearly been under way for some time: what survives of the monastic church is a north arcade of eight bays dating from c.1130,¹⁰⁹ coinciding with Robert’s inheritance and possibly his marriage to Milisent. Ambitious for just a parish church, the scale of building was surely part of a larger building scheme for the proposed nunnery.¹¹⁰

In establishing a religious house the Marmions were doing what might have been expected of them, but in particular they may have also been influenced by Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester (d. 1168), whose twin brother Waleran, count of Meulan, was the Marmion overlord in Normandy, and Robert’s pious wife Countess Amice.¹¹¹ The founder c.1139 of an Augustinian house at Leicester (where he was buried),¹¹² Earl Robert had previously supported communities of hermits in both England and Normandy, as part of strategies to consolidate his power in particular localities, and evidently acting under the influence of his wife, he also supported several female houses, including Polesworth:¹¹³ with Amice as the leading witness, the earl confirmed a grant of land at Drayton, near Stratford-upon-Avon (Warwickshire), made by a tenant to ‘God, St. Mary, and St. Edith and the ladies (dominas) of Polesworth’.¹¹⁴

Like Milisent, Amice also had close ties with the royal court, having been betrothed (before her marriage to Earl Robert) to Henry’s I illegitimate son Richard (d. 1120),¹¹⁵ and both she and the earl may have been present, as were Stephen and his queen Matilda, at the dedication probably in January 1139 of the conventual church for Godstow abbey (Oxfordshire),¹¹⁶ perhaps an occasion that also served as a model for the Marmions. Originating as a female house (although apparently not at Godstow itself) perhaps as early as the mid 1110s, the community was founded by a widow named Edith (Ediva), who like Osanna of Oldbury/Polesworth was almost certainly the leader of what at first was a group of holy women,¹¹⁷ and with the support of Henry I the women became professed nuns under Edith as prioress/abbess, the process culminating in the dedication service. It may not be mere chance that as a widow herself Milisent (and her son Robert) witnessed a later grant to Godstow.¹¹⁸

Emphasis on any political considerations that may have influenced the foundation of Polesworth abbey puts St. Edith somewhat into the shade, but her role should not be ignored, and having a native saint whose reputation could be drawn on was an important factor in enterprises undertaken by many Anglo-Norman lords in this period. For Bishop Clinton, placing the holy women at Oldbury under the protection of St. Laurence was sufficient for his purposes of bringing them under a monastic rule, and he may not have considered advancing St. Edith, even though the women may in some way have been preserving her cult. But in using the phrase ‘for restoring religion’ when they granted Polesworth church to the nuns (Charter B), Robert and Milisent Marmion were claiming to re-establish a pre-Conquest institution. Perhaps they genuinely thought that one had been destroyed in the Viking period: as benefactors of Bardney abbey (Lincolnshire),¹¹⁹ they may have know that when in the late eleventh century Gilbert de Gant re-established religious life there, his endowment charter (as rehearsed in one later issued by his son Walter) referred to Bede’s account of the abbey’s original foundation and then its desertion on account of ‘the most savage persecutions of foreign people’.¹²⁰ In much the same way only a few years later in 1153 Ranulf, earl of Chester, ‘restored a certain abbey of canons’ on the former royal manor at Trentham in north-west Staffordshire: although, in fact, he established an Augustinian priory de novo, it was in a pre-Conquest minster church, with possible associations with the Mercian princess St. Werburh.¹²¹ Accommodation with the Anglo-Saxon past and in particular acknowledgment of the ‘usefulness’ of its saints, especially as guardians and promoters of monastic possessions, was a feature of Anglo-Norman lordship,¹²² and St. Edith at Polesworth is another example of harnessing the reputation of a native saint whose memory was still current in a locality.

One might have expected that the Marmions, or more likely the Polesworth nuns, would have commissioned a Life of their saint, but if they did none has survived. However, it seems that there may have been one: in his first version of the Life of St. Edith of Wilton, written in the 1080s, the hagiographer Goscelin of St. Bertin has the abbess there reading about ‘her aunt’ (Edith of Polesworth) in a book that might have been a Life.¹²³ Edith’s role in the foundation of Polesworth abbey, therefore, is now known only from the late medieval story copied by William Dugdale in the earlier seventeenth century, but fortunately Dugdale also copied what survived of the abbey’s archive and some of these charters, along with others that escaped his notice, tell a fuller story.

Appendix of charter texts

A Notification to King Stephen, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury and Bishop Roger [de Clinton] of Chester by Robert Marmion and his wife Milisent that they have granted to the nuns of Polesworth the church of that vill; done in the presence of Robert’s son Robert [1139 x 1144, but probably 1140 or 1141].

Sanctæ ecclesiæ Dei prelatis et ministris et filiis omnibus tam presentis quam futuris et precipue Stephano regi Anglorum et Theobaldo archiepiscopo Cant’ et Rogero Cestren’ episcopo Robertus Marmion’ et Millesent uxore [in error for uxor] eius in domino salutem. Notum fiat omnibus nos pro salute nostra et omnium nostrorum dedisse in elemosinam et concessisse^a sanctimonialibus de Polleswrða ecclesia[m] eiusdem ville et c’

Hiis testibus ego Robertus filius Roberti Marm[’] affui hoc concedens et subscripsi + et teste abbate Randulpho de Salopesburia et priore^bcWillelmo et Waltero subpriore^c de Pontefacto Alano de Falesia Hugone de Cuilli Roberto Moi Roberto de Fontenai Ligero dapifero Jordano de Cailli Rogero de Grenduna Radulpho Dau’ Turstan’ filio Thomas’  Reignero de ffon Willelmo de B[r]omcote et multis aliis.

a followed by ‘in’ struck through.

b ‘i’ is interlineated.

c–c interlineated and running into margin. The printed version has ‘Waltero sub-priore de Ponte sancto’.

Cartulary Copy: British Library, Lansdowne MS. 447 [‘Book of Sir Richard St. George, Clarenceux king of arms, 1624’], fols. 28v–29r [modern pencil foliation].

Printed: C. F. R. Palmer, History of the Baronial Family of Marmion (Tamworth, 1875), p. 37.

Date: Theobald was consecrated as archbishop in January 1139; Robert Marmion died in 1144. Marmion was not in England until 1140, and the decision to complete the foundation of Polesworth abbey may have been triggered by events in the summer of 1141 following King Stephen’s capture at Lincoln castle.

B Notification to Bishop Roger [de Clinton] of Chester by Robert Marmion and his wife Milisent that they have granted the church of St. Edith of Polesworth to Prioress Osanna for restoring the religious life of the nuns there [1139 x 1144, but probably 1140 or 1141].

R[ogero] episcopo Cestrensi atque omnibus suis archi[diaco]nis et omnibus prelatis sanctæ ecclesiæ et ministris salutem et omnibus amicis suis et hominibus et omnibus filiis sanctæ ecclesiæ presentibus et futuris Robertus Marm’ et Miles’ uxor eius iterum salutem. Notum sit vobis omnibus nos concessisse et dedisse pro salute nostra et omnium parentum et amicorum nostrorum Ozanne prioresse ad restaurandam religionem sanctimonialium ibi ecclesiam Sanctæ Edithe de Polleswrada cum omnibus pertinenciis etc

Hiis testibus Radulpho abbate Solopsberiensi et Willelmo eiusdem ecclesiæ priore et magistro Hereberto et Henrico clerico et Ada et Guidone de Cuilli et Gaufrido Marm’ et Roberto Moi et Willelmo P’ich’ et Willelmo Rezem et Ligero et multis aliis.

Original: Now lost but seen by John Leland in the earlier 16th century (note below).

Cartulary Copy: British Library, Lansdowne MS. 447 [‘Book of Sir Richard St. George, Clarenceux king of arms, 1624’], fo. 28v [modern pencil foliation].

Printed: Palmer, History of the Baronial Family of Marmion, p. 37.

Date: Same date as Charter A.

Note: A version of this charter was evidently seen by the antiquary John Leland when at Tamworth c.1540, being noted in his Collectanea after he named Robert Marmion as founder of Polesworth with wife Milisent. He does not give the full text but rather an abbreviation with wording that differs somewhat from B by its reference to the Oldbury convent still being in existence: ‘Notum sit omnibus nos concessisse Osannæ Priorissæ ad rellig[ionem] instaurandam [perhaps a misreading of “restaurandam”] sanctimonialium ibi Ecclesiam S. Edithæ de Pollesworda cum pertinenciis. Ita quod conventus de Aldeberia ibi sit manens’ (John Leland, De Rebus Britannicis Collectanea, ed. T. Hearne (6 vols., London, 1770), i. 33). Dugdale copied the entry into his The Antiquities of Warwickshire (1656), p. 799; (2nd edn., rev. by W. Thomas, 2 vols., London, 1730), ii. 1108; and into his Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), pp. 198–9; (6 vols. in 8, London, 1817–30 edn. by J. Caley, H. Ellis and B. Bandinel, repr. 1846), ii. 366.

C Notification to King Henry II, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and Bishop Walter Durdent of Coventry by Robert Marmion son of Robert Marmion and Milisent that for his [spiritual] health and the souls of his father, mother, and sister he has confirmed to the nuns of Polesworth his father’s gift to them of the church of the same vill with its pertinences and of the whole vill of Polesworth, and [the gift of] his [own] lordship in Warton [in Polesworth parish]. The nuns are to hold all this as freely as he is able to give and as he held of St. Edith, except that they may not assart the wood (nemus); and Robert and his heirs retain the hunting, although (quia) he grants to them all the use and profit of the wood in pannage, pasture, all green and dry wood, and forfeitures, and they may appoint a forester at their will. And Robert adds to the abbey the service of Walter la feie from a virgate of land in the same vill, with Walter’s consent. Robert asks that this be confirmed by their authority and office [i.e., of the king, archbishop, and bishop] just as it has been confirmed by this charter. [December 1154 x 1159].

Sancte ecclesie dei prelatis & ministris & filiis omnibus tam presentibus quam futuris & precipue Henrico regi secundo anglorum. & Teobaldo archiepiscopo cantuarie. & Waltero cestrensi episcopo. Robertus Marmio^a filius Roberti Marmionis 7 Milesent in domino salutem. Notum uobis fiat omnibus me pro salute mea. & pro anima patris mei. 7 matris mee. 7 sororis mee. & omnium antecessorum meorum concessisse in perpetuam elemosinam sanctimonialibus de Polisworda donationem patris mei quam ipse dedit eis. 7 sicut dedit. quam etiam hac presenti carta mea confirmo. scilicet ecclesiam eiusdem uille cum ecclesie illius pertinentiis. & totam uillam Polisworde. 7 totum dominium meum Wau’tune. in molendinis. in nemoribus. in terra plana. in aquis. in pratis. Hec autem omnia. habeant. 7 teneant libere 7 quiete. ita prout liberius dare possum. & de sancta eadita tenui. ita tamen quod non liceat eis nemus essartare. & uenationem michi & heredibus retineo. quia utilitatem & commodum eiusdem nemoris totum in penagiis. in pastura. in omni ligno uiridi 7 sicco. et in forisfactis. quiete concedo eis. & ad placitum suum foristarium mittant. & ego Robertus acresco abbatiam de seruicio Walteri la feie de una uirgata terre que est in eadem uilla. 7 consensu eiusdem Walteri. Hoc autem auctoritate & dignitate uestra confirmari deprecor. prout hac presenti carta mea confirmatum est. His Testibus. Rog(ero) de G(re)ndune. Jurdano de Caili. Toma fil(io) Turstani. Will(elmo) fil(io) Rad(ulphi). & Rog(ero) suo fr(atr)e. Reign(ero) de Fago 7 Will(elm)o suo fil(io). Rad(ulpho) rosti. Rob(er)t(o) coco. Will(elmo) de Moi. Gelib(er)t(o) de Hesti(n)g. magistro Hemerico. magistro Ada(m) de Tichenhala.

a no mark of abbreviation for a final ‘n’.

Original: Tamworth Borough Archives (held at Tamworth castle), accession number 1966.191.1; 241 mm. (wide) x 166 mm. (deep, including turn-up which has been flattened out), slit for seal tag (both tag and seal missing). Endorsed: (in twelfth- or early thirteenth-century hand) Rob’ Marmiun; (in fifteenth-century hand) A confirmac[i]on of Pollesworth & Wau’ton. For a photograph, see R. Stone, Tamworth: a History (Phillimore, 2003), p. 21 (fig. 23).

Calendar: Abstract with full set of witnesses in 1930 sale catalogue: Palaeography, Genealogy and Topography – Selections from the collection of H. R. Moulton, Richmond, Surrey (G. A. Mate & Son, London), p. 22.

Provenance: Bought in 1930 by the Revd. William MacGregor, formerly vicar of Tamworth (until resignation on grounds of ill-health in 1887) but still resident in a suburb (at Bolehall Manor) and a Warwickshire county councillor, and given to Tamworth Borough Council: note of gift on photostat of charter.

Date: After Henry II was crowned king in December 1154, and before the death of Bishop Walter Durdent of Chester in December 1159.

Note: This charter was included in the general confirmation awarded by Richard II in 1398, when the nuns also possessed the original charter of Robert and Milisent, which related to the church and vill of Polesworth and also the nuns’ lordship in Warton in respect of mills, groves etc. (Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1396–99, p. 287).

D Notification to King Henry II, Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury, and Bishop Alfred of Worcester by Robert Marmion son of Robert Marmion and Milisent that for the health of his soul and that of his parents and sister he has granted to the nuns of Polesworth the church of Quinton (Gloucestershire, later Warwickshire). He asks that this be confirmed by their authority and office [i.e., of the king, archbishop and bishop] just as it has been confirmed by this charter [1158 x 1160].

S(an)cte eccl(esi)e dei p(re)latis & ministris & filiis omnibus tam p(re)sentibus quam futuris & p(re)cipue Henrico regi secundo Anglorum & Teobaldo Archiep(iscop)o Cantuarie & Alfredo ep(iscop)o Wigornensi Rob(er)t(us) Marmion filius Rob(er)ti Marmionis & Milesent in d(omi)no salut(e)m. Notum fiat uobis omnibus me p(ro) salute mea & pro anima patris mei et matris mee & sororis mee & omniu(m) antecossorum meorum concessisse s(an)ctimonialibus de Polleswrþa in p(er)petuam elemosinam eccl(es)iam de quentona cu(m) om(n)ibus p(er)tinentiis suis quam etia(m) hac p(re)senti carta mea confirmo. Ha(n)c aute(m) auctoritate & dignitate u(es)tra confirmari dep(re)cor prout hac p(re)senti carta mea confirmata.

His testib(us) Hamone abb(at)e d(e) Bordsleie, Galfrido de Pirou, Galfrido Marmion, Thoma filio Turstini, Rog(er)o d(e) Crendona, Walkelino Manecestrie, Leodigario, Walt(er)o d(e) Cuili, Rein(er)o de Fago, Will(elm)o Rad’ & Rog(ero) fr(atr)e suo.

Source: Bodleian Library, Dugdale MS. 12, p. 9; annotated by William Dugdale: ‘Original in keeping (penes) of Thomas Corbin of Hallend, Warws. 1637’. Also, Dugdale MS. 17, p. 34, annotated: ‘In the keeping of Thomas Corbin of Hallend, 1637’.

Date: Alfred was consecrated bishop of Worcester in April 1158 and died in July 1160.

Note: To be distinguished from Quenington (Glouestershire), Quinton lies six miles south-east of Stratford-upon-Avon and was in Gloucestershire until transferred to Warwickshire in 1935. Two manors there belonged in 1086 to Hugh de Grandesmesnil, also overlord of Middleton (Warwickshire), south of Tamworth. One of the Quinton manors (assessed at twelve hides and held of Hugh by a certain Roger) was centred on Lower Quinton and passed at some date to the Marmions, and was still held by them in the early thirteenth century: Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum in Turri Londinensi asservati (Record Commission, 1833), p. 239b. The church at Lower Quinton was dedicated to St. Swithin.

E Grant by Walter de Hastings with his wife Hawise and in the presence of Bishop Roger (de Clinton), to St. Laurence and Prioress Osanna and all her nuns of the site of the place of Oldbury and all Stipershill, in both field and wood up to the middle of the valley on the side of Mancetter; and of a certain part of the wood from south-east of Oldbury to the stream which flows from Hartshill; and of all the land of Calvecroft and Birchesley, namely that land which lies between the two ways of Merestreet and Birchleystreet up to Hugh’s wood [1129 x 1144; perhaps 1140 or 1141].

Sciant tam presentes quam futuri quod Walterius de Hestinges cum uxore sua Athawis^a dedit et confirmavit iure perpetuo Deo et ^bsancto Laurentio et Ossanne priorisse et omnibus sanctimonialibus sub eius disciplina Christo militantibus et in presencia Rotgerii Cestrensis episcopi^b situm loci de Aldaburia^c et totam Stipersullam^d in plano et in nemore usque ad medium valli ex parte Mangestrie^e et quandam partem nemoris ex Sutest^f de Aldaburia usque ad torrentem qui venit de Herdredesulla^g et totam terram de Caluecroft^h et Birchesleiam illam scilicet terram que iacet inter duas vias de Merestret et Bircheleiastret usque nemus Hugonisⁱ per circuitum. ^j

His testibus Hugo^k de Herdredesulla^l Willelmus de Welesburia^m Petrus sacerdos de Wiredela Willelmus sacerdos de sancto Martino et multi alij.

a Ethawis in confirmation (A).

b–b confirmation (B) has sanctæ Mariæ et sancto Laurentio et ecclesiæ sanctæ Edithæ de Pollesworth et sanctimonialibus ibidem Deo servientibus (omitting mention of the bishop). Bartlett has ‘Rogerii Coventriensis’, believing that Dugdale had wrongly given ‘Cestrensis’ (as indicated in a note).

c Aldeburia in confirmation (B).

d Stipereshullam in confirmation (C). Both Dugdale and Bartlett have ‘Stipershullam’.

e Manecestriæ in confirmation (C). Bartlett has ‘Mangecestriæ’.

f Suthest in confirmation (B).

g Dugdale has ‘Herdredeshulla’ and Bartlett ‘Hardreshulla’.

h Calvacroft in confirmation (A); Chelurecroft in confirmation (B).

i Willielmi de Herdredeshulla in confirmation (B).

j Bartlett omits ‘per circuitum’.

k the witness names are given in the nominative case.

l Bartlett has ‘Hadreshulla’.

m Bartless has ‘Wellesburia’.

Original: Now lost but in possession of Francis Nethersole of Polesworth when transcribed by William Dugdale in 1637: Bodl. Libr., Dugdale MS. 12, p. 3.

Printed: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), p. 199; (1817–30 edn., repr. 1846), ii. 367 (no. VIII); B. Bartlett, Manduessedum Romanorum: Being the History and Antiquities of the parish of Mancetter [including the hamlets of Hartshill, Oldbury, and Atherstone] … (1791), p. 144 (from 1655 text of Monasticon Anglicanum). Partly calendared in Dugdale, Antiquities of Warws. (1656), p. 778 (but omitting witnesses).

Confirmations: (A) Hugh son of Richard and his wife Margaret and (B) Walchelin de Mancetter, both giving topographical details but with some variations, from originals in possession of Francis Nethersole when seen by Dugdale: Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum (1655), p. 199; (1817–30 edn., repr. 1846), ii. 367–8 (nos. X and XI); (C) mentioned in a general confirmation awarded to the nuns of Polesworth by Richard II in 1398: Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1396–99, p. 288.

Date: Roger de Clinton was elected as bishop of Chester in December 1129 (although not enthroned until January 1130). Perhaps confirming existing possession, the grant may have been made about the time when Robert and Milisent Marmion established the nuns at Polesworth.

Note: The text is not the original grant itself, as the words of disposition (dedit, confirmavit) are in the third person singular, referring to a grant already made by Walter. The Hastings family continued to support the nuns when at Polesworth: 1161 x 1187 Erenburg, the mother of William de Hastings, granted them the church of Barwell (Leicestershire), where the parson had been Robert de Hastings (Bodl. Libr., Dugdale MS. 12, p. 9; Twelfth-Century English Archidiaconal and Vice-Archidiaconal Acta, ed. B. R. Kemp (Canterbury and York Society, xcii, 2001), no. 135).

The Oldbury estate stretched up to the wood of a man named Hugh, probably the leading witness Hugh de Hartshill (Herdredesulla), who held the adjoining Hartshill manor to the south. Also listed as a witness in a forged charter of Earl Ranulf of Chester (d. 1153) as of Hartshill (The Early Records of Medieval Coventry, ed. P. R. Coss (Records of Social and Economic History, n.s., xi, 1986), no. 3; but not in The Charters of Anglo-Norman Earls of Chester c.1071–1237, ed. G. Barraclough (Record Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, cxxvi, 1988)). Hugh may possibly have been the earl’s falconer, who witnessed several genuine charters as ostucarius or aucipator (Barraclough, Chester Charters, e.g., nos. 25, 27, 34, 46 [and see index]), although never also described as of Hartshill. The earl may indeed have had an interest in Hartshill: it was mentioned in his peace agreement with Robert, earl of Leicester, as one of the places defining their spheres of influence (F. M. Stenton, The First Century of English Feudalism, 1066–1166 (2nd edn., Oxford, 1960), pp. 250–3, 286–8; Barraclough, Chester Charters, no. 110). For the probable date of the agreement as 1149, see D. Crouch, The Reign of King Stephen, 1135–1154 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 253–4.

F Letter of Archbishop Theobald of Canterbury granting protection to the nuns of Polesworth [1139 x 1161; probably before 1150].

Translation

Theobald by grace of God archbishop of Canterbury and primate of all England to all the sons and faithful of holy mother church, greeting.

It is acknowledged that it especially pertains to the episcopal office to provide by reason of fatherly concern female religious persons with necessities and [to see to it] that they do not lack help and counsel. Out of fatherly concern therefore providing peace and quiet to the virgins serving God in the place called Polesworth, we take the said virgins and their guardians the monks of Charity [La Charité-sur-Loire] and their possessions and everything which belongs to them under the protection of God, the holy church of Canterbury, and ourselves. Prohibiting by the authority of God and ourself anyone from perturbing them by unjust profane deed, but we ask in the Lord that you relieve their poverty from your goods which have been given to you by the Lord so that from the giver of all good things you may receive the reward of eternal life. If anyone, but may this not happen, steal their goods or by an act of temerity attempt to disturb them in anything, he should know without doubt that Christ, who can send soul and body into hell, shall as the virgins’ bridegroom avenge that injury.

Text

.T. dei gracia Cant’ archiepiscopus & totius Angl: primas universis sancte matris ecclesie filiis & fidelibus salutem. Ad episcopale officium specialiter pertinere dinoscitur religiosarum personarum necessitatibus paterna sollicitudine providere & eiusdem auxilio & consilio non deesse. Nos ergo pietatis intuitu tranquillitati virginum & quieti in loco qui dicitur Poleswrd’ domino famulantium providentes prefatas virgines & custodes earum monachos de Carit’ & possessiones earum & omnia que ad ipsas pertinent in dei protectione & sancte Cantuar: ecclesie & nostra suscipimus. Dei & nostra authoritate prohibentes ne quis eas ausu sacrilego iniuste perturbare presumat. Rogamus autem in domino ut de bonis vestris que vobis a domino collata sunt illarum sustentetis inopiam ut a retributore bonorum omnium mercedem percipiatis vite eterne. Si quis autem quod absit vel bona illarum diripere vel eas ausu temerario in aliquo inquietare attemptaverit sciat produldubio quia suam vindicabit iniuriam sponsus virginum Christus qui animam & corpus potest mittere in gehennam.

Source: Bodl. Libr., Dugdale MS. 12, p. 18 (transcribed c.1640 by William Dugdale from original penes Francis Nethersole of Polesworth, knight: note on p. 25). This actum is not given in A. Saltman, Theobald, Archbishop of Canterbury (London, 1956).

Date: Consecrated archbishop of Canterbury in January 1139, Theobald became papal legate probably early in 1150 and the absence of that title indicates (although not certainly) an earlier date (Saltman, Theobald, pp. 30–1).

Footnotes