merely nominal, but such as strongly affected both their internal economy and their external character and history. The order of Clugny was originally Benedictine, and its members retained the black habit of that profession. Its formation in the early part of the tenth century, under a presumptively improved discipline, soon gained for it a distinctive name. William de Warren, whose wife was a step-daughter of the Conqueror, founded the first Clugniac house in England. The date of this foundation was 1077-8; the place, Lewes, in the county of Sussex. The first prior, Lanzo, and three other monks, his companions, were sent to England by the parent abbey. The monasteries of this order in England were indeed uniformly governed by priors of foreign appointment, if not themselves foreigners. They were subject to foreign visitation: they were occupied by a majority of foreign monks: their internal differences were settled by foreign arbitration. The bulk of their revenues went beyond sea. The Abbot of Clugny received at one period a fixed annual pension of £2000 from the English houses of his rule. The Prior of Lewes was his high chamberlain and vicar-general in England, Scotland and Ireland. Such was the allegiance owned by Wenlock, and at least thirty other English houses, most of them of greater antiquity than the reign of Henry II.

Yet, though thus in rank but a priory, and subject to a rigid and extortionate control, Wenlock was the oldest and most privileged, perhaps the wealthiest and most magnificent, of the religious houses of Shropshire.

For the germ of this splendid foundation we must revert to times of extreme antiquity, and accept the testimony of a writer, who, however trustworthy, lived more than four centuries after the event now to be mentioned, and may have derived his information from legendary sources of doubtful accuracy.

William of Malmesbury, who wrote in the earlier half of the twelfth century, tells us that St. Milburge, daughter of Merewald, (who founded Leominster Priory,) niece of Wulphere, and grand-daughter of Penda, kings

of Mercia, lived in a nunnery at Wenlock, and was buried there; moreover that the said nunnery was forsaken before the arrival of the Normans, and the place of the saint's sepulture forgotten.

Other authorities supply further, but perhaps less accurate, particulars, viz., that the older name of the place was Wimnicas, that the nunnery was founded by St. Milburge herself, and that she presided therein as abbess.

St. Milburge was sister of St. Mildred, and if her parentage be correctly described, she must have lived in the end of the seventh century, when also all that is true of the particulars quoted above must have taken place. Whatever was the nature of this first ecclesiastical foundation at Wenlock, the lapse of two centuries left little of it remaining beyond the sanctity of the foundress' name, and the veneration attaching to her place of burial. This destruction is attributed to the Danes, and if truly, will have been at the time of their conquest of Mercia, about A.D. 874.

The selection of the same place by Leofric, Earl of Mercia, and his wife Godiva, though for a religious establishment of very different character, was probably suggested by such popular traditions concerning the life and death of St. Milburge as had survived the disturbances of the next century and half.

Earl Leofric's foundation was in the time of King Edward the Confessor (1043-66), when also he founded Coventry and other religious houses. The nature of these foundations will have been of the usual Saxon character, viz., colleges of secular clergy combining more or less of the monastic element.

The extent of the possessions of the church of St. Milburge, as it was called, in the Confessor's reign, can be accurately determined on the authority of Domesday. Its manors were Erdington (near Bridgnorth), Wenlock (now Much Wenlock), Tichelevorde (corresponding to Eaton under Heywood), Madeley, Little Wenlock, Shipton, Petelie (whose modern name is uncertain),

Burton (near Wenlock), Godstoch (now Stoke St. Milburg), Dehocsele (now Deuxhill), Pickthorn, Sutton (near Salop), Clee (the exact site of which is a question), a small manor of half a hide (probably now Hughley), and one of the hundred hides then contained within the liberties of Shrewsbury. These possessions constituted a territory measuring 744 hides, which would be equivalent to nearly 18,000 of the acres of that period, and to a somewhat greater number of modern statute acres. A portion of this land (about a sixth) is noticed in Domesday as having been free of the impost called Danegeld in the time of King Canute (1017-35). Such immunity was not common among the manors of east Shropshire, and, if it arose from any religious connexion, must have been a relic of the earlier foundation of St. Milburge.

The annual income derivable from the whole, exclusive of the hide at Shrewsbury (which is not valued), amounted in the Confessor's time to nearly £50.

This second Saxon foundation at Wenlock will hardly have endured for thirty years. William of Malmesbury, as quoted above, speaks of Wenlock as forsaken at the arrival of the Normans; but it is evident that he used this language with reference to the foundation of St. Milburge, rather than to that of Leofric, of which indeed he seems to have been wholly ignorant. Taking his evidence however, in conjunction with that of Domesday, presently to be cited, we must conclude that during the gradual subjugation of the Saxon race, the church of St. Milburge was deserted, if not destroyed, and its possessions placed at the disposal of one of the Conqueror's followers. Who he was has now to be shown.

Roger de Montgomery, Vicomte of the Norman Oximin, though he did not (as stated by Dugdale) accompany Duke William in his first invasion, was yet brought hither by the Conqueror, on his second arrival here, in December, 1067. He forthwith was enriched with the honour of Chichester and Arundel, and in process of time with the county and earldom of Salop.

The latter investiture will have been subsequent to A.D. 1071, when the outlawry of Earls Morcar and Edwin, the grandsons of Earl Leofric, first placed such a gift at the Conqueror's disposal. The new earl, between this year (1071) and 1086, founded or restored the Church of St. Milburge at Wenlock-founded it, inasmuch as he instituted a new order of things, restored it, in so far as he endowed the new establishment with all, or nearly all, the possessions of the old.

And this was generally the Norman policy when dealing with such Saxon foundations as involved anything of the monastic element. Their possessions were not confiscated, but diverted to ecclesiastical objects more or less cognate with the original design. The year 1080 has been assigned as the specific year of this foundation of the Norman earl, and with much probability, for Wenlock Priory was a younger house than Lewes, which was originated in 1077-8, and older than Shrewsbury, which was first designed in February, 1083.

At this period the great Benedictine Abbey of Clugny was increasing in wealth and influence. Amongst its five principal and earliest affiliated priories were the French house of La Charité sur Loire, and the English house at Lewes. Wenlock was undoubtedly Clugniac from its first foundation by the Norman earl, but whether affiliated immediately on Clugny, or on the house of La Charité, is a question not decided, and perhaps not to be decided, by any existing evidence.

The antiquity of Wenlock Priory as compared with Shrewsbury Abbey has been asserted above. It rests on the evidence of Domesday, wherein the earl is spoken of as then making (facit) an abbey at Shrewsbury, and having made one (fecit) at Wenlock. And here it must be observed that the Domesday application of the word abbey to the religious house at Wenlock, is merely an inadvertent use of a general term, and by no means a justification of the prevalent misnomer first alluded to.

Of Earl Rogers' charter or charters of foundation, which were of course reduced to writing, nothing is

known to exist. The particulars must be gathered from Domesday, from which we learn, that six years after its alleged foundation, i. e. in 1086, the monks of Wenlock were possessed of nearly all that had been possessed by the church of St. Milburge in the Confessor's days.

The exceptions were the two manors of Erdington and Stoke St. Milburge. The latter had been temporarily assigned to the earl's private chaplains, but ultimately reverted to the priory; indeed the officers who took the Domesday survey, and who were Normans, distinctly notify the claim and better title of the priory. This is not the only instance of a grant of church property by Earl Roger to his chaplains, and as in the other case he limited his grant to a life interest, and directed a reversion to the church, it is most probable that such was the case with Stoke St. Milburge.

As regards Erdington the case was different. Up to the year 1086, no claim had been made by the church on that manor. It was then in the earl's hands, who will in this case have exercised the right of the dominant party in an act of simple confiscation. We shall see that this act was afterwards amended by the earl himself, but whether as one of impolicy, injustice, or sacrilege, we cannot now stop to inquire.

Enough has been said to show that at the time of Domesday, Wenlock Priory either possessed, or was shortly to possess, a territory equal in extent, and nearly identical, with that which had been held by the church of St. Milburge twenty years before.

A comparison therefore naturally suggests itself as to the relative value of this property at the two periods, which is found to have been as follows:-That which in the Confessor's time was estimated as annually productive of an income little short of £50, would, in 1086, realize barely £36. And the difference probably arose from the many hindrances to the peaceful cultivation of the soil, which must have arisen in Shropshire at the period. In 1086, the territory in question employed but