The dependent priory of Clare. 1090. and Streatham, the gift of Richard of Clare or of Tunbridge, him of whom we have so often heard. The possessions of Bec at Tooting, which had sunk to one fifth of their ancient value at the time of their grant to the abbey, had risen again to the value at which they were rated in the days of King Eadward.[1] The business arising out of these lands, all seemingly held in demesne, with a mill, churls, slaves, and other dependents, must have called for some care on the part of the abbot or of those whom he employed for the purpose. And it would seem that, on the whole, the monastic body had been a careful husband of its English estates. In after times also Bec became the head of several alien priories in England; but one only of these can be carried back with certainty to Anselm's day. This was the priory of Clare in Suffolk, afterwards moved to Stoke, which was founded as a cell to Bec while Anselm was abbot.[2] It was the gift of Gilbert of Clare, brother of Richard the other benefactor of the house, a house which seems to have had special attractions for the whole family of Count Gilbert.
Law-suits. Anselm was thus a land-owner on both sides of the sea, and, little as he loved temporal business, he could
- ↑ Domesday, 34 b. "Sancta Maria de Bech tenet de dono Ricardi Totinges. . . . T. R. E. et modo val. c. solidos; cum recepit xx. solidos." On these possessions of Bec in England during the reign of the Conqueror, see N. C. vol. iv. p. 440.
- ↑ See Mon. Angl. vii. 1052. An earlier church of secular canons was changed by Gilbert of Clare into a cell of Bec. It was removed to Stoke in 1124, made denizen in 1395, and restored to seculars in 1415. See Mon. Angl. vi. 1415. Weedon Beck in Northamptonshire is also said to have had a cell of Bec, founded shortly after the Conquest. Weedon appears three times in Domesday, 223, 224 b, 227; but there is no mention of Bec. Ernulf of Hesdin is also said to have founded a cell to Bec at Ruislip in Middlesex, Mon. Angl. vii. 1050. Ruislip appears in Domesday, 129 b, as a possession of Ernulf, but there is no mention of Bec. The chief dependency of Bec in England, Oakburn in Wiltshire, does not claim an earlier date or founder than Matilda of Wallingford, daughter of Robert of Oily, in 1149.
