A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE our Lady crowned and seated in a canopied niche, with a sceptre in her left hand, and the holy Child standing on her knee. On the left an abbot with crosier, and another figure on the right, under smaller canopies. Legend : S. COMUNE ABBATIS ET COVETUS DE WARDEN. The counter-seal shows a shield bearing a crosier between three Warden pears. Legend : spes mea in deo est. 5. THE ABBEY OF WOBURN The Cistercian abbey of Woburn was founded in the year 1145, 1 under the patron- age of Hugh de Bolebec. It was a colony sent from the abbey of Fountains in York- shire, and its first abbot, Alan, was a monk of that house. 2 To the manor of Woburn other gifts were soon added : Ralf Pirot of Harlington, William of Flitton, Henry and Stephen of Pulloxhill were amongst the ear- liest benefactors, whose charters were con- firmed by Henry II. before 1162; 3 and Ralf Pirot (who was a considerable feudal tenant of Robert dAlbini) himself became a monk in the abbey before his death. 4 On the manor of Medmenham in Bucks, granted by the daughter of Hugh de Bolebec, another abbey was built in the reign of King John. 8 The early history of the abbey is obscure. A few stray facts relating to the twelfth cen- tury and the early part of the thirteenth may be gathered from the annals of Waverley and Dunstable : as, for instance, that a prior of Woburn was made abbot of Combe in 1 1 83"; and that a long suit went on from about the same date until 1225, concerning the advowson of the church of Chesham, be- tween the abbots of Woburn and St. Alban's, and the prior of Dunstable. 7 The final agree- ment gave the church to Woburn, the other 27, no longer exists. A small seal of the twelfth century in white wax, representing an abbot with staff and book, encircled by the legend sigillvm- abbatis • de ■ sartis ■ gardoni, is mentioned by Gorham, History of St. Neot's, II. bxxiv. as existing among the evidences at Montague House, Pyx XXV. 1 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 231. 5 Dugdale, Mon. v. 301. 3 Ibid. p. 478. One of the witnesses to the charter is Thomas the Chancellor, whose name limits the date to this year. 4 From a note kindly furnished by Mr. Round. B Rot. Chart. 2 John, m. 17, gives permission to build ; Assize Roll, 1 3 John, 480, r. 4 in dorso, speaks of the abbey of Medmenham as built, and as the gift of Isabel de Bolebec (Countess of Ox- ford). « Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 243. ' Ibid. iii. 74, 93, 96 ; Cott. MS. Julius, D iii. f. 123b. houses receiving pensions. The abbots of this period, like all other heads of large and well known religious houses, took a consider- able part in public affairs, and were made ar- biters in local disputes as well as matters of wider interest. In 1202 an abbot of Woburn went to Worcester to inquire into the mir- acles which were alleged to have taken place at the shrine of St. Wulfstan, and in the next year he was made one of the papal commis- sioners for the process of canonisation. 8 In 1 21 5 another abbot is mentioned in one of the Letters Patent of King John, as having been an intercessor with him for Simon de Pateshull. 9 In 1234 the house was reduced to great poverty ; Abbot Richard, who had evidently been a bad manager, was removed, and Roger, a monk from Fountains, took his place, while nearly all the monks and lay brethren were dispersed amongst other houses until their own abbey should be able to support them again. 10 The canons of Dunstable did what they could to help their neighbours in distress, and presented them with a mill ; they may also have offered a home for the time to some of the monks. But the abbey was not long in recovering its prosperity ; for in 1240 a canon of Dunstable fled there, to escape from taking the oath imposed by Bishop Grossetete. 11 Fifty years later it was one of the wealthiest houses in the county. 12 There is no indica- tion of the number of monks at this time ; but as Warden Abbey, with very nearly the same income, held probably forty or fifty, we may conclude that Woburn had accommoda- tion for about as many. At the time of the dissolution there were it would seem less than twenty. Nothing can be gathered from the Lincoln Registers as to the internal history of the abbey during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, as it was exempt, like all Cistercian houses, from visitation. One of the unfor- tunate Templars was placed there in 131 1, 13 from which we may perhaps infer that the house was in good order at that time ; other- wise its history is almost a blank sheet, ex- cept for a few notices of loans to the king, impropriations of churches, etc., such as are common to all religious houses. But the cir- cumstances which led to the suppression of the house furnish us happily with a very full " Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iv. 391 ; Col. of Pap. Letters,'i. 13. « Litt. Pat. (Rec. Com.), i. 138. 10 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iii. 140. 11 Ibid. 1^7. » Pope tiich. Tax. (Rec. Com.) 13 Line. Epis. Reg., Memo. Dalderby, 194. 366
