Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Reginald (d.1097)
REGINALD or RAINALD (d. 1097), abbot of Abingdon, Berkshire, was a secular clerk and one of the chaplains of William, duke of Normandy. He became a monk of Jumièges, and Duke William, then king of England, gave him at Rouen the abbacy of Abingdon on 19 June 1085 (Historia de Abingdon, ii. 15, 40), his predecessor Æthelhelm, also formerly a monk of Jumièges, having died on 10 Sept. 1084 (ib. p. 11). The king sent him to Walkelin, bishop of Winchester, to be installed in his office. He was received at Abingdon on 18 July, and on 15 Aug. was hallowed by Osmund [q. v.], bishop of Sarum. The tenants of the abbey had vigorously resisted the Conqueror's rule, and the house had accordingly suffered (ib. i. 486, 493; Norman Conquest, iv. 33, 37–8, 469); but some return to prosperity seems to have begun under Abbot Æthelhelm, and it increased during the earlier years of Reginald's abbacy. In 1087 Gilbert of Ghent presented the monastery with a house in the Strand, London, with a chapel dedicated to the Holy Innocents, which he had given to it in Æthelhelm's time, but had resumed at his death. It became the abbot's London lodging (Historia de Abingdon, ii. 15–16). On the accession of William Rufus, Reginald helped him in the distribution of his father's treasure among the minsters and other churches of England and the poor (ib. p. 41). At this time Rufus held him in high esteem, and gave a charter to him and his house. Though Reginald disposed of some of the convent's property to his son and personal friends, he set about rebuilding the church of the monastery with much earnestness, using materials and treasure collected for that purpose by his predecessor; and, in order to insure the co-operation of the villeins on the conventual estates, gathered them together and announced that several customs that pressed hardly upon them should be done away, provided that they would give the full tithes of their harvest for the restoration of the church. Robert of Oily or d'Oilgi [q. v.] was led by a dream to restore certain land that he had unjustly taken from the house in Abbot Æthelhelm's time, and also gave a large sum towards the building. After a time, however, enemies of the abbot set the king against him, so that his former regard for him was changed to hate; and he deprived the convent of much of its property. The king having crossed to Normandy in November 1097, Reginald followed him, probably on the convent's business, and died there before the end of the year (ib. p. 42).
His son William he caused to be well educated and to take holy orders. He presented him to the convent living of Marcham, near Abingdon, with some of the convent property. When taken with his last sickness in the time of Abbot Faricius, he assumed the monastic habit at Abingdon, and restored to the convent the church and land that he had received from his father (ib. p. 131).
[Historia de Abingdon, ii. passim (Rolls Ser.); Freeman's Norman Conquest, iv. 33, 37–8, 734, and William Rufus, ii. 265 n., 380–1 n.]