and the comparatively new minster of Hyde in the city of Winchester.* These feuds arose probably from different orders being crowded within the narrow limits of a city, or garrison-town, where every inch of ground was precious, and an object of contention. But with us, as far as my evidences extend, and while Robert Saunford was master,† and Richard Carpenter was preceptor, the Templars and the Priors lived in an intercourse of mutual good offices.
My papers mention three transactions, the exact time of which cannot be ascertained, because they fell out before dates were usually inserted; though probably they happened about the middle of the thirteenth century, not long after Saunford became master. The first of these is that the Templars shall pay to the priory of Selborne, annually, the sum of ten shillings at two half-yearly payments from their chamber, “camera,” at Sudington, “per
* NOTITIA MONASTICA, p. 155.
“Winchester, Newminster. King Alfred founded here first only a house and chapel for the learned monk Grimbald, whom he had brought out of Flanders; but afterwards projected, and by his will ordered, a noble Church or religious house to be built in the cemetery on the north side of the old minster or cathedral, and designed that Grimbald should preside over it. This was begun A.D. 901, and finished to the honour of the Holy Trinity, Virgin Mary, and St. Peter, by his son King Edward, who placed therein secular canons, but A.D. 963 they were expelled, and an abbot and monks put in possession by bishop Ethelwold.
“Now the churches and habitations of these two societies being so very near together, the differences which were occasioned by their singing, bells, and other matters, arose to so great a height, that the religious of the new monastery thought fit, about A.D. 1119, to remove to a better and more quiet situation without the walls, on the north part of the city called Hyde, where King Edward I., at the instance of Will. Gifford, Bishop of Winton, founded a stately abbey for them. St. Peter was generally accounted patron; though it is sometimes called the monastery of St. Grimbald, and sometimes of St. Barnabas,” etc.
NOTE.—A few years since a county bridewell, or house of correction, has been built on the immediate site of Hyde Abbey. In digging up the old foundations the workmen found the head of a crosier in good preservation.
† Robert Saunforde was Master of the Temple in 1241; Guido de Foresta was the next in 1292. The former is fifth in a list of the masters, in a MS. “Bib. Cotton. Nero. E. VI.”
