Towards the end of the third century some Christians began to seek salvation by retreating from the world and conducting an austere and solitary personal life. A few retreated to the desert and subjected themselves to extreme conditions. The word monk, which came to be applied generally, derives from the Greek word monos, which means alone. Before too long those who wished for a more disciplined life formed communities and it then became necessary to establish common rules. By the 6th century the rule of Benedict (c. 480-550) was adopted by almost all western communities of monks. From there the monastic movement gained strength throughout western Europe and became well established in the British Isles.
There was a setback in the 9th century in England when successive Danish invasions practically wiped out monastic life and it was only after Alfred restored English control that monasteries were allowed to revive. This revival gained some strength in the 10th and 11th centuries and continued after the Norman Conquest and in the 12th century many Norman barons and clerics founded new monasteries.
By this time the monastic movement had developed from the dominance of the Benedictine rule. In 1098 a group of monks from the abbey of Molesme set up their own order in a remote abbey at Cîteaux. The new thinking was directed towards a more puritanical approach to life, it being felt that the Benedictines had become too a soft and comfortable after many years. A fresh start, attempting to ‘get back to basics’ motivated many and Cistercian monasteries became popular new foundations. Augustinian. Premonstratensian
One other dynamic in the growth and development of monasteries was the desire of rich and powerful men to save their souls. It was fully accepted that good works could reduce time in Purgatory and become a quick ticket to heaven. Rich and powerful people could not resist and nobody could argue that the foundation of a religious community was any less than a ‘good work.’
Titchfield was one of the later monastic foundations and owed its existence to peter des Roches, a rich and powerful bishop of Winchester in the early 13th century. His is not a name that has come down to us in popular history, yet for over thirty years he was at thje centre ofgovernment, under King John and his son Henry III. ‘Peter des Roches was as hard as rocks,’ wrote an anonymous monk in the Annals of Tewkesbury, no doubt chuckling to himself at the cleverness of his little joke, as he carefully inked his parchment with a goose quill, but, as with all jokes, lame or otherwise, there is a strong kernel of truth to the observation. Peter des Roches was a tough and uncompromising man who rose to power during the reign of King John and reinforced his standing during the reign of his son Henry III. He was consecrated bishop of Winchester on 25 September 1205 and he held onto this rich and powerful benefice until his death in 1238. He was a warrior bishop, belonging to an older tradition which was already coming under criticism in his lifetime. One satirical poem described him as ‘The warrior of Winchester, up at the exchequer, keen on finance, slack at the scriptures.’ 1
His date of birth is unknown but he sprang from a knightly family in Touraine. Guillaume des Roches, who may have been his father, was Seneschal of Anjou and one of the leading figures in the government of Philip II of France. Peter first emerges as a witness to a charter of Richard I in 1197 and he exploited this connection to acquire church benefices in the Tours region of France, at the time under English control. He was appointed prior of Loches, dean of St Martin’s at Angers, and treasurer of the collegiate church of St Hilaire at Poitiers. At an early date he was valued for his administrative skills as well as his military expertise. Yet another monkish chronicler, Roger of Wendover, remarked that he had been better versed in his youth in how to lay siege to a castle than in preaching the word of God. We might take it then that Peter des Roches was a highly secular man who used the church to advance himself in the political sphere. He was not the first of his kind, nor would he be the last.
After Richard’s death in 1199, he committed himself to the uncertain kingship of King John, and after John lost Normandy in 1203 he moved to England. He was immediately rewarded with several benefices, and after the death of the bishop of Winchester, Godfrey de Lucy, in 1204, was put forward by John as his replacement. His candidacy was contested, but John’s will was strong enough to ensure that the Pope confirmed his choice in 1205. The see of Winchester was the plum of all English bishoprics, richer even than Canterbury, and it made its holder the wealthiest and most powerful of English bishops. From the king’s perspective this was a good appointment; Peter’s administrative skills became central to John’s reign as the king was ever on the lookout for additional revenue. As head of the king’s household he oversaw expenditure on castles and military operations and he also entertained diplomatic envoys. He was zealous in raising taxes and was not above selling justice when it suited him and his master. There was also a period when it became easy to exploit the jews. Peter was not above such skulduggery.
Moreover, he was loyal to John, who held him in high regard and entrusted the education and upbringing of his eldest son Henry to the bishop. Peter remained on good terms with Henry throughout his life and this helped to keep him in power in the next reign.
He was in essence King John’s right hand man. In February 1214 John appointed him Chief Justiciar, effectively regent in England, while he led an expedition to Poitou. Peter was extremely partial to John and he naturally gave precedence to his own followers and his tough-minded rule as regent led to a worsening of relations between the king and some of the barons and the city of London. Relations between the monarchy and the baronial class deteriorated in the face of the king’s intransigent policy and it eventually led to the famous confrontation at Runymede and the reluctant acknowledgement of the Magna Carta. Peter was not one of the winners in this begrudging settlement. One of the conditions of the settlement was that des Roches was replaced as justiciar by Hubert de Burgh.
Almost immediately John attempted to backtrack on the commitments made at Runnymede. He still had supporters and Peter des Roches remained amongst the most prominent, but an unwillingness on both sides to compromise made civil war the only outcome and it was not settled at John’s death in 1216. A significant number of barons even recognised Louis, the dauphin of France, as king, and he arrived in England with an invading force to find much local support. Some remained loyal to the English king, the 9 year old Henry III, and the great William Marshall, earl of Pembroke, and a prominent servant of four Kings from Henry II to his boyish grandson, was critical in rallying men to the English cause. Peter des Roches was also undeviating in his support and it was he who commanded the crossbowmen who proved triumphant at the Battle of Lincoln, 20 May 1217.
His men discovered a blocked up and undefended gate in the city walls, and once breached, they were able to enter the city and overcome the rebels. It was a costly defeat for the rebels. Peter used the opportunity to exact heavy ransoms from his prisoners. The battle also turned the tide in the royalists favour and Peter and others were able to enter London in September of that year and accept the rebels’ final surrender. He was able to resume many of his duties with the royal household and he became sheriff of Hampshire and was given oversight of several royal castles and forests. He was still a major player in government but relations with Hubert de Burgh became increasingly difficult and Peter was squeezed out of the central role he had held in English politics for over 15 years. His removal from office was arranged peaceably, possibly with the approval of the boy-king, and Peter voluntarily bowed out of his central role in English government. these became the ‘wilderness years’ for {eter’s political ambitions.
The medieval mindset is sometimes hard to reach. It was a religious age and people devoutly believed the teachings of Christianity. Worldly men like the bishop of Winchester seemed to find no conflict between their actions as men of state and their sincerely held belief in the teachings of Christ. In many respects it was quite consistent of Peter des Roches to choose this juncture in his career to seek absolution for his sins. In the Spring of 1221 he went on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in Castille and during his absence Hubert de Burgh went on the offensive against two of des Roche’s allies, Faulkes de Bréauté and Peter de Maulay. de Maulay was charged with plotting to deliver up England to the French but on des Roches’ return the charges were dismissed. However, des Roches lost custody of the underage king and effectively was frozen out of power. He was deprived of his power base in Hampshire and fined £500 (millions today) for his supposed debts to the exchequer. At this point he resolved to go on a Crusade.
With his old military skills newly energised he assumed command of the English contingent and joined forced with the emperor Frederick II. Jerusalem was won back to Christian rule and he was able to enter the city in March 1229. He returned to Italy in May 1229 and was able to bring about a peace treaty between Frederick and the Pope. He spent the next two years at the papal court and did not return to England until July 1231.
The star of his old enemy Hubert de Burgh was now on the wane and Peter found himself back in favour with his former protégé, the young king. But, after a decade, the road back to power was to some degree blocked by younger men and des Roches found himself with influence but not the level of power he had once enjoyed. He turned his attention to his legacy and founded a series of hospitals and monasteries. Among them, Titchfield Abbey.
Titchfield had been a royal manor since Saxon times and Peter persuaded Henry III to endow his proposed monastery with these lands. It was a generous bequest and Henry III signed the charter which gave the abbey the fullest privileges. The new abbey was given the manor of Titchfield, together with lands in Swanwick, Porchester, Walsworth and Cosham. Peter invited some Premonstratensian monks from Hales Abbey in Worcestershire – an abbey he had founded in 1222 – to move to Hampshire to build the new abbey.
The Premonstratensians were never as numerous or widespread as the Benedictines or the Cistercians. The order was founded in 1120 by Norbert of Xanten in a place called Prémontré in North Eastern France. He started with thirteen followers. They were to follow the rule of St Augustine, together with some additional rules, but one critical difference between the followers of Norbert and other monkish orders was that the Premonstratensians were all ordained priests. Thus they were able to celebrate the mass and conduct priestly offices in communities neighbouring the abbeys. By virtue of this distinction they were literate and educated men and it is perhaps no surprise that Titchfield Abbey had acquired volumes for a substantial library.
The Premonstratensians first arrived in England in 1143, where they set up their first abbey at Newhouse in Lincolnshire. Titchfield followed almost 90 years later. At the time of the dissolution there were 35 Premonstratensian abbeys in England.
As for Peter des Roches he made a huge contribution to religious foundations in the last 18 years of his life. He managed to double the income from his episcopal estates and used it generously. In addition to his foundation of Hales and Titchfield he established an Augustinian Priory at Selborne, a Cistercian House at Netley and another at Clarté Dieu in Touraine. He brought the Dominican Friars to Winchester and founded a hospital, domus Dei, in Portsmouth. He re-founded the hospital of St Thomas in Southwark and while on his crusade re-established the hospital of St Thomas of Acre in the Holy Land. He also spent a great deal of money re-furbishing and enlarging the Minster at Winchester, which later became Winchester Cathedral. Few could match this record in the 13th century.
These were the major projects. He is also known to have patronised hermits and anchoresses and there were large scale distributions of alms to the poor. He supported a large number of clerks and knight, both within his own household and on the fringes of court.
Whether or not this passion for building had any influence on his young protégé, Henry III, is a matter for speculation; however, Henry showed a considerable appetite for building throughout his long reign. He tended to take more of an interest in such matters than statecraft and his turbulent reign possibly suffered through his devotion to building.
He rebuilt Westminster Abbey in 1245 and the building that is visible today is mainly the creation of Henry III. He also considerably enlarged the Palace of Westminster, the basis for the later Houses of Parliament. Similarly, he expanded the Great Hall at Winchester. As we have already mentioned, conjured up the original endowment for Titchfield Abbey. He remained loyal to the foundations of Peter des Roches and in 1240, when Netley Abbey was experiencing some difficulty, stepped in as patron of the Cistercian monastery.
Henry III died at the age of 65, a good long age for a medieval king, in 1272. He had been king for 50 years, another record for longevity. Yet he had a troubled reign. The barons remained restive after 1215 and were constantly challenging for their perceived rights. The Magna Carta was reissued several times in a revised form during Henry’s reign and the English Parliament, which arguably had its origins in the negotiations at Runnymede in 1215, gradually developed into a formal institution by the end of Henry’s reign. It is unlikely that he ever visited Titchfield, but his grant to Peter des Roches in 1231 created an institution which was to dominate Titchfield for 300 years.
Peter des Roches died at the episcopal manor of Farnham on 9 June 1238, probably in his sixties. His heart was buried at Waverley Abbey nearby and his body at Winchester. His tomb lies in Winchester Cathedral and has a black marble effigy lying on the top.
He was a considerable man with considerable achievements to his name, not least of which was the establishment of a system of accounting for his estates, preserved in the Winchester Pipe Rolls. Yet he is curiously less well regarded than some of the other great medieval bishops of Winchester, such as Henry of Blois, William of Wykeham and Cardinal Beaufort. This may be because his monuments did not survive. Whereas Henry of Blois can be remembered by the ruins of Wolvesey Castle and the palace at Bishops Waltham, and William of Wykeham’s tenure is forever preserved by Winchester College and New College, Oxford, and Henry Beaufort left his foundation at St Cross, Peter des Roches has been unlucky. The monastic foundations in England came to their demise in 1538, exactly 300 years after Peter’s death, and many, including Titchfield Abbey and Netley Abbey, were converted to palatial country houses. The hospitals disappeared and even though St Thomas Hospital was again re-founded and rebuilt in the 17th century, Peter des Roches receives no credit.
Henry III’s grant of lands for the monastery of Titchfield similarly left no indelible footprint. the foundations of the conventual buildings are visible in the ground, but it is the Tudor gatehouse that attracts attention. Henry III, despite his very long reign, has only a marginal impact on public imagination. Whereas historians can colourfully document the legislative achievements of Henry II, the crusading generalship of Richard I and the aggressive incompetence of John, the reign of his eldest son is often skated over in order to mark the military achievements of Edward I. Henry III’s brief intervention. in the life of the village of Titchfield did have consequences for several hundred years after.
In 1232 Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, invited a group of canons from the Premonstratensian Abbey of Halesowen in Worcestershire (which he had also founded) to establish a new community at Titchfield. We do not know why he chose this particular site, though it may have been intended at least in part as a respectable guesthouse accessible to Winchester, at the head of a tidal estuary and convenient for embarkation to France.
Later bishops were to claim the right to lodge at the abbey whenever they returned from a journey overseas, and some important visitors used the Abbot as a kind of travel agent, asking him to arrange their journeys from Southampton and elsewhere. The estuary also made it possible to import stone from the Isle of Wight, Normandy and Dorset from which the abbey was built. Timber could be obtained from the woodland which covered the parish to the north of the abbey site.
Titchfield Abbey was of the Order of Premontre, which had been founded in the early part of the twelfth century by St. Norbert. Norbert’s followers were called canons and they based their rules on those of St. Augustine. To differentiate them from the Augustinian Order, which wore black, the founder of the Premonstratensian Order was given permission to clothe his canons in white. Hence their popular name ‘White Canons”. Monks are members of Orders which follow St. Benedict, Cluniacs and Benedictines (black), Cistercians and Carthusians (white), canons are members of orders which derived their rules from St. Augustine.
Those who visit the abbey expecting to see traces of its medieval splendour will be disappointed, for apart from an odd piece of wall here and there, patches of medieval tiles, a couple of wells and two abbots’ graves, there is little to remind us that the ground was once covered with monastery buildings like those better preserved at Netley. However, as a result of the patient efforts of archaeologists at the beginning of this century, the ground plan has been fairly well established, though some of the original construction has been obscured by the later Tudor conversion to a nobleman’s house.
Apart from those of the Carthusians, practically all abbeys and monasteries were based on a similar plan, which had as its main feature a church built in the shape of a Latin cross. The church was the centre of the whole abbey and every other part was complementary to it; it is significant that at the dissolution the churches of many monasteries (though not Titchfield) were left standing while the remaining buildings were tom down. Because the first and most important purpose of a monastery or abbey was to worship and glorify God, the church was the spiritual centre around which everything else revolved. It was here that the abbot and his canons spent much of their day, sitting in the canopied choir stalls and separated from the nave by a screen, which was often wonderfully carved and bore a crucifix. The ordinary people and lay-brothers worshipped in the nave, which effectively became a separate church. On Sundays and Saints’ Days the canons, in solemn procession would make their way through the cloisters, then into the nave, where they visited each altar sprinkling holy water while anthems were chanted.
We know the locations of some, but not all, of the main rooms of the abbey (see the plan). The canons’ bedroom the dormitory or “dorter ” was situated as near to the church as possible on the east side of the cloister, above the warming room and parlour. This arrangement enabled the canons to come down the “night stairs” into their places in the choir without exposing themselves to the elements. Such a provision seems essential when it is realised that every night they left the J dorter at 2 a.m. for the first service of Matins. The warming-room was the only place in the abbey where the canons could warm their hands and feet in winter, when the unheated church must have chilled their bones. The term “parlour” derives from the room in which the monks could meet relatives and callers from the outside world and talk more freely than in the cloisters.
Next to the church the chapter house was the most important part of the abbey, for it was here that following the late morning service the canons assembled. The abbot presided over the chapter, confessions were heard and punishment awarded – in some cases this might be a whipping with the birch. The business of granting charters, purchase of land, appointments of officials and general day-to-day organisation were all part of the duties of the chapter. While it was in session the doors were locked. Decisions were made by a show of hands in much the same way as at a modem committee. At Titchfield Abbey, the foundations of the chapter house are plain to see and we can see that with its vaulted roof supported by elegant pillars and triple entrance arch with Purbeck marble shafts (still intact), it was originally a fine building.
Frater was a Norman-French word for the “refectory” or “dining room”, an extension on the north side of the abbey. Today, unfortunately, only a small portion of the south wall is seen, for much of the remains in this area are in the grounds of the adjoining property and have not been uncovered. In the frater the canons met for their one or two meals each day, eaten in silence, while a junior member read aloud from the pulpit. There is an excellent example of a refectory with a pulpit and stairs at Beaulieu.
Before and after their meals the canons washed their hands in the lavatory, the name given to the washing place: a good illustration of how a word has changed its meaning. The lavatory was a long room with a raised trough or sometimes even wash basins made of stone or marble, supplied with running water and towels kept in a cupboard nearby. Washing was a strictly kept ritual, and abbeys often had piped water long before the houses of wealthy citizens.
All Premonstratensian establishments were headed by an abbot. The abbot was an important personage and wielded considerable authority in the neighbourhood. Sometimes he had the privilege of wearing a mitre and carrying a pastoral staff, just as a bishop does today. An unusual duty was to attend Parliament – a doubtful privilege – and instances are on record of abbots refusing to attend and even bribing the Clerk of Parliament not to summon them! The abbot was father of the house, not merely an earthly father but a spiritual father too. When he appeared all had to rise and bow as he passed by. When he returned from a long journey he would be met by all the canons and led in procession to the high altar where prayers of thanks would be said or chanted. He had great power and authority once he was elected, and held the position for life unless his health – or a misdemeanour – caused him to resign. In some abbeys he was assisted by a prior or assistant who was responsible for the day-to-day affairs of the abbey, seeing the lights were out and doors locked, and that the canons were in their stalls at the correct time. A senior canon would be given the important position of cellarer. He had to supervise everything to do with food, drink and fuel, repairs to the abbey fabric and outlying farms, purchases of bacon, salt, dried fish and wine, iron, wood, ploughs and carts. All the details of the cost were set down in meticulous form. He also supervised all the employees of the abbey, including those on distant manors and granges, and his duties often caused him to be away from his seat in the choir.
The canon called the kitchener was in charge of all the meals served, and this, too, was a weighty responsibility. For the abbey not only had to feed its own people, but important travellers with large retinues would often demand hospitality. A quotation from “The Customs of Barnwell” – an early reference work on monastic matters – reads “the kitchener must see that all meals are served on time, the plates must be unbroken and not dirty on the underside so as to stain the tablecloth”!
The hosteller’s duties were “to look after the guests and be hospitable, to see that the beds were clean and no spider webs in the guest house”. He was to be there when travellers left to make sure they had left nothing behind and, more importantly, that they had not taken anything belonging to the abbey.
The brother in charge of the infirmary was the almoner. One of his duties, apart from looking after the sick, was to dispense alms, and the rule book already quoted said: “he was to give a special priority to pilgrims, chaplins, beggars and lepers and those down on their luck, remembering at all times that they were all God’s creatures”.
There was also a librarian, a particularly important post at Titchfield Abbey, which had an excellent library, housed in a small room next to the chapter house. The catalogue of this library still exists in the manuscript collection of the British Library in London. There were nearly a thousand works in the library, not printed of course, but painstakingly copied by hand and bound together into 224 volumes. Most of the works were of a religious nature, but a number also covered law and medicine, and there was an agricultural text book and one book of fables. The volumes were arranged in bookcases and numbered by the shelf and their order on the shelf; for instance shelf A, volume 4 was Bible in verse. Volume P10 is now in the British Library in London and volume P13 is in Hampshire Records Office, Winchester.
In addition to these duties at the abbey, one canon normally served as canon-vicar at Titchfield Church, another as the canon-chaplain Crofton, and from time to time others lived as resident canon-bailiffs on outlying manors such as Inkpen in Berkshire.
This brief outline of its officials is sufficient to show what a busy institution an abbey was, especially when it is realised that although they were assisted by a large number of lay brothers and other servants there were never more than 14 canons resident at Titchfield at any one time.
We know a great deal about the abbey’s estates but surprisingly little about its internal affairs and the lives of those who made up the community. Some light was thrown on aspects of abbey life through the system of “visitations”. We know that the abbey was ruled from 1231 to 1537 by a line of twenty abbots. It is likely that the plague of 1349 visited the abbey, for the abbot, Peter de Wynton, appointed only on 8 June 1348 died on 14 August 1349.
It was the head of the particular Order who sent visitors to report back on each of the daughter abbeys. In the case of Titchfield, the head of the Premonstratensian Order, living at Premontre in France, appointed Bishop Redman, who was also Abbot of Shap in Cumberland, to visit Titchfield in 1478. He came to Titchfield on 2nd July and found a community of thirteen canons under Abbot William Austin living there. The bishop reported that the discipline was excellent and that he found nothing serious to correct or to report to his superior. He did, however, suggest that a better keeping of silence in the frater would help to attain greater perfection. The debt of the abbey was shown to be £40, but this was expected to be paid off soon. A good supply of provisions was seen in the storehouse. Four years later. Bishop Redman was again making his rounds, finding everything much the same – although the names on the register had changed somewhat. This time special commendation is passed on the abbot’s administration: the old structure was in good repair and new buildings had been erected.
One amusing incident was brought to the bishop’s notice. It was the case of one of the inmates, Ralph Axminster, who had left his dormitory at night to fish in the lake within the grounds. Why he did and whether he was punished for such a heinous offence we shall never know, but the site of the pond is there for all to see today.
Six more years pass before we read of the next visitation: by this time William Austin had been dead two years (1486), and Thomas Oke was now abbot. Again he reported that the abbey had a debt, this time £100. Bishop Redman made further visits in 1491,1494,1497 and 1502, but they add little fresh information to the abbey chronicles. The debt fluctuated from visit to visit, but it shows that the widely held belief that all the religious houses were extremely wealthy was untrue.
The next abbot was Thomas Blankepayne, who had entered the abbey as a boy. When he died in 1529, he had served the abbey for 46 years – remarkable when one considers the average span of life in those days.
John Max, Abbot of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, was elected to follow Blankepayne, and in turn was succeeded by John Sympson in 1535. Sympson had the painful duty of presiding over the abbey during the preparations for its ignominious destruction in 1537. It is assumed that his appointment was connived at in order that he should prepare for the dissolution, although he did indeed resign in 1536.
An important feature of many abbeys were their fishponds, but it is very rare to find them today – or even traces of their sites. Here at Titchfield we are fortunate in being able to examine a series of ponds, recently restored by the owners of the adjacent Carron Row Farm.
Why were these ponds constructed? The answer lies in the vows which strictly governed the daily lives of all the monks and canons. Among the vows which governed their eating was one which said that no fresh meat was to be consumed. There were some exceptions, such as when canons were in hospital; then pittances (small amounts of fresh meat) could be prescribed for certain ailments – or awarded by the abbot as a special treat. As one alternative they turned to fish; and to ensure a constant supply for the abbey kitchens many ponds were essential.
To find suitable places where the ponds could be located was not always easy, but at Titchfield there was a convenient valley running to the back of the abbey, parallel with Segensworth Road. In this area the canons set up a fish farm. It perhaps originally consisted of five ponds, each one connected to the one below by a spillway, so that each when full allowed water to be fed into the one below. The dams were made by felling large oaks and laying them across the floor of the valley to form a base for the retaining dam. Huge quantities of earth, excavated from inside the pond, were necessary to raise the banks to the required height and to make them strong enough to withstand the pressure as the water level built up.
Numerous species of freshwater fish were used to stock the ponds: roach, carp, eels and perch were recorded as suitable for the table. The amount of information about this aspect of monastic activities is very sparse and little research on the management of fishponds appears to have been carried out.
Another important purpose of the abbey ponds was the provision of a constant supply of water. Nowadays we take for granted an unlimited supply of clean water in every house, but the canons had to devise their own means of providing the large quantities necessary for the needs of their establishment. From the corner of the lowest pond, (which has not yet been restored, as it is under different ownership), a brick conduit channels the water under the abbey wall where it would have been piped to various locations, such as the kitchens, brewhouse, lavatory (wash house) and stables. The toilets (reredorter) were also flushed. The channel must have drained into the river near the Fisherman’s Rest. Netley Abbey still has a good example of the arrangement, complete with running water.
The abbey, having been the lord and landowner of Titchfield for just over 300 years, was finally formally surrendered to the Crown on 28 December 1537. It was then said to have in its possession the manors of Titchfield, Abshot, Posbrook, “Newcourt Parva”, Fontley, Swanwick, Crofton, Mirabell, Newland, Wallsworth, Portsea, Copnor, Cadland, Corhampton, Wicor in Portchester and Inkpen in Berkshire; and other land in Wickham, “Warsashfield” Brook, Portchester and elsewhere; with the churches of Titchfield, Lomer and Corhampton. The site of the abbey and the estates were granted to Thomas Wriothesley.
1T. , The political songs of England from the reign of John to that of Edward II, CS, 6 (1839), p. 10-11.