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that essentially church building age, the twelfth century, William le Gros, earl of Albemarle and lord of Holderness, grandson of Odo, earl of Champagne one of the followers of the Conqueror, was distinguished among the Anglo-Norman barons for his liberality towards the religious orders. Besides the house of Albemarle in Normandy, three stately foundations in England—the Cistertian abbeys of Vaudey, or de Valle Dei, at Edenham in Lincolnshire, and of Meux in Yorkshire, and the Augustinian monastery of Thornton-upon-Humber, acknowledged him as their founder. He died in 1180, and is recorded by the grateful chronicler of Thornton as "an eminent founder of monasteries ."

Thornton abbey was the first in point of date of his establishments in England. It was founded on the feast of St. Hilary A.D. 1139, the fourth year of King Stephen.