Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/15



Cotton Manuscript Vespasian F. xv. contains the Nigrum Registrum prioratus de Lewes quod fieri fecit Robertus Auncell, prior, Anno Domini 1444, which was formerly belonging to the earls of Dorset, whose ancestor had a grant from the crown of the site of the priory of Lewes, and was subsequently in the hands of Sir Edward Byshe and Doctor Matthew Hutton, by whom it was given to Sir Robert Cotton. Being of so late a date the narrative portion of its contents is utterly unworthy of being considered as any authority, and the assertion it contains that William de Warren, the founder, was made earl of Surrey by William the Conqueror, and that he married his daughter, is disproved by the charter, copied from another register of Lewes (which was in the possession of John Selden, Esquire, in 1049, and doubtless of earlier date) by Dugdale, and printed in the Monasticon in 1655. In neither of these repositories is there any copy of the original charter of foundation, which had been sent to the abbey of Cluny, in Burgundy, to which this priory was a cell, by reason of the refusal of Hugh, the abbot, to send over monks until he had received the said charter, and had obtained the king's license for their admission into England.

The first endowment made during the reign of William the Conqueror is now only to be collected from the entries of its possessions in Domesday book, and from an original charter of that king, which is preserved in the Cottonian manuscript, Vespasian F. 111 fol. 1, now in part illegible, owing to decay