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 RELIGIOUS HOUSES is on the whole least friendly to the Cistercians : he says once that the monks of Warden ' did us much harm,' ' and there were occasional disputes with Woburn about tolls and tithes, 3 but he has plenty of sympathy with the misfortunes of both. 3 Suits there were occasionally amongst them all, and they must have been difficult to avoid, when fields belonging to different houses lay so close together in the same parish, as in many parts of the Bedford, Fleete and Dunstable deaneries ; but they are in very small proportion to the suits with seculars. Especially noteworthy is the fact that though the monks of St. Albans had a school in Dunstable, and wide lands at Luton close to those belonging to the canons, not a single suit between the priory and the abbey is on record. The friars indeed, here as elsewhere, were the object of much jealousy to the old religious : and yet their intercourse with Dunstable and Mark- yate priories was not altogether unfriendly, as will be shown in detail under the history of their houses. HOUSE OF BENEDICTINE MONKS i. THE PRIORY OF BEAULIEU The priory of Beaulieu was founded be- tween 1140 4 and 1 146 upon the site of a hermitage at Moddry in the parish of Clop- hill, granted to Ralf the hermit by Henry d'Albini, and afterwards by his son Robert d'Albini to the abbey of St. Albans as a cell of that monastery. 6 A small cell had already been founded at Millbrook under Richard, the fifteenth abbot 6 (1097-1 1 19), and this was merged in the new priory. 7 The house was never an important one, as it was always small and poor. The original endowment only provided for four or five monks, 8 and it is not likely that their number was increased 1 Ann. Mon. (Rolls Series), iii. 1 80. a Ibid. 74, 93, etc. Mostly about the tithes of Chesham. 3 Ibid. 32, 140, 192. 4 The date falls between the death of Henry d'Albini (who founded Sopwell Nunnery 1 140) and that of Geoffrey, abbot of St. Alban's (i 1 19-46). s Foundation Charter, Arundel MS. 34, f. 32 ; Lansd. MS. 863, f. 83b. 8 Granted by Neel de Wast, and confirmed by Henry d'Albini (Foundation Charter, and Matth. Paris, Gesta Abbatum [Rolls Series], i. 67). Henry d'Albini and his brothers had also given to St. Alban's the church of Clophill, and tithes of Cainhoe and Cotes (Cott. MS. Nero, D vii. f. 98 ; Matth. Paris, Gesta Abbatum [Rolls Series], i. 68). 7 Matth. Paris, Gesta Abbatum (Rolls Series), i.78. 8 The inquisition held in 1433 (J. de Amunde- sham, Ann. Mon. S. Albani [Rolls Series], ii. 109) proved that the manor of Beaulieu in the parish of Clophill was granted to sustain for ever four monks to serve the chapel of Cainhoe ; and another carucate of land given later was to support one 351 at any time. Early in the thirteenth cen- tury the prior was involved in a long suit in the Curia Regis," concerning the church of Milton Ernest, which the son of the founder wished to recover for himself; but it re- mained finally with the religious, and was granted to them afresh in proprios usus by Bishop Gravesend in 1275 on account of their poverty. 10 At some time in the four- teenth century the house was partially de- stroyed by fire ; " it suffered probably also from the general depreciation of property after the great pestilence. Finally, near the beginning of the fifteenth century, when Abbot John of Wheathampstead ' went down into the garden of nuts, to see if the vines were flourishing and the pomegranates were bearing fruit ' 13 — in other words, made a visitation of the cells — he found Beaulieu in such a poverty-stricken condition 13 that it more to serve the chapel of St. Machutus in Haynes. 8 Cur. Reg. R. 15 John, 58, No. 4. 10 Line. Epis. Reg., Rolls of Grosset^te. 11 Cott. MS. Nero, D vii. f. in. Margaret, Coun- tess of Norfolk, among other gifts, ' dedit cells nostra; de Bello Loco vastata per incendium, xx marcas.' 11 J. de Amundesham, Ann. Mon. S. Albani (Rolls Series), ii. 105. " ' Adeo collapsa et facultatibus per sinistros eventus diminuta ' (Supplication to the pope, in Arundel MS. 34, f. 33b). The priory had been unable to contribute anything to the abbey be- tween 1396 and 1401, and a wall built round it about this time was erected at the expense of the abbey (Matth. Paris, Gesta Abbatum [Rolls Series], iii. 455, 456).