Page:VCH London 1.djvu/649

 RELIGIOUS HOUSES COLLEGES 33. THE COLLEGIATE CHURCH OF ST. MARTIN LE GRAND The dedication in honour of St. Martin, a favourite saint of Christian Britain, and archi- tectural remains found in the nineteenth century, point to the early existence of a church in this place,' but nothing certain is known except that in 1068 William the Conqueror confirmed a grant of lands made a few months before by a certain Ingelric to the church of St. Martin in London, which he and his brother Girard had built at their own cost as a foundation of secular canons.^ Ingelric, who was a priest, most prob- ably of foreign origin, appears to have held an official position under both Edward the Con- fessor and William,' and in consequence the college was from the first not only well endowed but highly privileged. To the lands given by Ingelric, viz. Easter, Mashbury, Norton, Stan- ford, Fobbing, 'Benedist' Chrishall, Tolleshunt, Rivenhall, and Ongar, a hide in Benfleet, a hide in Hoddesdon, and 2 hides with the church in Mal- don, William added some land and moor outside Cripplegatc ; he made the college free from all episcopal and archidiaconal exactions and from services due to the crown, and granted them sac and soc, tol and team, infangcnthcf, blodwyte, burghbricc, miskenning, &c.* The king directed the canons to choose of their number a suitable guardian of their goods who should keep them faithfully and distribute to each his share without deceit, so that the rest, freed from care, might devote themselves to prayer.' This appears to have been the origin of the deanery. Ingelric became the first dean,' but, like a number of his successors, seems still to have remained a royal official,' and so far de- tached from the college that the possessions of the deanery could be regarded as his private property.* The confusion caused by this dual capacity may be responsible for the grant made • Kempe, The Ch. of St. Martin le Grand, 5, 6. The foundation of the church has been variously ascribed to Cadwallein, to his followers in his memory, and to Wythred king of Kent. Tanner, 'Notit. Mon. ; Harl. MS. 261, fol. 107. ' Doc. of D. and C. ofWestm. Reg. St. Martin le Grand, fol. i ; Lansd. MS. 170 (a transcript of the register), fol. 52 ; Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 1324. ' Round, The Commune of London, 28, 36. ' Kempe, op. cit. 10 ; Round, The Commune of London, 28. ' Round, op. cit. ' Charter of Count Eustace, Reg. of St. Martin le Grand, fol. ob ; Lansd. MS. 170, fol. 61 ; Kempe, op. cit. 34. by the Conqueror on Ingelric's death of the church of St. Martin and all its property to Eustace count of Boulogne.^ If a charter in which the king refers to St. Martin's as his royal free chapel is rightly attributed to Henry I — though on this point there is room for doubt '° — it is difficult to say what relations were established by this grant between the church and the count. Otherwise it would seem that Eustace thus became patron, for William Rufus, after a quarrel with the count, seized the land outside Cripplegate belonging to the church ; " Queen Matilda, the heiress of Boulogne, speaks of ' my canons of St. Martin's,' '^ and William count of Boulogne was styled ' ad- vocatus' of St. Martin's in 11 58." There is also no evidence of the appointment of a dean by the king, as such, before the death of Count William in 1 1 60 ; as the Boulogne inheritance then passed to a woman, '^ it is possible that Henry II took the opportunity to make fresh arrangements with regard to the lands and rights of the honour. The tie between St. Martin's and the Boulogne family being of this nature, the college might reasonably expect its fortune to rise when the heiress of Boulogne became queen ; and it is perhaps worth notice that of the two churches added to St. Martin's in the reign of Henry I, St. Botolph's Aldersgate was given by Thurstan, a priest,^' and St. Mary's Newport, through Roger '° bishop of Salisbury, the dean, probably » Reg of St. Martin le Grand, fol. ob. " It is dated 39th year, so that unless the scribe made a mistake in transcription the charter cannot have been by Henry I. Reg. fol. 7 ; Lansd. MS. 1 70, fol. 57 ; Kempe, op. cit. 39. " Reg. of St. Martin's, fol. 1 1 ; Lansd. MS. 170, fol. 62 ; Kempe, op. cit. 34. In a writ of King Stephen to Richard de Lucy and the sheriff of Essex, the phrase occurs ' as Roger bishop of Salisbury best held in the time of Count Eustace of Boulogne, and hence- forth up to the death of King Henry,' Reg. fol. 21. " Doc. of D. and C. of Westm. St. Martin le Grand, parcel 2, Cartul. of St. Martin, item 116. " Ibid. St. Martin le Grand, parcel 4, No. 13247. '* Mary, William's sister, who was at that time abbess of Romscy, but received a papal dispensation to marry the count of Flanders. Diet. Nat. Biog. zxxvii, 54. " Doc. of D. and C. of Westm. Cartul. of St. Martin le Grand, item 1 20. '« Doc. of D. and C. of Westm. St. Martin le Grand, parcel i, an exemplification in 1440 of an in- speximus of Edward III. Henry I, at the petition of Roger bishop of Salisbury, grants to the church of St. Martin the church of Newport, which the canons after the death of Bishop Roger shall hold free and quit for ever. 555
 * Dugdale, Mon. Angl. vi, 1324. ' Ibid.