So Leland speaks of “Gulielmus junior, rex Angliæ, fundator hospitalis, qui etiam ecclesiolam ibidem construxit et S. Petro dedicavit.”
So the hospital of God’s House at Thetford is attributed to William Rufus, Mon. Angl. vii. 769. He is also said to have founded the nunnery of Armethwaite in Cumberland, and the foundation charter is printed in the Monasticon, iii. 270. But it is spurious on the face of it. The date given is January 6, 1089; yet Rufus is made to give grants in Carlisle which he did not yet possess, and to call himself “dux Normannorum.” He appears too in the Abingdon History, ii. 26, 284, as granting the church of Sutton to the abbey of Abingdon on the petition of Abbot Reginald. The grant has three somewhat characteristic witnesses, Robert Fitz-hamon, Robert the Chancellor, that is Robert Bloet, and our old friend Croc the Hunter.
He is also called a benefactor to the church of Rochester; but it is not clear that he actually gave anything of his own cost. In the local histories (Mon. Angl. i. 161, 162, 174) we read that Rufus “reddidit et restituit Lamhethe et dedit Hedenham ecclesiæ Roffæ;” “dedit Lamtheam [hetham] et Aedenham ad victum monachorum,” &c. In p. 163 is his writ granting the manor of Stone to the church of Saint Andrew and Bishop Gundulf; and in 173, 174 he grants Lambeth and Hedenham. But Henry’s charter in the same page speaks of Lambeth and Hedenham as gifts of Bishop Gundulf to the monks, and in p. 165 Stone is held by Ralph the son, and Osmund the son-in-law, of Gilbert, who becomes a monk at Rochester. The brothers find the King a harsh lord (“ambo regis exactionibus tantum fuerunt gravati ut vix amplius hoc possent ferre. Erant enim illis diebus consuetudines regis gravissimæ atque durissimæ per totum regnum Angliæ”); they therefore suggest that the Bishop should get the manor of the King, and they will hold it of him. “Quo audito, episcopus quam citius potuit regem impigre adiit, amicorum itaque apud regem usus auxilio, tandem obtinuit quod petiit; dedit ergo episcopus Willielmo regi, magni regis Willielmi filio, xv. libras denariorum et unam mulam quæ bene valebat c. solidos.” Ralph and Osmund become the Bishop’s men for the manor—a very good case of round-about commendation—but presently, by an exchange of lands between them and the Bishop, Stone becomes a direct possession of the see. We have also heard something about Hedenham in N. C. vol. iv. p. 366, and William of Malmesbury also (Gest. Pont. 137) speaks of it as bought by Gundulf—“ex suo villam coemptam.” Lambeth may have been a free gift. It afterwards, as all the world knows, passed by exchange to the see of Canterbury.
There is a very curious document in the Monasticon (ii. 497) from the cartulary of Tavistock in which Rufus—“inclitæ recordationis secundus Guillielmus”—confirms in 1096 to the abbey a manor, Wlurintun, which some said belonged to the crown. The grant of course takes the form of a gift. But the only thing which Rufus really seems to have given was an ivory knife, a symbol which is also met with in other cases;
“Sciant omnes quod rex per cultellum eburneum quod in manu tenuit et abbati porrexit hoc donum peregit apud curiam … qui quidem cultellus jacet in feretro sancti Rumoni.”
The witnesses are Bishop Walkelin of Winchester, Bishop John of Bath, and Abbot Thurstan of Glastonbury. The demand had been made before commissioners sent in Lent to Devonshire, Cornwall, and Exeter—the local capital stands apart—“ad investiganda regalia placita.” They were Bishop Walkelin, “Randulfus capellanus” (Flambard), William Capra (see him in Domesday, 110, as Chievre; he is Capra in Exon), and “Hardinus Belnoldi filius.” Is not “Belnoldus,” a strange name, a miswriting for Ednodus? See N. C. vol. iv. p. 756.
Lastly, we have elsewhere seen (see N. C. iv. 411) that William granted the manor of Bermondsey to the foundation of the Englishman Ælfwine Child. See the charter in Monasticon, v. 100. It is witnessed by the founder Ælfwine, also, between the bishops and Eudo dapifer, by “Johannes de Sumbresetta.” Is this the Bishop of Bath, not yet used to his new title?
A crowd of writs securing churches in rights already possessed, as well as simple confirmations of the grants of others, do not bear upon the matter. And we must not forget that he showed a degree of tenderness to the monks of Durham during the banishment of their bishop (see [p. 299]) which he failed to show to other monks. Still, in any case, the gifts of William Rufus make a poor show between the gifts of the founder of Battle and those of the founder of Reading.
Chivalry.