Priory of St. Michael’s Mount, in Cornwall.—A priory of Benedictine monks was placed here by King Edward the Confessor. Before A.D. 1085, however, it was annexed by Robert Earl of Moreton and Cornwall, to the Abbey of St. Michael in Periculo Maris, in Normandy.
The following entry relating to the property of St. Michael’s Priory, in Cornwall, occurs in the Domesday Survey:
“Terra Sancti Michaelis.—Ecclesia S. Michaelis tenet Treiwal, Brismar tenebat tempore regis Edwardi. Ibi sunt ii hidæ quæ numquam geldaverunt. Terra est viii car. Ibi est i. car. cum uno villano, et ii. bord. et x. acr. pasturæ. Val. xx. solid. De hiis ii. hid. abstulit Comes Moriton i. hidam. Val. xx. sol.”
In Hampshire, Domesday, tom. i. fol. 43, there is another entry concerning St. Michael’s Priory:
In Basingstoches Hund.—Ecclesia S. Michaelis de Monte tenet de lege unam ecclesiam cum i. hida et decima M. de Basingestoches. Ibi est presbyter et ii. villani et iiii.
bord. cum i. car. et molin. de xx. sol. et ii. acr. prati. Tot. val. iiii. lib. et v. sol.
Oliver, in his Historic Collections relating to the monasteries of Devon, p. 147, gives the following list of Priors of St. Michael’s Mount:—
| Ralph de Carteret, | admitted Dec. 21, 1260. |
| Richard Perer, | April 11, 1275. |
| Geoffrey de Gernon, | July 8, 1283. |
| Peter de Cara Villa, | Sept. 12, 1316. |
| John Hardy, | Oct. 3, 1349. |
| John de Volant, | April 24, 1362. |
| Richard Auncell, | Dec. 7, 1385. |
| William Lambert, | Oct. 1, 1410. |
As the alien priories were suppressed by Henry V. who began his reign in 1413, William Lambert was probably the last Prior.
Bishop Tanner says, in his Notitia Monastica:—After the suppression of the alien priories, this was first given by King Henry VI. to King’s College, Cambridge, and afterwards by King Edward IV. to the nunnery of Sion, in Middlesex. At the first seizure by King Edward III. the farm was rated but at 10l. per annum, but at the general dissolution by Henry VIII. the lands belonging to this house, as parcel of Sion Abbey, were valued at 110l. 12s. per annum.