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conceivable that the window was moved from elsewhere, in
which case it may predate the rest of the church by some decades, or it
may have been added later. There is little to indicate that the window is
contemporary with either the priest’s door or the south portal, but it
may have been made by a different team of workmen.
Can our knowledge of the historical context help us to make
further headway? During this period the Patricks were patrons of the
church and held manors in the area. The family was rich and influential
enough to have financed the building. The last William Patrick to be lord
of the manor of Patrixbourne died in prison in Normandy in 1174 and his
heir, Ingelram Patrick, died in 1190/91. There is some evidence that Ingelram
spent time at Patrixbourne and that he took an interest in Christ Church
Priory and so it seems reasonable to assume that he is a strong candidate
for principal donor of the church. The church was not dependent on any of
the local major ecclesiastical establishments, in particular Christ Church
Priory or St Augustine’s Abbey. It is likely, therefore, that the
twelfth-century building was completed in the period 1170-1190 under the
patronage of the Patricks.
As noted above, Patrixbourne only remained under the Patrick
patronage until about 1200 when the church was given to Beaulieu Priory,
near Rouen.36 The church remained with the canons of
Beaulieu, with one or two |
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short
breaks when it reverted to the English Crown, until the Hundred Years’
War. After the loss of Normandy in 1204, the church escheated to the Crown
together with all Jean de Préaux’s land in England 37 and
not recovered by Beaulieu Priory until 1207.38 When Joan
died in 1215, her land (but not the church and its income because
they had been given to Beaulieu) reverted to King John and, like the
Tesson holdings, passed into the hands of Geoffrey de Say (according to
Sanders).
The priory seems to have thrived under the patronage of the
Préaux family in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The original
Augustinian prior and canons went to Beaulieu from Saint-Lô. There were
15 monks in 1253, and twelve in 1267. In the 1250s the priory
suffered at the hands of rebellious peasants, in particular their vines
were burned.39 During this difficult time for the priory, in
1258, the right to appoint a priest to the living of Patrixbourne was
given by the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Prior and Convent of Merton
Priory in Surrey (also Augustinian). This arrangement seems to have been
accepted by Beaulieu, although no record of an agreement survives. Merton
seems to have taken its responsibilities seriously because in 1297 the
Prior of Merton reported to the bishop that it appeared that ‘sir
William Pyk had given little or nothing towards the repair of the |