The Church at Dartford

King William confirms his steward Haimo’s gift of the church at Dartford to St Andrew’s, Rochester. Translation from Latin of Textus Roffensis, folio 181v by Jacob Scott. Commentary and notes by Dr Christopher Monk.

This charter was not copied by the main Textus Roffensis scribe, who was writing around 1123, but was added on a replacement folio sometime later in the twelfth century, possibly around 1170. It may not be a copy of an authentic charter.

It concerns the grant of the Church at Dartford, 15 miles from Rochester in the north-west corner of Kent. Domesday book shows that the church was held by the Bishop of Rochester in 1086.¹ The bishop at that time was Gundulf, who was also the prior of the community of monks at St Andrew’s, Rochester.

According to the charter, the gift was made by Haimo Dapifer (died. c.1100), the sheriff of Kent (1077 until his death), royal steward of both William I (‘the Conqueror’, reigned 1066-1087) and his son William II (‘Rufus’, reigned 1087-1100). It is unclear which King William is (purportedly) doing the granting in this charter.²

It is important to note that in the 1170s a dispute arose between the monks of St Andrew’s and their bishop, Walter, who was not also the prior of the community, as Gundulf had been. Bishop Walter gave the church to Roger, his nephew, but the monks claimed it had been granted to them in proprios usus, ‘for their own use’ (Flight, p. 219, n. 7). As Gundulf was both bishop and prior, this seems quite a reasonable claim: documents in Textus Roffensis demonstrate that the livelihood of his brothers was of utmost importance to Gundulf. Since Domesday confirms the bishop held the church, he as monk would have benefitted from the income generated from it, and so would have his fellow monks.

As things turned out, Roger retained the church but acknowledged that it was held from the monks (Flight, p. 219, n. 7, and p. 259, Appendix 3, no. 108).³ It is quite possible this Textus copy of a charter, transcribed and translated below, was fabricated and inserted around the time of the dispute in order to support the claim of the brethren. Sadly, for the monks, the church at Dartford continued to be a bone of contention with another of their bishops, Gilbert (Flight, p. 219 and p. 231, incl. n. 23).

Transcription

181v (select folio number to open facsimile)

De ęcclesia de tarenteford Willelmus dei gratia rex anglorum.
fidelibus suis francis et anglis salutem.
Sciatis me concessise eam donationem
quam haimo dapifer meus fecit ęcclesię quę
est in tarenteford manerio meo . et filii
ipsius haimonis . Rodbertus . et haimo .
me pręsente concesserunt eandem patris
sui donationem . Testes . Rodbertus
comes mellen .⁴ Rodbertus comes
de moritolio⁵ . et alii multi;

Translation

Concerning the Church of Dartford:

William, by the grace of God King of the English, to his faithful, French and English, greetings. Know that I have granted that gift which Haimo my steward has made of the church which is in my manor at Dartford, and the sons of Haimo himself, Robert⁶ and Haimo, in my presence conceded⁷ the aforesaid gift of their father. Witnesses, Robert, Count of Meulan⁸ Robert, Count of Mortain,⁹ and many others.

Cited Works

Colin Flight, The Bishops and Monks of Rochester 1076-1214 (Maidstone: Kent Archaeological Society, 1997).

Footnotes

1 Dartford | Domesday Book (opendomesday.org)

2 British History Online states it was William I: Parishes: Dartford | British History Online (british-history.ac.uk)

3 In Appendix 3, Flight lists a document (no. 108) which relates the settling of the Dartford church dispute by the bishop of Winchester and Baldwin, abbot of Ford, dating this document to c. 1170-c1180; he notes the document is not extant but is mentioned in the fourteenth-century Registrum temporalium.

4 Punctus mark added. There is an erasure at this point in the manuscript.

5 A scribal error for ‘moritonio’, Mortain.

6 Aka, Robert fitz Haimo (or, Fitzhamon), died 1107; he is a character in the Haddenham narrative, for which see Bishop Gundulf builds Rochester Castle for the king in return for the manor of Haddenham, c.1108-c.1114 AD — Rochester Cathedral.

7 Or ‘granted’. The sense here is that the two sons relinquish any claim to the church of Dartford.

8 Robert de Beaumont, 1st Earl of Leicester, Count of Meulan (c. 1040/1050-1118), a powerful Norman nobleman.

9 Robert, Count of Mortain, 2nd Earl of Cornwall (c. 1031-c.1095), half-brother (on their mother’s side) of William I, a great landholder in England.