Note 640 — Chapter VI · (continued 2)

The Chronicler (1098) records the deaths of Walkelin, Baldwin, and Turold. Florence (1097, 1098) adds that of Robert, and in one manuscript that of Abbot Reginald of Abingdon, who (Hist. Ab. ii. 42) would seem to have died somewhat earlier, in the year 1097. This prelate is said to have been in the King’s good graces, and to have been employed by him in the pious and charitable distribution from his father’s hoard at the beginning of his reign (see vol. i. p. 17). There is also just before in the local History (ii. 41) a writ of Rufus to Peter Sheriff of Oxfordshire, witnessed by Randolf the chaplain, in which the Sheriff is bidden to let the Abbot and his monks enjoy all that they had T. R. E. and T. R. W., and specially to make good the wrongs done by his reeve Eadwig and others his officers. Here are the reeves again; but this time an English reeve oppresses a Norman abbot.