Monastic Foundations in the Reign of King Stephen: The East Anglian Experience

Rose-Smith, Brian McGregor (2025) Monastic Foundations in the Reign of King Stephen: The East Anglian Experience. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

This thesis is a regional study of the impact of the civil war that consumed England during much of King Stephen’s reign on the monastic houses of East Anglia, their benefactors and those who, during that period, founded new houses in the region. East Anglia is historically and geographically identified as the counties of Norfolk and Suffolk. The Second Crusade was also an event that influenced founders and benefactors. I have considered to what extent founders reacted to the circumstances that those events threw up and in that context, I have provided an analysis of the religious and secular motives of the founders of six of the ten monastic houses that were founded in East Anglia during the relevant period, these houses being the only ones with an extant cartulary. I have also considered the phenomenon of the increased rate of growth in monastic foundation that occurred during Stephen's reign, outstripping that of Henry I's. East Anglia, however, did not experience such expansion and I analyse the reasons. As regards the impact of the civil war on monastic houses in East Anglia, the extent to which they lost lands and liberties, contemporary accounts have little to say, their emphasis being on the more dramatic events that consumed some houses in other regions of England, such as burnings and occupations. While monastic houses in East Anglia remained free from such violent incidents, it is apparent from the writs emanating from Henry II’s chancery directing his sheriffs and officers to right the wrongs suffered by religious houses ‘in tempore guerre’ or ‘after the death of Henry I’, that many of them had suffered loss of lands and liberties. The difficulty they experienced in recovering them during Stephen’s reign strongly suggests a breakdown in royal and episcopal justice in the region.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	26 Feb 2026 12:03
Last Modified:	26 Feb 2026 12:03
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/102078
DOI:

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