ABSTRACT
The relatively unusual ways in which the various houses of the minor orders constituted their holdings provides valuable insights into the kinds of opportunities and constraints which such houses faced in their future development. A striking example is the alien abbey of the Holy Trinity, which acquired most of its English lands through royal patronage in the late eleventh century, including a large number of mills. With the exceptions of Grove and Holy Trinity, the mill management practices pursued by the other houses during thirteenth century were typical for that period. The most detailed information on mill management for any of the houses sampled is for Holy Trinity. While Holy Trinity appears to have experienced some major difficulties in formulating a workable system for managing its English properties, the relatively compact nature of most of the other houses holdings combined with the manorial status of many of their mills made direct management a straight forward and profitable option for them.
