ABSTRACT
One of the most important tasks facing the abbots of St Albans was the maintenance of the abbey’s cells.1 In these small outposts away from the immediate gaze of the abbot, monks living far from St Albans were expected to follow the Rule as practised at the monastery under the authority of a prior. By 1300 nine such dependent priories owed allegiance to St Albans. Closest to the abbey were the priories of Redboum and Hertford, both in Hertfordshire. Then came Beadlow in Bedfordshire; Wallingford in Berkshire; Hatfield Peverel in Essex; Binham and Wymondham in Norfolk; and Belvoir in Lincolnshire. Furthest removed from the mother-abbey was Tynemouth in Northumbria, functioning almost as an independent house.2 Later changes included the withdrawal of the community at Beadlow to St Albans in 14353 and, almost thirty years later, in 1462,4 another cell at Pembroke was added to the St Albans’ list. By the early fourteenth century, and within a few miles of the abbey enclosure, St Albans had also become the patron of two nunneries; Sopwell by the River Ver and St Mary de Pre on the road to Redboum.
