ABSTRACT
The Augustinians were the first major monastic order after the Benedictines to establish itself in England after the Conquest. While one would expect age and wealth to be major indicators of the number of mills held by a religious house, this was not true of the Augustinian estates studied here. Seven of the nine Augustinian estates examined in the case studies to follow were established within 75 years of one another in the twelfth century: the period of greatest expansion for the order. St Gregory's Priory, Canterbury, was one of the first English houses to be founded under Augustinian Rule by Archbishop Lanfranc around 1084. With respect to their relative wealth, the houses in the sample ranged from small foundations such as Lacock in Wiltshire, to large foundations such as Cirencester Abbey in the southern Midlands. The majority of the mills held by the Augustinians in the early fourteenth century were acquired from knights through shrewd purchases, litigation and patronage.
