Eye priory, founded in the late 1080s by Robert Malet as a cell of the abbey of Bernay in Normandy, was the first house of Benedictine monks to be established in Suffolk after the Norman Conquest, to be followed shortly afterwards by Stoke-by-Clare. The two share similarities; both were cells of great Norman abbeys and both were established in the centre of feudal lordships or `honours'. The heartlands of the honour, given by William the Conqueror to Robert's father, lay around Eye itself, stretching from there across the north of the county eastward to the sea and to Dunwich. The development of this port in the early 12th century and its slow decline therafter, is reflected in the loss and decline of many of the churches the priory held there. The charters contained in the mid-thirteenth century cartulary provide valuable information about the lordship of the honour as well as other religious, social and economic matters of interest to medieval historians of the local and wider world of the 12th and 13th centuries.VIVIEN BROWNworked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series. (East Anglian) Eye priory, founded in the late 1080s by Robert Malet as a cell of the abbey of Bernay in Normandy, was the first house of Benedictine monks to be established in Suffolk after the Norman Conquest. The charters contained in its mid-thirteenth century cartulary provide valuable information about religious, social and economic matters of interest to medieval historians of both the local and wider world of the 12th and 13th centuries.VIVIEN BROWNworked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series.

13- & 14c- documents illuminate religious, social, and economic history of the period. This second volume of the charters of the Benedictine priory of Eye, a cell of the Abbey of Bernay in Normandy, comprises an introduction to the charters and completes the text of the thirteenth-century cartulary edited in the first volume, together with certain other charters from a fourteenth-century rental and custumary and the very few original deeds which survive. As well as being of interest to those studying ecclesiastical and social history, the charters are important in casting light on the history of the `honor' of Eye itself, in particular the succession of its lords in the twelfth century. Interesting links can be made to earlier volumes in the Suffolk Chartersseries. As an alien priory in the centre of an `honor', Eye has affinities with Stoke by Clare, and the evidence which the charters of Eye provide for local history and genealogy is all the more comprehensive in the light of other charters, particularly those of Sibton, Leiston and Blythburgh. VIVIEN BROWNworked on Eye priory material with her husband, R. Allen Brown, the initiator and first General editor of the series.

This is an introduction to the history of England and Normandy in the 11th and 12th centuries. Within the broad field of cultural history, there are discussions of language, literature, the writing of history and ecclesiastical architecture.

The history of Dodnash Priory, one of numerous Augustinian priories founded in East Anglia in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, has hitherto been totally obscure. The two hundred original charters edited here now show that it was founded by Wimer the chaplain, sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk and a prominent servant of Henry II, and that although always small it played a disproportionately large part in the economic and social life of south-east Suffolk for the next three centuries. The early charters include the first known references to Flatford Mill at East Bergholt; later documents relate to serious flooding at the end of the thirteenth century, and soon thereafter to the leasing of estates in order to adapt to new economic conditions. As always, the charters provide much information about local lay society as well as the canons themselves.CHRISTOPHER HARPER-BILLis Professor of English History at the University of East Anglia.

Covers aspects of the history of both Leiston Abbey and Butley Priory but is chiefly concerned with Leiston as the better documented and less investigated of the two. Butley Priory was a house of Augustinian canons, Leiston Abbey a foundation for Premonstratensian canons. This volume is largely an edition of the Leiston cartulary and although the introduction covers aspects of the history of both houses, it is chiefly concerned with Leiston as the better documented and less investigated of the two.