Leiston Abbey outside the town of Leiston, Suffolk, England, was a religious house of Canons Regular following the Premonstratensian rule (White canons), dedicated to St Mary.'House of Premonstratensian canons: Abbey of Leiston', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Suffolk Vol. 2, ed. William Page (V.C.H., London 1975), pp. 117-19 (British History Online accessed 12 May 2018). Founded in c. 1183 by Ranulf de Glanville (c. 1112-1190), Chief Justiciar to King Henry II (1180-1189),E. Foss, The Judges of England: with sketches of their lives (London, 1848), p. 185-86. it was originally built on a marshland isle near the sea, and was called "St Mary de Insula". Around 1363 the abbey suffered so much from flooding that a new site was chosen and it was rebuilt further inland for its patron, Robert de Ufford, 1st Earl of Suffolk (1298-1369). However, there was a great fire in c. 1379 and further rebuilding was necessary.
The house was suppressed in 1537.A. Suckling, The History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, Volume II (Author, London 1848), pp. 422-52 (Internet archive).The abbey's temporalities and spiritualities in Suffolk are shown in the Valor Ecclesiasticus: J. Caley (ed.), Valor Ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII: Auctoritate Regia Institutus (Commissioners, 1817), III, pp. 436-38 (Google).The abbey's inventory is printed in F. Haslewood, 'Inventories of Monasteries suppressed in 1536', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and Natural History VIII Part 1 (1892), pp. 83-116, at pp. 102-04 (Suffolk Institute pdf). A Cartulary or monastic register survives.British Library, Cotton MS Vespasian E XIV. The scholarly edition is by R. Mortimer (ed.), Leiston Abbey Cartulary and Butley Priory Charters, Suffolk Records Society, Charters Series (Boydell Press, Ipswich 1979). Part of the Introduction (only) can be read online (Google). Texts of several of the charters are available in older sources. The Abbey's annual rolls of their court of wreck from 1378 to 1481 are a most important historical resource.B. Schofield, 'Wreck rolls of Leiston Abbey', in J.C. Davies (ed.), Studies Presented to Sir Hilary Jenkinson (Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 361-71; M. Bailey, 'Coastal fishing off south east Suffolk in the century after the Black Death', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology XXXVII, Part 2 (1990), pp. 102-14 (Suffolk Institute pdf). A series of late visitations, and a list of abbots, are in Premonstratensian records.F.A. Gasquet, Collectanea Anglo-Premonstratensia (3 Vols), III, Camden Society New (3rd) Series XII (Royal Historical Society, London 1906), pp. 43-55 (Internet Archive).
The impressive remains of the second abbey stand in the fields to the west of the road going north out of Leiston towards Theberton. After the Abbey was closed the estate was granted to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. The Abbey became a farm, the farmhouse being built into the abbey walls. A Georgian frontage was added to the house, which was extended in the 1920s. In 1928 the ruins and farm were bought by Ellen Wrightson for use as a religious retreat. At her death in 1946 she bequeathed the house, ruins, land and buildings to the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich. It was purchased in 1977 to become the home of the Pro Corda Trust, a centre for the specialized education and training of chamber musicians. The site is managed by them, and is in the guardianship of English Heritage.
History
The old abbey
Ranulf de Glanville, who was born at Stratford St Andrew, married Bertha, daughter of Theobald de Valoines, Lord of Parham.'The Valognes Fee', in W. Farrer and C.T. Clay, Early Yorkshire Charters, Vol. 5, The Honour of Richmond, Part 2 (reprint), (Cambridge University Press, 2013), pp. 234-37. In 1171 he founded the Priory of Augustinian canons at Butley, a few miles south of Leiston, on lands settled upon his wife by her father as a marriage endowment.'Butley Priory Charters', in Mortimer, Leiston Abbey Cartulary, pp. 131-58. See texts in W. Dugdale and C. Dodsworth, Monastici Anglicani, Volumen Alterum, De Canonicis Regularibus Augustinianis (Alicia Warren, London 1661), pp. 245 ff.. The Premonstratensian house of Leiston ("Leystone") Abbey was planned less than a decade later, and a received date for its foundation was 1183.J.M. Luxford, 'A Leiston document from Glastonbury', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, XL Part 3 (2003), pp. 278-88 (Suffolk Institute pdf). Close ties existed between the two houses, and with the Augustinian nuns at Campsey Priory, a de Valoines foundation established shortly before 1195.
The site of the Leiston old abbey is identified with that of a ruined chapel at Minsmere, which stands near the sea on a marsh-girt island approached by a causeway from Eastbridge. This belief, long uncertain, gained support from aerial photography which appeared to show cropmarks suggesting an extensive complex there.Norman Scarfe, Suffolk in the Middle Ages (Boydell and Brewer, 1986), p. 124 and Map 7. It has since been shown that the chapel was not part of the original abbey, but was constructed on the site of the original monastery church soon after its removal in 1363.S. Boulter and A. Breen (Suffolk Archaeology), Reports: 'Leiston Old Abbey Chapel, Leiston-cum-Sizewell, Suffolk,' Historic Building Recording, Oasis no. 41038, Report no. 2008_090.M. Lord, 'Historic Suffolk abbey is preserved', East Anglian Daily Times, 3 July 2008/10 March 2010. The suggestion was made by Alfred Suckling in 1848 that Ranulf may have chosen a site which had been used for religious purposes in Anglo-Saxon times.Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, II, p. 450, at note 34.
Foundation Before 1179 (in the presence of Richard de Luci) Henry II granted to Ranulf the manor of Leiston.See Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, II, p. 423, charter text in note 3. He sought advice from the abbot of Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire (a Premonstratensian house founded in 1140), who with the king's support visited Prémontré Abbey to obtain permission for Robert, abbot of Durford Abbey near Rogate, Sussex (founded from Welbeck after 1161), to transfer to Ranulf's abbey at Leiston. Robert borrowed canons from both Durford and Welbeck, apparently because Ranulf did not wish Leiston to owe any exaction to a senior house. One of these laid out the site over the course of two months.H.M. Colvin, The White Canons in England (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1951), pp. 118-25 and 345-48; Mortimer, Leiston Abbey Cartulary, Introduction, at pp. 2-5. The manor of Leiston was confirmed to the canons by Pope Lucius III, and royal confirmation of the foundation was granted early in 1185, at which time the abbey church was already built. In this process Leiston Abbey exchanged its church of Knodishall for those of Aldringham and Leiston, formerly held by Butley Priory. An extensive series of foundation charters exists,Read some online in W. Dugdale & R. Dodsworth, Monasticon Anglicanum, sive Pandectae Coenobiorum, 3 Vols (London (Savoy) 1673), III, pp. 74-76; also New edition (James Bohn, London 1846), VI Part 2, pp. 879-82 (Google). See also Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, II, pp. 431, 436-39, 447-49 (Internet archive). (in Latin). including the confirmation by Archbishop Hubert Walter, Ranulf's nephew, of a Privilege of Pope Celestine III, granting, among many other rights, that of the free election of their abbot.'Habentes nunc et futuris temporibus liberam Abbatis vostri electionem'; Suckling, History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, II, pp. 436-39 (Internet archive).
Descent of patronage, 1190-1351
In these and subsequent grants and confirmations Ranulf's family took part as witnesses and grantors, the de Valoines and Walters, the Glanvilles, and the families of his sons-in-law, the de Aubervilles, the de Ardenes and the fitz Ralphs.See S.J. Bailey, 'Ranulf de Glanvill and His Children', The Cambridge Law Journal Vol. 15, No. 2 (November 1957), pp. 163-182; and R. Mortimer, 'The Family of Rannulf de Glanville', Historical Research 129, 1981, pp. 1–16. Roger de Glanvill granted the church at Middleton and William de Valoines that of St Botolph at Culpho. Ranulf died at the Siege of Acre in 1190, and the patronage of Leiston Abbey and of Butley Priory, with the manor of Benhall, passed to his daughter Matilda (Maud), wife of William de Auberville the elder, of Westenhanger, Kent, justiciar and knight in the fee of Simon de Averenches.T. Stapleton, 'Observations upon the succession of the Barony of William of Arques, in the County of Kent, during the period between the Conquest of England and the Reign of King John', Archaeologia XXXI (London 1846), pp. 216-237, at p. 236 (Google). In 1192 William and Matilda founded the Premonstratensian house of Langdon Abbey, at West Langdon in Kent, as from Leiston Abbey: the act was given under the hand of Abbot Robert of Leiston and witnessed by Gilbert, Prior of Butley.W. Dugdale, Monasticon Anglicanum new edition (James Bohn, London 1846), VI Part 2, p. 898, Langdon, Charters Nos. I and II. Patronage descended with Benhall to Matilda's son Hugh de Auberville, whose brother Robert de Auberville was a benefactor of Robertsbridge Abbey, and to Hugh's son William de Auberville the younger (died 1248). This William's attempt to assert rights of advowson at Butley Priory was stoutly and successfully resisted.J.N.L. Myers, W.D. Caröe and J.B. Ward Perkins, ‘Butley Priory, Suffolk,’ Archaeological Journal XC (1933), pp. 177–281, at pp. 181-82. (Archaeology data service pdf, pp. 5-6).