THE PRIORY

At the start of the 12th century, the manorial lord was an Anglo-Norman, Sir Adam de Estun who lived with his wife and three children in a house built on ground opposite where Holy Trinity church stands today. When Sir Adam died, his son Stephen had been elevated to the post of Archdeacon of Wiltshire and no longer lived here, but he founded a priory in 1245 on the site of the house and handed over its administration to the Trinitarian brethren.

The Trinitarian order divided its prosperity into three parts: one for the release of Christian captives in pagan lands, a second for hospitality and a third for building religious houses and sustaining brethren. Easton was one of nineteen such priories in the British Isles, and provided hospitality to travellers along what was a Roman and medieval road passing through the area that later became Easton Royal and linking Cunetio (now Mildenhall) east of Marlborough, with Old Sarum.

People were highly mobile in 13th century England travelling as pedlars, tinkers, entertainers, maybe looking for seasonal work or surviving by collecting alms. Others could have been visiting shrines or on pilgrimages elsewhere. Local people were probably reluctant to accommodate vagrants whose motives for travel would have been regarded as highly suspect.

The religious basis for providing monastic hospitality is given in Matthew 25, where Jesus proclaims that those who care for the needy also care for him. However, it seems the motivation was not wholly altruistic. Later in that chapter, Matthew goes on to make it clear that those who acted charitably were sent to heaven and those who failed were cursed and thrown into the eternal fire on the dreadful Day of Judgement.

One of Stephen’s sisters had married Sir Geoffrey Esturmy, the sixth hereditary Savernake Warden living at Wolfhall and patron of the priory. The second sister married Sir William Drueys, also a principal local landowner. Soon gifts of land, rents from properties, money and sheep came to the priory from gentry eager to buy salvation, to have masses sung and prayers said on their behalf.

By the standards of the day the brethren were educated men, bringing to the district a degree of culture never before experienced. Some of them acted as record keepers and letter writers for the Esturmys, then the Seymours and other local landowners. Descendants of the original patrons used the priory as their place of worship and burial for many generations, tombs of at least sixteen family members were housed here.

In 1493 the whole priory including the church and its possessions were destroyed by fire. The brethren were thrown into an abyss of extreme poverty and would be forced to abandon the site without assistance from the faithful. This emergency was so serious that the Bishop of Salisbury asked for financial help throughout his diocese and Henry VII granted a licence for the brethren to collect alms and charitable gifts. Eventually the priory was rebuilt sufficiently for its services to continue. When dissolution came in 1536, however, the rent from the dilapidated priory and all its lands was valued at just £42.12s per year.

At the marriage of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, ownership of the priory was passed to the queen’s brother, Sir Edward Seymour and became part of  Savernake estate. In due course the priory buildings were rebuilt as a grand mansion containing ’39 hearths’. The existence of the house was last recorded in 1767 when in a letter to the Marquis of Ailesbury, his Steward stated the house had been demolished and Sir Henry Goodman, the farmer renting the land, was complaining about the rubble that remained.

In 2013, the Archaeological Historical Landscape Group was successful in obtaining Heritage Lottery funding to research the lost priory. The aim was to carry out full topographical and geophysical surveys to locate any surviving features. Reports of the investigation and expert analysis were collated for publication and a free CD Rom showing a 3D animation of how the priory could have looked was made available to every household in the village.

Villagers were privileged to be invited to a unique performance of liturgical music in Holy Trinity church, including excerpts from a Christmas Mass probably not heard for over 500 years and which almost certainly would have been sung at Easton priory. The hauntingly beautiful chants were performed by leading British cantors associated with Salisbury Cathedral, and introductions given to each piece by Professor John Harper, Director of the Royal School of Church Music.

The music was discovered in manuscripts which had been copied in the 13th century in Salisbury (including at the former cathedral of Old Sarum) and subsequently acquired by the Seymour family at the Reformation. These liturgical manuscripts had been removed from their original service books and used as covers for legal documents concerning lands of the Seymour family in Easton Royal, Great Bedwyn and other Wiltshire estates.

Trinitarian Friar

Extract from Christmas Mass