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.