Modbury Priory was a Benedictine priory in the parish of Modbury, Devon, England, established before 1129 [1] which was one of the longest surviving alien priories in England, most of which were suppressed in 1414. [2] It was located close to the present parish church of St George in the town of Modbury, but its exact location is unclear.
It was founded at some time before 1129 [3] by Ralph de Vautort and his brother Reginald I de Vautort (died about 1123), 1st feudal baron of Trematon in Cornwall ( Latinised to de Valletorta), an Anglo-Norman follower of Robert, Count of Mortain, [4] half-brother of King William the Conqueror. Reginald I de Vautort held 55 [5] manors in Devon and Cornwall from Robert, one of which was Modbury. [6] The Vautort family is believed to have originated at the manor of Torteval in Calvados, Normandy. [7] The priory was a dependency of the Abbey of Saint-Pierre-sur-Dives in Calvados. [8] The right to appoint a new prior continued to be held by the lord of the manor of Modbury, for many generations in the 15th and 16th centuries the Champernowne family ( Latinised to de Campo Arnulphi), with the approval of the Bishop of Exeter. Thus this right was exercised in 1361/2 by Thomas Champernowne and in 1429/30 by Hugh Champernowne. [9]
It survived King Henry V's Suppression of Alien Priories of 1414, but in 1441, under the priorship of William Benselyn, it was finally dissolved [10] by King Henry VI, who gave its possessions to his new foundation of Eton College. [11]
King Edward IV, [12] having deposed Henry VI in 1461, reassigned Modbury's lands in 1466 to Tavistock Abbey [13] in Devon, much favoured by him, but these were soon after restored to Eton, which continued to hold many of them until the 19th century [14] and beyond.