I did not sleep in Arundel, but, though it was already afternoon, I set
out westward once more through the great park, and just before sunset I
came to the great church of Boxgrove, which stands between the road I
had followed from Arundel and the Roman Stane Street, where they
approach to enter the East Gate of Chichester together at last. This
great and beautiful sanctuary, gives one, I think, a better idea of
what the great monastic churches really were, than any other building
left to us in Sussex. It is like a cathedral for solemnity, and for
size too, though it is only a fragment, and its beauty cannot be
forgotten.
In its foundation the church is very ancient, a small college of
secular canons serving it in Saxon times. But all was changed when
Robert de Haza, to whom Henry I. had granted the honour of Halnaker, in
1105 bestowed the church upon the Abbey of Lessay, which sent hither
its Benedictines and built for them a new sanctuary. Boxgrove was thus
an alien priory from 1108 till in 1339. Richard II. affirmed its
independence, and this was confirmed by the Pope in 1402.
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