With the conversion of the South Saxons that monastery flourished, the
house grew rich, and Edward the Confessor bestowed it upon his Norman
chaplain Osbern, Bishop of Exeter, whom, of course, the Conqueror did
not dispossess. Indeed, the place became famous and appears in the
Bayeaux tapestry, in the very first picture, where we see "Harold and
his Knights riding towards Bosham" to embark for Normandy. Bosham,
indeed, was one of Harold's manors, his father, according to the
legend, having acquired it by a trick. _Da mihi basium_, says Earl
Godwin to the Archbishop Aethelnoth, thus claiming to have received
Bosham. That Earl Godwin held Bosham we are assured by the Domesday
Survey, which also speaks of the church, presumably the successor of
the old monastery of Dicul. This, as I have said, and as Domesday Book
tells us, Bishop Osbern of Exeter "holds of King William as he had held
it of King Edward." The Bishop of Exeter still held it, "a royal free
chapel" in the time of Henry I. Then was established here, in place, as
I suppose, of the monks, a college of six secular canons, the Bishop
being the Dean.
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