HISTORY OP HAILSHAM.
History of Hailsham. By L. F. Salzmann. (Farncombe and Co., Lewes.)—Mr. Salzmann is quite right in making no apology for the publication of this book. Every local history, so it be told by a competent person, is full of instruction. Hailsham has never been a place of importance, but for this very reason the conditions of life which we find to have existed in it were normal and representative. The first definite information that we have about Hailsham comes from Domesday Book. It then contained arable land for four ploughs (about six hundred and twenty acres), four cottagers with one ox, and two salt-pans worth 8s. 6d. each, the feudal lord having eleven others worth 24s. ed. in all. The difference in value between King Edward's time and the Survey was 110s. against 20s. In the thirteenth century the manor had passed into the hands of the Marmions ; in the sixteenth Lord Deere had it ; after him came the Gages ; it has passed through various hands since that time. We need not give other examples of the information which Mr. Salzmann has been at the pains to collect. Perhaps the most interest• ing section is that which refers to the monastic founda- tions. Of these there were two. One was the Abbey of Otham, transferred in 1205 to Bayham (near Frant, and now the seat of Lord Camden), the other the Priory of Michelham. The Otham property at the Dissolution was valued at EIS Ss. 2;d. Michelham Priory was founded in 1229 by Gilbert de Aquila, of Pevensey. It was of the Augustinian Order. Its story is told by a succession of documents, and can scarcely be called edifying. (Of course it is the external relations of the House that come thus into evidence, and these, in the nature of things, are often involved in dispute.) We do not hear the whole story, but it is certainly strange to find the Prior detaining the body
that had been cast up on the shore when it was being taken to burial. In 1291 the House had an income equivalent to £1,500, and it accumulated property during the centuries that follow. It had a vigorous head in John Leem (1376-1415).. His successors were not so estimable. William London was deposed in 143s, and Laurence Wynchelsee, who came after him, was no improve- ment. There were but seven brethren. (Ile was commanded to add three before the next Easter, the visitation having been hell in September.) His own household was limited to" one chaplain, one esquire, one chamberer, one valet, and one page of the kitchen." He was to be content with four horses. The canons were bidden not to "frequent the tavern that is outside the gates." Another visitation, held four months later, reveals great delinquencies. The Prior had sold timber, plate, oxen. horse., books, in fact everything that he could ; had given corrodies (or support for life) to one Wallen and his wife for £26 13s. 4d. Yet another visitation in 1478 is still more compromising. Gross irregularities are revealed. The penalties imposed were curiously light : all the canons were to fast for one day on bread and water ; one, who had confessed to incontinence, was " gated " till a sub-Prior, who had the reputation for strictness of life, should arrive. The Bishop must have been used to each doings. It is in these visitations, not in the reports of Henry VIII.'s officials, that we find the truth.
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