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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1807 Excerpt:...years after their institution in 1118, and consequently before they had any possessions in England, which did not occur till after 1135, when Stephen began his reign. A like train of circumstances attends the round church at Cambridge, a more ancient structure than that at Northampton. Among the most strenuous leaders in the first crusade, instituted by Pope Urban II. 1096, was Robert, Duke ofNormandy. His standardbearer, Sir Pain Peverell, an eminent soldier, was the re-founder of Barnwell Abbey, in Cambridgeshire. This he did after his return from the crusade, and placed therein thirty monks, a number corresponding to the years of his own age.t To this monastery we find St. Sepulchre's Church was appropriated, and as it was the custom of the regulars to obtain vicarages, to be ordained in churches of which they were the patrons, we may, with the greatest probability, conjecture, as in the above, that this church was the work of that famous Norman soldier, as he is called by our historians. He was at the taking of Jerusalem, with Duke Robert, in July 1099, and probably returned with him the following year; and as the style of this building seems not far from the earliest Norman, Í am disposed to assign it to the beginning of the twelfth century, which, if allowed, will also shew it to have existed prior to the Templars having possessions in England, and likely before their institution in the cast. And with this, Mr. Essex accords,: although Mr. Dallaway, refers it to the year 1135.% The church of Little Maplested is entered by Ectonasa donative, and said to have belonged to the Hospitallers; but as those knights became possessed of the property of the Templars, it is possible they were the original founders. It seems, however, uncertain whether the Te...