own,
played a part at least as great as that of the Castle.

The Priory had always been famous for its piety, and in 1199, Hugh,
who had been Prior there till 1186, was raised to be Abbot of Cluny
itself. This is interesting and important for we have thus an ex-Prior
of Lewes as Abbot of Cluny during the great dispute between the Order
and the Earl of Warenne. In 1200 Lewes was without a Prior, and Abbot
Hugh appointed one Alexander. For some reason or other De Warenne
refused to accept him and even went so far as to claim that the
appointment lay with him, an impossible pretension. Yet even within
the Priory he is said to have won support, certain of the monks
claiming that, save for a tribute of one hundred shillings a year to
Cluny, they were independent. The Pope was appealed to and he of
course gave a clear decision, not in the English way of compromise,
which is the way of a barbarian and a coward, but like an honest man
deciding 'twixt right and wrong. His judgment was wholly in favour of
the Abbot of Cluny. The Earl then began to bluster and to attempt to
appeal beyond the Pope; he even dared to place armed men at the Priory
gate and to stop all communications with Cluny. The Abbot replied by
an interdict upon Lewes, and things were in this confusion when the
Pope appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishops of
Chichester and Ely to hear what De Warenne had to say in excuse for his
violence. The Abbot of Cluny himself came over and was insulted in
Lewes by De Warenne's men. In appointing English judges to hear the
case the Pope must have known that all would end in a compromise. At
any rate this is what happened, and it was decided that in future, when
a vacancy occurred, the Abbot of Cluny should nominate two candidates
of whom De Warenne should choose one for Prior. This ridiculous
judgment decided nothing. Of two things, one; either the Abbot was
right or he was wrong. If he were right why should he forego his claim,
to satisfy De Warenne who was wrong? A decision was what was needed. In
1229 the Pope rightly declared the compromise null and void, and the
Abbot of Cluny regained his rights. At once the moral condition of the
house improved, and when it was visited in 1262 everything was reported
to be satisfactory, and unlike any other Cluniac house in England this
of Lewes was not in debt.

The turning point in the history of the Priory would seem to have been
the one great moment in the story of