Originally, this was Gisburn, named after the stream which runs through this market town.
The town grew up around the Abbey which was founded in 1119 by Norman warlord Robert de Brus II. The family had come with the conquest from Bruis in the Cherburgh penninsular of what is now northern France.
The de Bruis family had fallen out with Norman Henry Beauclerc (Henry I - son of William the conqueror) who came to England after his brother, William Rufus, was killed while hunting in the New Forest. The new king was fanatical about spreading knowledge and inspiration particularly about ecclesiastical matters and was unhappy about the humane way that the de Brus family had treated the native English. In his view, money squandered on peasants could be better spent building ornate religious buildings. Mostly to maintain good relations with the King, Robert began the construction of a huge Augustinian Priory here.
It was constructed in the Gothic style, much to the dislike of the King who preferred more Romanesque styles. Nevertheless, the priory grew and the church placed a tremendous financial burden upon the communities of North Yorkshire. There are researchers who feel that the Guy de Gisburn of the Robin Hood stories could have been the Sherrif (shire reeve - tax collector/enforcer) here who allied with his co-patriot from Nottingham who also controlled the gathering of taxes in the South Yorkshire area where Loxley was located.
The times were frought with fantastic paranoia about ecclesiatical matters and it was about the same time that the Knights Templar organisation was established to enforce spritual development.
Trying to keep all parties happy caused Robert's downfall and eventually, his family was forced to go on the run from an egotistical King who believed himself to be the actual representative of Christ. Robert ran to Scotland where his descendent became the imfamous Robert the Bruce (de Brus) whose family was a thorn in the side of Henry's family for some time.
The year before the Priory was started, Henry's wife, Matilda, who had born him 4 sons, died. He then married Adeliza, daughter of Godfrey, Count of Louvain, on January 29, 1121. But there were no children from this second marriage. Henry, in spite of claiming to be so very godly, holds the record for the largest number of acknowledged illegitimate children born to any English king, with a provisional total of twenty-five.
However, neither of his legitimate sons, both by his first wife, survived him; both died in the wreck of the White Ship, on November 25, 1120, off the coast of Normandy. One of these sons, Richard, remains extremely obscure and may not have existed at all. The other, William Adelin, definitely existed and his death proved a disaster for England. Left without male heirs, Henry took the unprecedented step of making his barons swear to accept his daughter Matilda, widow of Henry V, the Holy Roman Emperor, as his heir.
Henry died of food poisoning from eating foul lampreys in December, 1135, at St. Denis le Fermont in Normandy and was buried at Reading Abbey.
Although Henry's barons had sworn allegiance to his daughter Matilda as their queen, Matilda's gender and her remarriage to the House of Anjou, an enemy of the Normans, allowed Henry's nephew Stephen of Boulogne to come to England and claim the throne with popular support. The struggle between Matilda and Stephen resulted in a long civil war known as the Anarchy. The dispute was eventually settled by Stephen's naming of Matilda's son, Henry, as his heir in 1153.
As always, the ones appearing the most deeply religious are often the most hypocritical.
