§ 9. There were also certain priories founded in subordination to foreign houses. Thus Bec had a priory at St Neots in Huntingdonshire; the abbey of Mont-Ste-Cathérine at Rouen had one at Blyth in Nottinghamshire. Both these houses contained several monks: in the thirteenth century there were fourteen at Blyth, all probably foreigners, and many of them sent from the parent house for a change of air. But there were also a large number of monastic possessions known as priories, which were not strictly conventual, but were simply manors in the possession of alien monasteries, on which a prior or _custos_, sent from the mother abbey with another monk as his _socius_, resided for a portion of the year, practically as estate agent. Sometimes he was allowed, as at Ecclesfield in Yorkshire, a priory of Saint-Wandrille, to serve the cure of the parish church; but this was not common. Where these small 'alien priories' are known to have existed, we need not expect to find any trace of monastic arrangements in the parish church. Still less need we look for traces of a cloister. During the hundred years' war with France, the alien priories were repeatedly confiscated by the Crown, and before their final confiscation in 1414 many had been granted to English charterhouses, chantry colleges, and similar foundations. Conventual priories, such as Blyth and St Neots, were continued as independent monasteries under English priors. § 10. The popularity and wealth of the Benedictine order naturally led in many monasteries to relaxation of the rule. From time to time monks who felt the necessity of closer communion with God and a stricter life sought their need in the foundation of new houses under a more severe form of their rule. The first important move in this direction was made in the abbey of Cluny, from which, founded in 910, proceeded the monastic reform of the tenth century. St Berno, the first abbot, died in 927. One essential point distinguished Cluniac monasteries from Benedictine. Each Benedictine abbot was the president of his own republic. The Cluniac houses, on the other hand, were priories directly under the supervision of the abbot of Cluny, the autocrat of the order. They were exempt from episcopal visitation, and the abbot, holding his general chapters at Cluny, was responsible to the pope alone. In England their chief house was the priory of St Pancras at Lewes, founded in 1077 by William de Warenne for a prior and twelve monks: the prior of Lewes took second rank among Cluniac priors. Of some thirty-two English houses of the order several were cells of the larger priories, and at the general chapter would be represented by the priors of their parent monasteries. Owing to the dependence of the order upon Cluny, its English priories shared confiscation with the other alien foundations. They were allowed to continue, however, as 'denizen' houses with English priors, and the priory of St Saviour at Bermondsey