Tavistock was a Benedictine abbey founded in the latter half of the tenth century. The rule of St. Benedict was broad and elastic, and monasteries could and did embrace it without parting entirely with their traditions.[92] It was, in fact, the only rule recognised in England during the whole of the Saxon period. Admitting all this the phrase “monks or rather hermits,” is so studiously vague as to imply a doubt as to whether the brothers had in the Confessor’s day submitted to any recognised rule whatever. It is certain that while bringing them into a closer relationship with Tavistock the King intended to enforce a stricter discipline, otherwise his further provision that they should, like “the King’s own prebendaries” have his peace and protection, would have been unnecessary. The King does not confirm any supposed charter of Athelstan or of Edward, but gives the religious community at Scilly to the abbey at Tavistock, and, apart from the reference to the latter King, there is nothing to lead us to regard the monks as Benedictine or as affiliated to the abbey until Henry’s charter was granted. As a cell of Tavistock, the Scilly monastery appears to have existed until the suppression of the mother house, but little is known of it subsequent to the middle of the fifteenth century. Tregony Priory. At an early date the churches of St. James, Tregony, and of St. Cuby, appear to have accepted the rule of St. Augustine and to have been constituted a cell of the abbey of de Valle in Normandy. When and by whom this appropriation was made is unknown, but it is certain that it was made after the Norman Conquest. In the year 1278 Bishop Bronescombe gave his sanction to the transfer of the priory of Tregony to the priory of Merton in the county of Surrey. This was in furtherance of an arrangement between the prior of Merton and the abbot of de Valle, whereby the possessions of the former in the diocese of Bayeux were exchanged for those of the latter in England. Bishop Quivel confirmed the sanction of his predecessor in 1282, and until the dissolution of the religious houses the cell, which had become a vicarage, belonged to the monastery of Merton. Of Tywardreath Priory little need be said here. At the time of the Domesday Survey, Tywardreath was one of the thirty manors in Cornwall which had been given by the Conqueror to Richard Fitz Turold. By Richard the priory was founded and affiliated to the great Benedictine abbey of SS. Sergius and Bacchus at Angers. The list of charters recording successive endowments is exceptionally complete, and for genealogical purposes the charters are of very great value, but they afford no suggestion of a pre-Norman foundation.