St Olave's Church, Southwark - Domesday Book

Domesday Book

St Olave’s is presumed to be the church mentioned in the Southwark Domesday Book entry, from which it appears that it had royal patronage before the Norman Conquest of England in 1066.

The Domesday entry for Southwark has the following three statements relating to the interests of Odo, Bishop of Bayeux and Earl of Kent:

• Qui ecclesiam habebat de rege tenebat. ‘ who had the church held from the king’. This statement is suspiciously vague as to who ‘had’ the church and just which ‘king’ is being referred to. The royal connection was probably that of Godwin’s eldest son who succeeded to his Earldom, Harold II, the last Anglo-Saxon king of England.

• Episcopus autem dedit aecclesiam & fluctum primum Adeloldo deinde Radulfo pro excambio unius domus. ‘The bishop gave the church & the tidal-stream at first to Adelold, then to Ralph in exchange for a house’. The ‘tidal stream’ is likely to have been the later ‘Watergate’ the small dock next to St Olave’s which was probably its endowment; this dock was progressively filled in from south-end to shore, effectively disappearing by 1747, although a ‘stairs’/ landing place survived well into the next century. However, there is no confirmation in Domesday that Odo had any legal interest in the church at all, for neither of the terms for ownership i.e. ‘has’/ habet or ‘holds’/ tenet are used.

• This gives special weight to the third statement: Vicecomes quoque negat se preceptum uel sigillum regis de hac re unquam percepisse. ‘The sheriff also denies that he had ever received the king’s precept or seal concerning this matter’. This confirms the ‘king’s’ interest in the church and calls into question Odo’s action.

Bishop Odo, William the Conqueror’s half-brother who seems to have succeeded to the Godwin interest, had attempted to let out the church but he should have sought the king’s authority to do so. The earliest priests of the church were named Adelold (Athelwold) and then Ralph before 1086. The church is first mentioned by name in 1096 in relation to its priest ‘Peter de St Olavo’ being party to a land transaction involving Bermondsey Priory.