In the foregoing chapter an outline has been given of a number of controversies affecting monasteries and giving rise to litigation both in England and at Rome. All these quarrels had their origin in claims of one kind or another put forward by the bishop against monks within his diocese. During the same period yet another cause célèbre of a different kind was before the Curia from England, and its story has come down to us narrated in such detail and throwing such a vivid light on the life of the times that an account of it cannot be omitted from these pages, even though the story has been recently told elsewhere in considerable detail.

The ancient abbey of Evesham, situated on falling ground at the foot of the main street of the town in a bend of the river Avon, was in normal times a house of medium size with a competent, though not unusually large, income. It had on the whole enjoyed good fortune, both temporal and spiritual, since the Conquest. Among its abbots since the days of eminence under Aethelwig had been Reginald Foliot, brother of the distinguished bishop, and William of Andeville, a notable member of the familia of Christ Church, Canterbury. For some thirty years (1161–89) it had been ruled by the Cluniac Adam, originally a monk of La Charité and subsequently (1157–61) prior of Bermondsey, and had prospered under him in every way.