The Augustinian Abbey of Missenden held a little land at Flitton, and a house and some claim on a church at Bedford; documents relating to these are preserved in its Cartulary (B.M., Harl. MS. 3688). But of greater interest are further documents in the same manuscript, which supply information, apparently not recorded elsewhere, as to the Priory of Harrold. This little Priory belonged to the Order of St. Nicholas of Arrouais, an offshoot of the Augustinian Order, and included both monks and nuns; this unusual arrangement seems to be explained in No. viii. by the then abbot of Arrouais (to which House the church of Harrold had been granted) sending his own blood sisters under charge of his brother to form a small religious community at Harrold. To the fact that the Priory for some time was under a certain control of the Abbey of Missenden, we owe the preservation of these documents.

In the following pages are either calendared or transcribed those entries in the Cartulary which deal with Bedfordshire.