On the first page of M. Delaville le Roulx' sumptuous Cartulaire Général of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem there is printed a charter relating to Clerkenwell, in which the Hospitallers are mentioned, and which is there assigned to circa 1100. As the Order itself was only founded (if indeed it was) in the year preceding, this would be the earliest charter in which it is mentioned in Europe, and its well-known priory at Clerkenwell, the first to be founded. It is again on the authority of this charter, which “se place vers 1100,” that M. Delaville le Roulx asserts in his introduction that:
“L'Ordre comptait dans les Iles Britanniques de nombreux établissements, dont les plus anciens remontaient aux premières années du xiie siècle ” (p. clvii.).