have survived him by many years. Despite his reservations about the self-contradictory sources, Eyton concluded that the foundation date lay between 1130 and 1138 and that the founder of the abbey "in all respects was the first William Fitz-Alan". However, William FitzAlan's grant of the Preston Boats fish weir, around 1135, was clearly not a foundation grant: there was already a small but growing community when it was made. The Victoria County History account tends to give more weight than Eyton to the possibility of an earlier origin. Augustinian communities often began as small gatherings around a noted hermit before growing into established monasteries, or even small religious orders: the Abbey of Arrouaise in northern France, which had a Shropshire community at nearby Lilleshall Abbey, is an example. At Haughmond, the remains of a very modest early church were discovered beneath the floor of the later, more ambitious building, during the 1907 excavations: this may date back to the time of Prior Fulk or earlier. Despite these reservations and qualifications, the most recent account of William Fitz-Alan, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, simply treats him as the founder of the abbey, and it was certainly he who placed it on a secure basis, even if he was not the originator. Early growth and confirmations William FitzAlan took the side of the Empress and was exiled from the region from 1138 until at least 1153. However, endowments continued in FitzAlan's absence. The Empress gave Haughmond land and a mill in Walcot, Shropshire. The land grant at least is generally thought to date from Matilda's time at Oxford in the summer of 1141, when she temporarily had the upper hand in the civil war. The abbey took the precaution of getting Stephen's approval for these valuable gifts – assuming that Stephen's grant of the same property actually was later, which is not absolutely certain. When Henry, Duke of Normandy, the future Henry II, appeared in England in 1153, he was induced to issue a charter at Leicester, confirming his mother's grants. This strategy of obtaining triple grants during the Anarchy was followed also by Lilleshall Abbey. An early benefactor of Haughmond was Ranulf de Gernon, 4th Earl of Chester, who donated the right to fish in the Dee and take 6000 salt fish free of tolls. Ranulf brought a number of Welsh magnates into the civil war, initially on the