 Norreis was appointed to the abbacy of Evesham Abbey in 1190 and was blessed as abbot on 13 January 1190 . He owed his appointment to King Richard and to Baldwin 's attempts to make the dismissal from Christ Church look less like a defeat for the archbishop . Norreis also claimed that he received the office in return for unspecified services he rendered to Richard . There was no attempt at an election by the monks , a lack which went against canon law . During his tenure of office , his monks accused him of adultery , excessive drinking , gluttony , setting up favourites , starving the monks , and appropriating monastic property for his own use . A further offence was his habit of wearing secular clothing rather than the monastic robes prescribed by the Benedictine Rule . All these charges come from one of his monks , the historian Thomas of Marlborough , who wrote much of the history of Evesham known as the Chronicon Abbatiae de Evesham . Thomas 's account of Norreis 's rule is biased against the abbot and is a self @-@ aggrandising account of how Thomas single @-@ handedly triumphed over both his and his abbey 's foes . Norreis did manage some good for the abbey , as it was while he was abbot that the crossing tower of the monastic church was completed . 
