TIRON, LIKE OTHER religious congregations, prepared and paid for papal confirmations of its most important properties. Tiron obtained papal protection of its properties in 1119 and prepared lists for papal confirmations in 1132, 1147, and 1175. This study relies heavily on three papal confirmations of 1132 (fol. 1v), 1147 (fol. 90r), and 1175 (fol. 58) that were copied into the manuscript cartulary by twelfth-century scribes. In these confirmations the properties are listed by diocese. Not all properties were confirmed; other charters show Tironensian monks in residence in towns and farms but not organized into priories. A second parchment version of the 1147 confirmation in the departmental archives (ADEL, H 1378) differs from the cartulary version, but almost all the properties listed in 1147 are also listed in 1175. The 1175 confirmation shows little additional expansion in France. Tiron prepared an inventory of the abbey's income ca. 1250, which supplements these confirmations.

Tiron formally obtained papal protection from Callistus II at Reims in 1119. In 1132 Innocent II travelled from Rome to France, and Abbot William of Tiron, Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux, and Geoffrey II, bishop of Chartres, sought papal confirmations. On 16 March 1132/ 1133, at Valence, Innocent II issued a confirmation of the possessions of Tiron Abbey at the petition of Abbot William. Copied at the beginning of the Tironensian manuscript cartulary, the confirmation categorizes the properties as abbatia and ecclesia.

Wales: St. Dogmaels

Scotland: Kelso

Chartres: St.- Jean-et-St.- Paul-de-Bouche-d’Aigre, St.- Gilles-des-Châtaigniers

Poitiers and Angers: St.- Léonard-de-Ferrières, ND-d’Asnières, ND-de-Sainte-Croix-du-Teil-aux-Moines

Le Mans: St.- Laurent-du-Gué- de-Launay, St.- Pierre-de-Louïe

Evreux: St.- Martin-d’Heudreville-sur-Eure

Paris: La-Madeleine-de-Jardy

Le Mans: ND-de-l’Eguillé

Chartres: St.- Jean-des-Murgers

Winchester: St. Andrew of Hamble

The confirmation contains a sane laborum clause allowing Tiron to keep the tithes on its own products, produce, and livestock, an issue when monasteries acquired properties whose tenants owed parish tithes or cleared new land and put it under cultivation.