The priory of Markyate was founded in 1145, in a wood which was then part of the parish of Caddington, and belonged to the Dean and Chapter of St Paul's Cathedral, London.

As the house was built under the patronage of Geoffrey de Gorham, sixteenth abbot of St. Alban's, and endowed by him (though not with the goodwill of his convent) with tithes from Cashio and Watford, it has sometimes been called a cell of that abbey; but this is scarcely a correct description of it, as the patronage remained always with the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the nuns were never exempt from episcopal jurisdiction.

It is said that a monk called Roger went out from the abbey some time during the reign of Henry I, with the consent of his abbot, to seek a place for a hermitage, and was guided to choose a spot in the woods near Caddington, not far from Watling Street.

A hermit name Eadwine, with the blessing of the Archbishop of Canterbury, helped her to escape an arranged marriage disguised in men's clothes.

When Roger died and was buried at St. Albans, Christina remained at the hermitage; other women, including her sister Margaret, joined her there.

There is happily no doubt of her real existence, as her name appears on the foundation charter and other documents; and an entry on the Pipe Roll of 1156 gives some evidence of the fame to which she attained.

During the lifetime of the first prioress some other small parcels of land in Oxfordshire were acquired; and during the thirteenth century the tithes of Sundon, Streatley, Higham Gobion and Buckby, Northants.

[4] In 1259, when the Friars Preachers came to Dunstable, the prioress of Markyate, Agnes Gobion, sent them a certain number of loaves every day for their dinner—'out of pure charity,' says the chronicler, because they were then building their church.

This grant would not probably be in itself a heavy burden to the priory; but there is no doubt that the nuns had some difficulty in maintaining themselves during the second half of the thirteenth century.

Debts began to press heavily; and in 1290 they sent a petition to Parliament to say that if they were to pay all that they owed (more than two hundred marks) they could not possibly live.

Like a wise man, he did not stop then to argue the matter, and went on his way to Dunstable; but the next day he returned to Markyate, inquired the names of the four refractory nuns, and put the whole convent under penance on their account, threatening to excommunicate them if the statute were not observed.

She was called upon to purge herself of the charge, but preferred to confess it, and resigned her office in the presence of the assembled convent and the vicar of Kensworth.

She was, however, reinstated shortly thereafter, possibly through the influence of her brother, John Lovelich, rector of St. Alphege's in Canterbury[6] After a subsequent visitation in 1442, Bishop Alnwick directed the nuns to take meals together in one house, either in the refectory, infirmary or the Prioress’s hall or chamber, and that during mealtimes scripture or saints’ lives be read aloud to them.

The Prioresses of Markyate were:[4] There is a very early seal of the priory attached to a charter of the first prioress, of a light-brown colour, pointed oval, representing our Lord, with cruciform nimbus, seated on a throne, with rainbow behind it, the right hand raised in benediction, the left resting on a book on the left knee.

[4] The ordinary chapter seal was a representation of the Holy Trinity, pointed oval: a figure seated upon a throne, holding a crucifix; a crescent on the left and a star on the right.