In the Domesday Book, under the name 'Membrefelde, it was the caput or chief place of the Hundred of Alnodestreu,[1] by the standards of the time a fairly large settlement of 22 or more households.

There was a collegiate church or minster at Morville, dedicated to St Gregory and served by eight canons, in the reign of Edward the Confessor[4] and conceivably earlier.

After the Norman Conquest the church fell within the territories of Roger de Montgomery, the Earl of Shrewsbury, and he granted some of the lands to his own chaplains.

Henry I issued a precept to Richard de Belmeis I, who was Bishop of London but also a Shropshire man with viceregal responsibilities in the Welsh Marches, to hear the case.

[9] The notice was witnessed by, among others, Alan fitz Flaad, Roger Corbet and Hamo Peverel, suggesting that it was issued in Shropshire during a royal visit.

Shrewsbury Abbey was now entirely responsible for ensuring that worship was offered in the parish, whether by presenting an incumbent or sending monks to officiate.

This was allowed by Bishop Robert de Bethune in 1138, in sympathy with what he saw as the needs of the abbey in serving the parish, and with the injunction that there should be a colony of monks from Shrewsbury.

"[13] This meant that the abbey was to maintain a guest house for the Bishop of Hereford, bringing in catering and housekeeping staff where necessary.

The advowson of the chapel at Aston Eyre, founded around the beginning of the Anarchy by Robert Fitz Aer to improve pastoral provision in the parish,[15] was contested and won by the abbey around 1190 and thereafter yielded 8s.

[19] As well as taking the revenues, the abbey also appointed the prior at Morville: the priory was not even semi-independent, but an integral part of the convent of Shrewsbury.

[22] In 1372 the prior was the only monk,[23] essentially just a local administrator for the abbot, collecting rents and tithes, and dealing with the dependent chapels.

[27] Richard Baker, also known as Marshall[28] or Marciale,[29] resigned the abbacy in December 1528[30] and retired to Morville, where he appeared as prior the following year,[31] staying until the dissolution of the monasteries finally caught up with Shrewsbury Abbey in 1540.

The abbey assigned him a pension of £40 by a deed dated 22 October 1529, and in order to raise the sum granted him the priory itself, with all its temporalities and spiritualities.