On 25 February 1083 Earl Roger summoned his senior officials, including Warin, the Sheriff of Shropshire and Picot de Say, and publicly pledged himself to found a new Abbey, laying his gloves on the altar of St. Peter and granting the whole suburb outside the east gate for the construction. Reginald and Frodo, two monks from the great Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Martin-de-Séez in Southern Normandy, formed the nucleus of the new community, and began to plan and build the monks' lodging, working with Ordelerius and Warin. Domesday Book found the abbey under construction: "In the City of SHREWSBURY Earl Roger is building an Abbey and has given to it the monastery of St Peter where the parish (church?) of the City was." This suggests that Siward's foundation was already a monastery before Earl Roger began building but it is fairly certain there was no more than a wooden parish church.