The abbey's church had always doubled as the church for the Abbey Foregate parish, as it owed its origins to the church, founded by Siward the Fat. It was a vicarage controlled by the abbey community. Its title varied slightly through time. One William, is known to have served as "clericus de Cruce", clerk of the Cross, in the early 13th century. Around mid-century, Henry was the vicar of the altar of the Holy Cross. A late medieval reference in the records of the Diocese of Hereford calls it "Vicaria altaris Sancte Crucis, ecclesia paochialis de Foriete Monachorum": Vicarage of the altar of Holy Cross, parish church of the Monk's Foregate. From the brief reign of Edward V (1483) comes a document that appends "Sancti Egidii" or Saint Giles' to the name of the parish.