However, it is not certain that William FitzAlan founded or was the first to endow the community. Leland repeats the persistent story that “there was an hermitage and a chapell before the erectynge of the abbey.” This suggests some value in considering the founding of the FitzAlan fortunes by William FitzAlan's father, Alan fitz Flaad. He appeared in Henry I's company at least as early as September 1101, when he witnessed important grants to Norwich Cathedral. Thereafter, he is heard of with the king at Canterbury in 1103, in the New Forest in 1104, He seems to have taken an interest in donations of his own to religious houses, as at some point he gave a manor to Norwich Cathedral, a gift the king promised “to confirm when Alan comes to my court” - evidently a regular occurrence. Only later does he appear as a witness to an order given to Richard de Belmeis I, the Bishop of London and the king's viceroy in Shropshire, to deal with a disputed prebend at Morville, presumably a complication of the abolition of the collegiate church there in favour of Shrewsbury Abbey. Alan appears in this context among a group of Shropshire magnates, including Corbets and a Peverel, probably during Henry I's 1114 military expedition into Wales. It seems to have been around this time that he acquired the abbey site, along with other large estates in Shropshire and Sussex. The estates had been granted by William the Conqueror to Rainald de Bailleul, the Sheriff of Shropshire, in consideration of his shrievalty, and were given to Alan after the death of Rainald's son, Hugh. One of the most important was Upton Magna, in which Haughmond Abbey was located. Eyton places the handover earlier, around the time of a royal expedition to Shropshire in 1109. It is possible that Alan was the founder of the original priory, or even that it began before his time, as a small eremetic community, towards the end of the 11th century. Another possibility is that the community was established or nurtured by Alan's widow, variously named as Adelina, Avelina or Evelyn, who seems to have survived him by many years.