November 675 A.D. Malmesbury Abbey

November 675 A.D.  Malmesbury Abbey

Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continual history from the 7th century through to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.^[1]

Contents 

• 1 History
• 1.1 Abbots
• 2 Other burials
• 3 See also
• 4 Images
• 5 Notes
• 6 References
• 7 External links

History

In the later seventh century, the site of the Abbey was chosen by Maidulbh, an Irish monk who established a hermitage, teaching local children. Toward the end of his life (late seventh century), the area was conquered by the Saxons.^[2] Malmesbury Abbey was founded as a Benedictine monastery around 676 by the scholar-poet Aldhelm, a nephew of King Ine of Wessex. The town of Malmesbury grew round the expanding Abbey and under Alfred the Great was made Burh,^[3] with an assessment of 12 Hides.

In 941 AD, King Athelstan was buried in the Abbey. Æthelstan had died in Gloucester in October 939. The choice of Malmesbury over the New Minster in Winchester indicated that the king remained an outsider to the West Saxon court.^[4] A mint was founded at the Abbey around this time.^[5]

By the 11th century it contained the second largest library in Europe and was considered one of the leading European seats of learning. The Abbey was the site of an early attempt at human flight when, during the early 11th century, the monk Eilmer of Malmesbury attached wings to his body and flew from a tower. Eilmer flew over 200 yards (200 m) before landing, breaking both legs. He later remarked that the only reason he did not fly further was the lack of a tail on his glider. The 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury was a member of the community, and it is mentioned in the Domesday Book ^[6]

The Domesday Survey says of the Abbey:

In Wiltshire: Highway (11 hides), Dauntsey (10 hides), Somerford Keynes (5 hides), Brinkworth (5 hides), Norton, near Malmesbury (5 hides), Brokenborough with Corston (50 hides), Kemble (30 hides—now in Glos.), Long Newnton (30 hides), Charlton (20 hides), Garsdon (3 hides), Crudwell (40 hides), Bremhill (38 hides), Purton (35 hides); (fn. 127) in Gloucestershire: Littleton - upon - Severn (5 hides); (fn. 128) and in Warwickshire: Newbold Pacey (3 hides).^[7][8][9]

These lands were valued at £188 14s. in all and were assessed as 3 knights' fees.

The current Abbey was substantially completed by 1180. The 431 feet (131 m) tall spire, and the tower it was built upon, collapsed in a storm around 1500 destroying much of the church, including two thirds of the nave and the transept. The west tower fell around 1550, demolishing the three westernmost bays of the nave. As a result of these two collapses, less than half of the original building stands today.

An early-20th-century engraving of King Athelstan's tomb

The Abbey, which owned 23,000 acres (93 km²) in the twenty parishes that constituted Malmesbury Hundred, was closed at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by Henry VIII and was sold, with all its lands, to William Stumpe, a rich merchant. He returned the abbey church to the town for continuing use as a parish church, and filled the abbey buildings with twenty looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.^[10] Today Malmesbury Abbey is in full use as the parish church of Malmesbury, in the Diocese of Bristol. The remains still contain a fine parvise which holds some examples of books from the Abbey library. The Anglo-Saxon charters of Malmesbury, though extended by forgeries and improvements executed in the abbey's scriptorium, provide source material today for the history of Wessex and the West Saxon church from the seventh century.

During the English Civil War, Malmesbury is said to have changed hands as many as seven times, and the abbey was fiercely fought over. Hundreds of pock-marks left by bullets and shot can still be seen on the south, west and east sides of Malmesbury Abbey walls.

Today much of the Abbey survives, with the ruined parts still joined onto the complete structure. The existing third of the nave remains in use as an active place of worship.

Abbots

Name	Appointment	Died	Notes
Maidulbh[11]		673	Irish hermit and Founder of Malmsbury.[12]
Aldhelm	639	709	First Old English writer in Latin, scholar and Poet.
Eaba ???			known only from a letter to Lullus
Ethelhard,[13]			A signatory to a charter of 749
Cuthbert			attended Clofeshoh council in 803.
John Scotus Erigena			Was murdered by his pupils.[14]
Alfred of Malmsbury		999
Ælfric of Eynsham[15]	974	1010	Known for building work and his prophecy of the Viking sacking of Malmsbury.
Æthelweard[16]
Cineweard[17]
Beorhtelm[18][19]
Beorhtold[20]
Beorhtwold.[21]			Sold off portions of the abbey lands.[22]
Eadric[23]	c1012[24]
Wulfsine		1034 [25]
Æthelweard II [26]
Ælfwine			almost nothing is known of him.[27]
Beorhtwold II		1053	A man of bad character who collapsed and died during drunken orgy in the town.[28]
Beorhtric appointed	1053	1067	removed by William the conqueror
Turold of Fécamp	1067		moved by William I to Peterborough in 1070.
Warin of Lyre (Évreux)	1070	1087	spent much of his time at court squandering the abbeys resources.[29]
Godfery[30]
Eadwulf			A monk of Winchester,[31] expelled by Roger of Salisbury.
Roger of Salisbury	1118
John of Malmsbury	1139	1140	appointed by King Stephen after he took the abbey during the Anarchy[32]
Peter Moraunt	1141	1159	obtained a bull of Pope Innocent II
Gregory	1159	1168
Robert	1172	1176	A physician to Henry II
Osbert Foliot.[33]	1176	1182
Nicholas			deposed for running into debt 218
Robert of Melûn	1189	1206
Walter Loring	1206	1222	Signed Magna Charta,[34] received Papal Bull from Innocent III and gained permission from King John to demolish the Malmsbury Castle.[35]
John Walsh	1222	1246
Geoffrey, sacristan [36]	1246	1260	A monk of Malmesbury
William of Colerne	1260	1296
William of Badminton		1296
Adam de la Hoke,			a monk of Malmesbury
Adam by John of Tintern		1349
Simon de Aumeney	1348	1361
Walter de Camme	1362	1396
Thomas Chelworth	1396	1424
Roger Pershore	1424	1434
John Bristow	1434	1456
Johna Andever	1456	1462
John Ayly	1462	1480
Richard Frampton	1480	1515
Richard Camme	1515	1533
Richard Selwyn			Surrendered the Abbey to Henry VIII in 1539.

Other burials

• Aldhelm, first Bishop of Salisbury and Saint
• Æthelweard and Ælfwine
• King Athelstan
• Daniel, Bishop of Winchester
• Hannah Twynnoy: Supposedly the first person to be killed by a tiger in England, she is buried in the churchyard, her grave inscribed with a poem. She was an early-18th-century barmaid working in a local public house, killed on October 23, 1703.

See also

• List of English abbeys, priories and friaries serving as parish churches

Images

The Abbey in the 14th century. Only the brightened area is now used, following collapses of the spire and West Tower

The fine parvise over the south porch

Interior of the Abbey, showing the unusual watching-loft projecting above the nave.

The Abbey interior. The ruined area lies beyond the blank wall rising above the altar

Notes

1.       Jump up ^ S.E. Kelly, editor, 2005.Charters of Malmesbury Abbey In series Anglo-Saxon Charters (Oxford University Press)

2.       Jump up ^ Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, page 209.

3.       Jump up ^ Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, page 209.

4.       Jump up ^ Sarah Foot, ‘Æthelstan (893/4–939)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2011

5.       Jump up ^ Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, page 209.

6.       Jump up ^ Barbara Yourke, Wessex Passio.

7.       Jump up ^ V.C.H. Wilts. ii, pp. 125-7.

8.       Jump up ^ Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, 165.

9.       Jump up ^ 'House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231. Date accessed: 30 April 2014.

10.   Jump up ^ D. A. Crowley, ed. Victoria History of Wiltshire XIV: Malmesbury Hundred, (Oxford) 1991.

11.   Jump up ^ Meidulf, William of Malmesbury :265.

12.   Jump up ^ Maidulbh founded the monastery as a hermitage and taught local children including Aldhelm.

13.   Jump up ^ De Gestis pontificum Anglorum.

14.   Jump up ^ Caribine, Deirdre, Great Medieval Thinkers, John Scottus Eriugena (Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 14 .

15.   Jump up ^ De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N(icholas) E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, p. 406.

16.   Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops : Volume I: Text and Translation: Volume I: 411.

17.   Jump up ^ B.M., Cott. MS. Vit. A. X.

18.   Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops : Volume I: Text and Translation: Volume I: Text and Translation page 683.

19.   Jump up ^ B.M., Cott. MS. Vit. A. X.

20.   Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops : Volume I: Text and Translation: Volume I: Text and Translation page 683.

21.   Jump up ^ House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231. Date accessed: 30 April 2014.

22.   Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops : Volume I: Text and Translation: Volume I: Text and Translation page 258.

23.   Jump up ^ Gest. Pont. 411; Æthericus in B.M., Cott. MS. Vit. A. X.

24.   Jump up ^ Cod. Dipl. ed. Kemble, no. 719.

25.   Jump up ^ Gest. Pont. 411.

26.   Jump up ^ 'House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231.

27.   Jump up ^ 'House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231.

28.   Jump up ^ From: 'House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231. Date accessed: 30 April 2014.

29.   Jump up ^ vir efficax: Gest. Pont. 425.

30.   Jump up ^ William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops : Volume I: Text and Translation: Volume I: Text and Translation page 271.

31.   Jump up ^ Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 42.

32.   Jump up ^ Leland, Collect. ii, 272.

33.   Jump up ^ 'House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury', A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 3 (1956), pp. 210-231. Date accessed: 30 April 2014.

34.   Jump up ^ Magna Charta translation, Barons at Runnymede, Magna Charta Period Feudal Estates, h2g2, King John and the Magna Carta.

35.   Jump up ^ Bernad Hodge, A history of Malmsbury (Friends of Malmsbury Abbey, 1990).

36.   Jump up ^ B.M., Cott. MS. Faust. B. VIII, f. 142a.

References

• Smith, M Q: The Sculptures of the South Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: A Short Guide, 1975

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Malmesbury Abbey.

• Malmesbury Abbey Official website
• Malmesbury Abbey at Window on Wiltshire's Heritage.
• Image directory of Malmesbury Abbey at ArtServe.
• Malmesbury Abbey at The Normans: A European People.
•  "Malmesbury". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.