November 675 A.D. Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England
Dolan, John Gilbert. “Malmesbury.”
Catholic Encyclopedia. N.d. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic_Encyclopedia_(1913)/Malmesbury. Accessed 25 Sept 2014.
A small decayed market town in Wiltshire, England,
ninety-five miles west of London, formerly the seat of a mitred parliamentary
abbey of Benedictine monks. It owed its origin to Maildubh or Maildulf, an
Irish monk and teacher who settled in the place about the middle of the seventh
century, Bladon as the British, Inglebourn as the English called it, was then a
border settlement between the Welsh and English, and on the confines of the
kingdoms of Wessex and Mercia. It was strongly placed on a high bluff almost
surrounded by two small rivers, and an ancient stronghold or castle still
further defended it. The school which Maildubh opened attracted many pupils,
and chief amongst them Ældhelm or Aldhelm (q. v.), son of Kenten, and a near
relation of King Ina of Wessex. Aldhelm was sent twice to Canterbury to study
under St. Adrian the African, then abbot of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul
(afterwards St. Augustine's). Returning to Malmesbury between 671 and 675, he
was placed in charge of the school, and appointed abbot of a monastery founded
there by Lothair (Leutherius), Bishop of Dorchester. Under his rule the
monastery greatly prospered. On the division of the Wessex Diocese, Aldhelm was
made first Bishop of Sherborne, in Dorset, while Daniel, monk of Malmesbury,
became Bishop of Winchester. The former retained the management of Malmesbury
and the monasteries of Frome and Bradford-on-Avon, which he had founded. The
house suffered under Edwy, who in 958 expelled the monks; sixteen years later
they were restored by King Edgar (974). Edward the Confessor sanctioned a
proposal of Bishop Herman of Wilton to transfer his see to Malmesbury; the
monks and Earl Godwin opposed this, and Old Sarum was chosen instead. Like King
Athelstan and other Saxon monarchs, so did William the Conqueror, John, Richard
II, Henry IV, and Henry V befriend the house in later times.
Under John the place was attacked by Robert, a marauding
soldier who had gained possession of Devizes Castle; he slew all the monks who
failed to escape (1140). John bestowed on the abbey the site of Malmesbury
Castle, which he pulled down to enlarge their enclosure, which covered
forty-five acres. The town of Malmesbury was walled and had four gates, all now
vanished. A preceptory of Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, three churches, and
one or two nunneries, a mint, an important merchant's guild, and a large
population marked the prosperity of the place. The abbey church was a vast and
noble building with a western tower, and a central tower and spire seven yards
higher than that of Salisbury Cathedral. Besides the above-named, the abbey was
connected with other celebrated men: Pecthelm, first Bishop of Whithorn
(Galloway); Ethelhard, Bishop of Winchester and Archbishop of Canterbury;
Ælfric, Bishop of Crediton; John Scotus Erigena; Faricius of Arezzo, physician
and monk, later Abbot of Abingdon; Oliver or Elmer, mechanician, astronomer,
and aeronaut; an anonymous Greek monk who planted vineyards here; Godfrey, and
one or two anonymous writers; and most famous of all, William Somerset, known
as William of Malmesbury (died about 1143), who ranks after Bede as the
greatest of the English medieval historians. Of the abbots who ruled the house
and its dependency, Pilton Priory, Devonshire, in the last four hundred years
of its existence, few attained any special celebrity. On the whole they seem to
have been good administrators and great builders. One or two came under censure
from the English Benedictine general chapters for their negligence in sending
the due proportion of their junior monks to the universities. The monastery,
which had an annual revenue of £803, was surrendered in 1539 by its last abbot,
Robert Selwyn, or Frampton, and twenty-one of the monks, who received pensions.
Of the whole abbey only five bays of the nave are standing; the cloisters,
etc., which were to the north of the church, have entirely disappeared.
DUGDALE, Monasticon Anglicanum (London, 1846);
STEVENS, History of the Ancient Abbeys (London, 1722); REYNER, Apostolatus
Benedictinorum in Anglia (Douai, 1626); MOFFAT, History of the town of
Malmesbury (Tetbury, 1805); LEE in Dict. Nat. Biog. (London, 1900);
BROWNE, St. Aldhelm; His life and Times (London, 1903); WILDMAN, Life
of St. Ældhelm (Sherborne, 1905).
Gilbert Dolan.
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