Malmesbury Abbey Explained

Malmesbury Abbey
Pushpin Map:Wiltshire#England
Map Caption:Location in Wiltshire##Location in England
Coordinates:51.5847°N -2.0984°W
Location:Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England
Country:United Kingdom
Denomination:Church of England
Previous Denomination:Roman Catholic (until 1539)
Status:Parish church
Founder:Aldhelm
Dedication:Saint Peter and Saint Paul
Functional Status:Active
Heritage Designation:Grade I listed
Designated Date:1949
Architectural Type:Abbey
Groundbreaking:7th century
Bells Hung:-->
Province:Province of Canterbury
Diocese:Diocese of Bristol
Diocese Start:1897
Archdeaconry:Malmesbury
Deanery:North Wiltshire
Benefice:Malmesbury and Upper Avon
Parish:Malmesbury and Brokenborough[1]
Bishop:Right Rev. Vivienne Faull
Vicar:Rev. Oliver Ross[2]
Chaplain:Rev. Deborah Scott-Bromley
Curate:Rev. Sarah Heywood
Archdeacon:Ven. Christopher Bryan

Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a former Benedictine abbey dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English religious houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[3]

Monastic history

In the later seventh century, the site of the Abbey was chosen by Máel Dub, an Irish monk who established a hermitage, teaching local children. Towards the end of his life, in the late seventh century, the area was conquered by the Saxons.[4] 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 up around the expanding Abbey and under Alfred the Great was made a burh,[4] with an assessment of 12 hides.

In October 939 Æthelstan, king of Wessex and of the English, died in Gloucester, and in the year 941 his remains were buried in the Abbey. The choice of Malmesbury over the New Minster in Winchester indicated that the king remained an outsider to the West Saxon court.[5] A mint was founded at the Abbey around this time.[4]

The Abbey developed an illustrious reputation for academic learning under the rule of abbots such as Aldhelm, John Scotus Eriugena, Alfred of Malmesbury and Aelfric of Eynsham.

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 Domesday Book of 1086 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).[6] [7] These lands were valued at £188 14s. in all and were assessed as 3 knights' fees.

The 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury was a monk at the Abbey.

Construction and structural collapse

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.

Abbots

NameAppointmentDiedNotes
Maidulbh[8] 673Irish hermit and founder of Malmesbury[9]
Aldhelm639709first Old English writer in Latin, scholar and poet
Eaba ???known only from a letter to Lullus
Ethelhard[10] a signatory to a charter of 749
Cuthbert attended the council of Clofeshoh in 803
c877was murdered by his pupils[11]
Alfred of Malmesbury999
Ælfric of Crediton[12] 9741010known for building work and his prophecy of the Viking sacking of Malmesbury
Æthelweard[13]
Cineweard[14]
Beorhtelm[15]
Beorhtold
Beorhtwold[16] sold off portions of the abbey lands
Eadricc1012[17]
Wulfsine1034
Æthelweard II
Ælfwine almost nothing is known of him
Beorhtwold II1053a man of bad character who collapsed and died during a drunken orgy in the town
Beorhtric appointed 10531067removed by William the Conqueror
1067moved by William I to Peterborough in 1070
Warin of Lyre (Évreux)10701087spent much of his time at court, squandering the abbey's resources[18]
Godfrey
Eadwulfa monk of Winchester,[19] expelled by Roger of Salisbury
Roger of Salisbury11181139
John of Malmsbury11391140appointed by King Stephen after he took the abbey during the Anarchy[20]
Peter Moraunt11411159obtained a bull of Pope Innocent II
Gregory 11591168
Robert11721176a physician to Henry II
Osbert Foliot11761182
Nicholasdeposed for running into debt 218
Robert of Melûn11891206
Walter Loring12061222signed Magna Carta,[21] received papal bull from Innocent III
and gained permission from King John to demolish Malmesbury Castle.[22]
John Walsh12221246
Geoffrey, sacristan[23] 12461260a monk of Malmesbury
William of Colerne12601296
William of Badminton1296
Adam de la Hokea monk of Malmesbury
Adam by John of Tintern1349
Simon de Aumeney13481361
Walter de Camme13621396
Thomas Chelworth13961424
Roger Pershore14241434
John Bristow 14341456
John Andever14561462
John Ayly14621480
Richard Frampton14801515
Richard Camme 15151533
Richard Selwynsurrendered the Abbey to Henry VIII in 1539

Parish church

The abbey, which owned 23000acres in the twenty parishes that constituted the 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 up to 20 looms for his cloth-weaving enterprise.[24]

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. During the English Civil War, Malmesbury suffered extensive damage evidenced by hundreds of pock-marks left by bullets and shot which can still be seen on the south, west and east sides of the building.[25]

In 1949, the church was designated as a Grade I listed building. Historic England added it to their Heritage at Risk Register in 2022, stating that the roofs of the nave and aisles were leaking and in need of repair.[26]

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 (a room over the porch) which holds some examples of books from the abbey library. The Anglo-Saxon charters of Malmesbury,[27] 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.

Vicars of St Paul's and the Abbey Church, Malmesbury

From 1301 until the mid-16th century, the parish church of Malmesbury was St. Paul's. This stood in what is now Birdcage Walk (its tower and steeple remains, and is now the Abbey belltower). In 1539 Malmesbury Abbey ceased to exist as a monastic community and in August 1541 Thomas Cranmer licensed the abbey church to replace St Paul's as the parish church of Malmesbury. In 1837 the ancient chapelries of Corston and Rodbourne were made into a separate parish, called St Paul Malmesbury Without, and St Mary Westport was united to the abbey church.

Organ

The earliest organ was obtained in 1846[28] and had formerly stood in the church of St Benet Fink, Threadneedle Street, London;[29] it had been manufactured in 1714 by Abraham Jordan. In 1938 a new organ was provided by Henry Willis, which had formerly been owned by Sir George Alfred Wills, Baronet of Bristol.[30] Eventually it too was replaced.

The current organ dates from 1984 and was built by E.J. Johnson of Cambridge at a cost of £71,000 . A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.

Notable burials

Legacy

In 2009, historian Michael Wood speculated that Malmesbury Abbey was the site of transcription of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.[34]

See also

Sources

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Location information . A Church Near You . 13 July 2022.
  2. Web site: Leadership and Staff . Malmesbury Abbey . 13 July 2022.
  3. Book: Kelly, Susan. Charters of Malmesbury Abbey. 2005. Oxford University Press. Oxford, UK. 978-0-19-726317-4. 1.
  4. Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, p. 209.
  5. [Sarah Foot]
  6. V.C.H. Wilts. ii, pp. 125-7.
  7. Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, 165.
  8. Meidulf, William of Malmesbury: 265.
  9. Maidulbh founded the monastery as a hermitage and taught local children including Aldhelm.
  10. [De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum]
  11. Caribine, Deirdre, Great Medieval Thinkers, "John Scottus Eriugena" (Oxford University Press, 2000), p14.
  12. De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N(icholas) E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, p406.
  13. William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops; Vol. I: Text and Translation: Volume I: 411.
  14. [Cotton manuscripts|B.M., Cott. MS.]
  15. Book: William of Malmesbury. Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. 2002. Boydell Press. 978-0-85115-884-6. 683.
  16. Book: A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 3 . . House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury . 210–231 . R.B. . Pugh . Ralph Pugh . Elizabeth . Crittall . 1956 . British History Online . University of London . 13 July 2022.
  17. Cod. Dipl. ed. Kemble, no. 719.
  18. "vir efficax": Gest. Pont. 425.
  19. Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 42.
  20. Leland, Collect. ii, 272.
  21. https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/magna_carta/translation.html Magna Carta translation
  22. Bernard Hodge, A History of Malmesbury (Friends of Malmesbury Abbey, 1990).
  23. B.M., Cott. MS. Faust. B. VIII, f. 142a.
  24. Book: A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 14 . . Parishes: Malmesbury . 127–168 . D. A. . Crowley . A. P. . Baggs . Jane . Freeman . Janet H. . Stevenson . 1991 . British History Online . University of London . 13 July 2022.
  25. Web site: Malmesbury Abbey Musket Damage. Atlas Obscura. 10 November 2022.
  26. Web site: Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Market Cross, Malmesbury . 2022-11-10 . Heritage at Risk . Historic England . en.
  27. Book: Charters of Malmesbury Abbey . Susan E. . Kelly . 2005 . Oxford University Press . 978-0-19-726317-4.
  28. News: . Malmesbury Abbey . Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette . Devizes . 1 October 1846 . 26 September 2015. British Newspaper Archive. subscription .
  29. News: . Malmesbury Abbey . Salisbury and Winchester Journal . Salisbury . 5 September 1846 . 26 September 2015. British Newspaper Archive. subscription .
  30. News: . Malmesbury Abbey Church Organ. Dedicated by the Bishop of Bristol . Western Daily Press . Bristol . 11 July 1938 . 26 September 2015. British Newspaper Archive. subscription .
  31. Foot, S., 2011, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp.187–88,243.
  32. Web site: Malmesbury Abbey. www.uksouthwest.net. 23 August 2018.
  33. Plumb, C., 2015, The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century London”.
  34. Web site: Michael . Wood. In Search of Beowulf. Maya Vision. 2009. 19 February 2017.