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Malmesbury Abbey

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][8] 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

Parish church

The remaining part of the nave of Malmesbury Abbey, blocked off to the west, currently used as the parish church

The abbey, which owned 23,000 acres (93 km2) 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.[26]

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.[27]

In 1949, the church was designated as a Grade I listed building.[28] 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.[29]

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,[30] 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 current organ, dating from 1984

The earliest organ was obtained in 1846[31] and had formerly stood in the church of St Benet Fink, Threadneedle Street, London;[32] 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.[33] 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 (equivalent to £288,247 in 2023).[34] A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.[35]

Notable burials

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

Legacy

In 2009, historian Michael Wood speculated that Malmesbury Abbey was the site of transcription of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf.[39]

See also

Images

  • The abbey precinct
    The abbey precinct
  • Ground plan of the abbey
    Ground plan of the abbey
  • The Abbey in the 14th century: only the brightened area is now used, following collapses of the spire and west tower
    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
    The fine parvise over the south porch
  • Interior of the Abbey, showing the unusual watching-loft projecting above the nave
    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
    The Abbey interior; the ruined area lies beyond the blank wall rising above the altar

Notes

  1. ^ "Location information". A Church Near You. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  2. ^ "Leadership and Staff". Malmesbury Abbey. Retrieved 13 July 2022.
  3. ^ Kelly, Susan (2005). Charters of Malmesbury Abbey. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. p. 1. ISBN 978-0-19-726317-4.
  4. ^ a b c Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, p. 209.
  5. ^ Sarah Foot, ‘Æthelstan (893/4–939)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2011
  6. ^ V.C.H. Wilts. ii, pp. 125-7.
  7. ^ Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, 165.
  8. ^ a b c d e f g Pugh, R.B.; Crittall, Elizabeth, eds. (1956). "House of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Malmesbury". A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 3. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 210–231. Retrieved 13 July 2022 – via British History Online.
  9. ^ Meidulf, William of Malmesbury: 265.
  10. ^ Maidulbh founded the monastery as a hermitage and taught local children including Aldhelm.
  11. ^ De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum.
  12. ^ Caribine, Deirdre, Great Medieval Thinkers, "John Scottus Eriugena" (Oxford University Press, 2000), p14.
  13. ^ De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N(icholas) E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, p406.
  14. ^ a b c William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops; Vol. I: Text and Translation: Volume I: 411.
  15. ^ a b B.M., Cott. MS. Vit. A. X.
  16. ^ a b William of Malmesbury (2002). Gesta Pontificum Anglorum. Boydell Press. p. 683. ISBN 978-0-85115-884-6.
  17. ^ William of Malmesbury 1125, p. 258.
  18. ^ Cod. Dipl. ed. Kemble, no. 719.
  19. ^ "vir efficax": Gest. Pont. 425.
  20. ^ William of Malmesbury 1125, p. 271.
  21. ^ Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 42.
  22. ^ Leland, Collect. ii, 272.
  23. ^ Magna Carta translation, Barons at Runnymede, Magna Charta Period Feudal Estates, h2g2, King John and the Magna Carta.
  24. ^ Bernard Hodge, A History of Malmesbury (Friends of Malmesbury Abbey, 1990).
  25. ^ B.M., Cott. MS. Faust. B. VIII, f. 142a.
  26. ^ Baggs, A. P.; Freeman, Jane; Stevenson, Janet H. (1991). "Parishes: Malmesbury". In Crowley, D. A. (ed.). A History of the County of Wiltshire, Volume 14. Victoria County History. University of London. pp. 127–168. Retrieved 13 July 2022 – via British History Online.
  27. ^ "Malmesbury Abbey Musket Damage". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
  28. ^ Historic England. "Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm (1269316)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 16 March 2016.
  29. ^ "Abbey Church of St Mary and St Aldhelm, Market Cross, Malmesbury". Heritage at Risk. Historic England. Retrieved 10 November 2022.
  30. ^ Kelly, Susan E., ed. (2005). Charters of Malmesbury Abbey. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-726317-4.
  31. ^ "Malmesbury Abbey". Devizes and Wiltshire Gazette. Devizes. 1 October 1846. Retrieved 26 September 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  32. ^ "Malmesbury Abbey". Salisbury and Winchester Journal. Salisbury. 5 September 1846. Retrieved 26 September 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  33. ^ "Malmesbury Abbey Church Organ. Dedicated by the Bishop of Bristol". Western Daily Press. Bristol. 11 July 1938. Retrieved 26 September 2015 – via British Newspaper Archive.
  34. ^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
  35. ^ "NPOR [N15060]". National Pipe Organ Register. British Institute of Organ Studies. Retrieved 26 September 2015.
  36. ^ Foot, S., 2011, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp.187–88,243.
  37. ^ "Malmesbury Abbey". www.uksouthwest.net. Retrieved 23 August 2018.
  38. ^ Plumb, C., 2015, The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century London”.
  39. ^ Wood, Michael (2009). "In Search of Beowulf". Maya Vision. Retrieved 19 February 2017.

Sources

Further reading

External links

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