Malmesbury Abbey, at
Malmesbury
Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the up ...
in
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
, England, is a religious house dedicated to
Saint Peter
Saint Peter; he, שמעון בר יונה, Šimʿōn bar Yōnāh; ar, سِمعَان بُطرُس, translit=Simʿa̅n Buṭrus; grc-gre, Πέτρος, Petros; cop, Ⲡⲉⲧⲣⲟⲥ, Petros; lat, Petrus; ar, شمعون الصفـا, Sham'un ...
and
Saint Paul
Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the
dissolution of the monasteries.
Monastic history
In the later seventh century, the site of the
Abbey
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The conce ...
was chosen by
Maildubh, an
Irish monk
The Hiberno-Scottish mission was a series of expeditions in the 6th and 7th centuries by Gaels, Gaelic Missionary, missionaries originating from Ireland that spread Celtic Christianity in Scotland, Wales, History of Anglo-Saxon England, England ...
who established a hermitage, teaching local children. Toward the end of his life, in the late seventh century, the area was conquered by the
Saxons
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
.
[''Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England'', p. 209.] Malmesbury Abbey was founded as a
Benedictine monastery
, image = Medalla San Benito.PNG
, caption = Design on the obverse side of the Saint Benedict Medal
, abbreviation = OSB
, formation =
, motto = (English: 'Pray and Work')
, foun ...
around 676 by the scholar-poet
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...
, a nephew of King
Ine of Wessex
Ine, also rendered Ini or Ina, ( la, Inus; c. AD 670 – after 726) was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor ...
. The town of
Malmesbury
Malmesbury () is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately west of Swindon, northeast of Bristol, and north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the up ...
grew around the expanding Abbey and under
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
was made a
burh
A burh () or burg was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constru ...
,
with an assessment of 12 hides.
In AD 941, King
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
was buried in the Abbey. Æthelstan had died in
Gloucester
Gloucester ( ) is a cathedral city and the county town of Gloucestershire in the South West of England. Gloucester lies on the River Severn, between the Cotswolds to the east and the Forest of Dean to the west, east of Monmouth and east ...
in October 939. The choice of Malmesbury over the
New Minster in
Winchester
Winchester is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs Nation ...
indicated that the king remained an outsider to the
West Saxon court. A mint was founded at the Abbey around this time.
The Abbey developed an illustrious reputation for academic learning under the rule of abbots such as
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...
,
John Scotus Eriugena
John Scotus Eriugena, also known as Johannes Scotus Erigena, John the Scot, or John the Irish-born ( – c. 877) was an Irish Neoplatonist philosopher, theologian and poet of the Early Middle Ages. Bertrand Russell dubbed him "the most ...
,
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
Eilmer of Malmesbury (also known as Oliver due to a scribe's miscopying, or Elmer, or Æthelmær) was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings.
Life
Eilmer was a monk of Malmesb ...
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
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...
of 1086 says of the Abbey:
:''In
Wiltshire
Wiltshire (; abbreviated Wilts) is a historic and ceremonial county in South West England with an area of . It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset to the southwest, Somerset to the west, Hampshire to the southeast, Gloucestershire ...
: 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
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
: Littleton - upon - Severn (5 hides); (fn. 128) and in
Warwickshire
Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, and the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon an ...
: Newbold Pacey (3 hides)''.
These lands were valued at
£188 14s. in all and were assessed as 3 knights' fees.
The 12th-century historian
William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a ...
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
A spire is a tall, slender, pointed structure on top of a roof of a building or tower, especially at the summit of church steeples. A spire may have a square, circular, or polygonal plan, with a roughly conical or pyramidal shape. Spires are ...
, and the tower it was built upon, collapsed in a storm around 1500 destroying much of the church, including two-thirds of the
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and the
transept
A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform ("cross-shaped") building withi ...
.
Abbots
Parish church
The abbey, which owned in the twenty parishes that constituted the
Malmesbury Hundred, was closed at the
Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539 by
Henry VIII
Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is best known for his six marriages, and for his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. His disa ...
and was sold, with all its lands, to
William Stumpe
William Stumpe (by 1498 – 22 July 1552) of Malmesbury, Wiltshire, was a clothier and an English politician.
Career
Stumpe was a leading Wiltshire clothier. At the dissolution of Malmesbury Abbey, he was able to acquire the monastery site. He ...
, 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.
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
The English Civil War (1642–1651) was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians (" Roundheads") and Royalists led by Charles I ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of re ...
, 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.
In 1949, the church was designated as a
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
building.
Historic England
Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked wit ...
added it to their
Heritage at Risk Register
An annual ''Heritage at Risk Register'' is published by Historic England. The survey is used by national and local government, a wide range of individuals and heritage groups to establish the extent of risk and to help assess priorities for actio ...
in 2022, stating that the roofs of the nave and aisles were leaking and in need of repair.
Today Malmesbury Abbey is in full use as the
parish church
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
of Malmesbury, in the
Diocese of Bristol
The Diocese of Bristol is an ecclesiastical jurisdiction or diocese of the Church of England in the Province of Canterbury, England. It is based in the city of Bristol and covers South Gloucestershire and parts of north Wiltshire, as far east ...
. The remains still contain a fine
parvise
A parvis or parvise is the open space in front of and around a cathedral or church, especially when surrounded by either colonnades or porticoes, as at St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. It is thus a church-specific type of forecourt, front yard or a ...
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
Scriptorium (), literally "a place for writing", is commonly used to refer to a room in medieval European monasteries devoted to the writing, copying and illuminating of manuscripts commonly handled by monastic scribes.
However, lay scribes and ...
, provide source material today for the history of
Wessex
la, Regnum Occidentalium Saxonum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of the West Saxons
, common_name = Wessex
, image_map = Southern British Isles 9th century.svg
, map_caption = S ...
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
A parish church (or parochial church) in Christianity is the church which acts as the religious centre of a parish. In many parts of the world, especially in rural areas, the parish church may play a significant role in community activities, ...
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
Thomas Cranmer (2 July 1489 – 21 March 1556) was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build the case for the annulment of Henry' ...
licensed the abbey church to replace St Paul's as the parish church of Malmesbury. In 1837 the ancient chapelries of
Corston and
Rodbourne
Rodbourne is a suburb of Swindon in Wiltshire, England, north of the town centre and about northwest of Swindon railway station. It includes an area formerly called Even Swindon.
Northern area
Land to the north of the Wilts and Berks Canal a ...
were made into a separate parish, called
St Paul Malmesbury Without
St Paul Malmesbury Without is a civil parish surrounding Malmesbury, Wiltshire, England. Its main settlements are the village of Corston and the hamlets of Milbourne and Rodbourne (not to be confused with the Rodbourne suburb of Swindon).
G ...
, and
St Mary Westport was united to the abbey church.
Organ
The earliest organ was obtained in 1846 and had formerly stood in the church of
St Benet Fink
St Benet Fink was a church and parish in the City of London located on what is now Threadneedle Street. Recorded since the 13th century, the church was destroyed in the Great Fire of London of 1666, then rebuilt to the designs of Sir Christop ...
, Threadneedle Street, London; it had been manufactured in 1714 by Abraham Jordan. In 1938 a new organ was provided by
Henry Willis
Henry Willis (27 April 1821 – 11 February 1901), also known as "Father" Willis, was an English organ player and builder, who is regarded as the foremost organ builder of the Victorian era. His company Henry Willis & Sons remains in busin ...
, which had formerly been owned by Sir
George Alfred Willis, Baronet of Bristol. 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
*
Máel Dub
Máel Dub (the Gaelic name ''Máel'' meaning "disciple" and ''Dub'' being a byname, "dark"; Latinized as ''Maildubus'', anglicized as ''Maildulf'' and other variants) was a Saint and reputed Irish monk of the 7th century, said to have founded a ...
, who founded the first monastic community in Malmesbury and gave his name to the town. His bones were cast out of the church of St. Peter and St. Paul by the Norman abbot Warin of Lyre, and relegated to a far corner of St. Michael's Church.
*
Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the so ...
, first
Bishop of Sherborne
The Bishop of Sherborne is an episcopal title which takes its name from the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, England. The see of Sherborne was established in around 705 by St Aldhelm, the Abbot of Malmesbury. This see was the mother diocese o ...
and saint
* Æthelwine and Ælfwine, sons of
Æthelweard (son of Alfred)
Æthelweard (died 920 or 922) was the younger son of King Alfred the Great and Ealhswith.
He was born about 880. That he was Alfred's younger son by Ealhswith is stated by Asser in his biography of the king ( 893). Asser also provides valuable de ...
*
Æthelstan
Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his first ...
, regarded as the first king of England. He was buried in the tower, under the altar of St. Mary. According to William of Malmesbury, Æthelstan's body was disinterred in the 11th century and reburied in the abbot's garden (now
Abbey House Gardens) to avoid Norman desecration. He is commemorated by an empty 15th century tomb in the north aisle.
*
Daniel, Bishop of Winchester
*
Hannah Twynnoy
Hannah Twynnoy (c. 1669/70 – October 1703) is believed to have been the first person to have been killed by a tiger in Britain. Twynnoy was an early 18th-century barmaid working in The White Lion public house in the centre of the English market ...
, supposedly the first person to be killed by a tiger in England, is buried in the churchyard, her gravestone inscribed with a poem. She was killed on 23 October 1703 after teasing a tiger in a menagerie stabled in the White Lion public house where she worked.
*
Roger Scruton
Sir Roger Vernon Scruton (; 27 February 194412 January 2020) was an English philosopher and writer who specialised in aesthetics and political philosophy, particularly in the furtherance of traditionalist conservative views.
Editor from 1982 t ...
, a writer and philosopher who lived near Malmesbury, was buried in the churchyard in 2020.
Legacy
In 2009, historian
Michael Wood speculated that Malmesbury Abbey was the site of transcription of the Anglo-Saxon epic poem ''
Beowulf
''Beowulf'' (; ang, Bēowulf ) is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The ...
''.
[
]
See also
*
*
Monk of Malmesbury
*
The Old Bell, Malmesbury
The Old Bell is a hotel and restaurant in the Cotswold market town of Malmesbury, Wiltshire. The hotel is in the centre of the town, immediately next to the 12th-century remains of Malmesbury Abbey. The Old Bell is a Grade I listed building bec ...
Images
Notes
References
*
*Smith, M Q: ''The Sculptures of the South Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: A Short Guide'', 1975
*
External links
*
Malmesbury Abbeyat Window on Wiltshire's Heritage
Image directory of Malmesbury Abbeyat ArtServe
at ''The Normans: A European People''
*
{{Authority control
670s establishments
Christian monasteries established in the 7th century
Anglo-Saxon monastic houses
Buildings and structures completed in 1180
Monasteries in Wiltshire
Benedictine monasteries in England
1539 disestablishments in England
Tourist attractions in Wiltshire
Grade I listed churches in Wiltshire
Abbey
An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns.
The conce ...
7th-century establishments in England
Monasteries dissolved under the English Reformation