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Medeshamstede was the name of
Peterborough Peterborough () is a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, east of England. It is the largest part of the City of Peterborough unitary authority district (which covers a larger area than Peterborough itself). It was part of Northamptonshire until ...
in the
Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
period. It was the site of a
monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in communities or alone ( hermits). A monastery generally includes a place reserved for prayer whic ...
founded around the middle of the 7th century, which was an important feature in the kingdom of Mercia from the outset. Little is known of its founder and first
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...
, Sexwulf, though he was himself an important figure, and later became bishop of Mercia. Medeshamstede soon acquired a string of daughter churches, and was a centre for an Anglo-Saxon sculptural style. Nothing is known of Medeshamstede's history from the later 9th century, when it is reported in the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of A ...
'' of 864 to have been destroyed by
Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...
s and the Abbot and Monks murdered by them, until the later 10th century, when it was restored as a Benedictine abbey by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, during a period of monastic reform. Through aspects of this restoration, Medeshamstede soon came to be known as " Peterborough Abbey".


The name "Medeshamstede"

The name has been interpreted by a place-name authority as "homestead belonging to ''Mede''". An alternative description is 'Medu' meaning Mead then 'Hamme' a village on a river and 'Steð'(the ð is pronounced th) meaning a bank or sea shore(the sea was about 4.5 metres higher in early saxon times), so the 'Mead village in the valley with a landing stage' According to the Peterborough version of the ''
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of A ...
'', written in the 12th century, this name was given at the time of the foundation of a monastery there in the 7th century, owing to the presence of a spring called "Medeswæl", meaning "''Medes''-well". However the name is commonly held to mean "homestead in the meadows", or similar, on an assumption that "Medes-" means "meadows".''A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2'', Serjeantson, R.M. & Adkins, W.R.D. (eds.), 1906.
British History Online. Retrieved on 9 May 2008. A typically anachronistic account.
The earliest reliable occurrence of the name is in
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom ...
's '' Ecclesiastical History'', where it is mentioned in the
genitive In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
Latinised form "Medeshamstedi", in a context dateable prior to the mid-670s.Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', iv, 6. However the area had long been inhabited, for example at Flag Fen, a
Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...
settlement a little to the east, and at the Roman town of Durobrivae, on the other side of the
River Nene The River Nene ( or : see below) is a river in the east of England that rises from three sources in Northamptonshire.OS Explorer Map sheet 223, Northampton & Market Harborough, Brixworth & Pitsford Water. The river is about long, about of w ...
, and some five miles to the west. It is possible that "Medeshamstede" began as the name of an unrecorded, pre-existing Anglian settlement, at or near the site. Another early form of this name is "Medyhæmstede", in an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon royal charter preserved at
Rochester Cathedral Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Kent. The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the s ...
. Also found is "Medelhamstede", in the late 10th century
Ælfric of Eynsham Ælfric of Eynsham ( ang, Ælfrīc; la, Alfricus, Elphricus; ) was an English abbot and a student of Æthelwold of Winchester, and a consummate, prolific writer in Old English of hagiography, homilies, biblical commentaries, and other gen ...
’s account of the life of St Æthelwold of Winchester, and on a contemporary coin of King Æthelred II, where it is abbreviated to "MEĐEL" . A much later development is the form "Medeshampstede", and similar variants, which presumably arose alongside similar changes, e.g. from Old English " orthHamtun" to the modern "Northampton". Despite the fact that they are therefore strictly unhistorical, forms such as "Medeshampstede" are found in later, historical writings. Locally, Anglo-Saxon records use "Medeshamstede" up to about the reign of King Æthelred II, but modern historians generally use it only to the reign of his father King Edgar, and use "Peterborough Abbey" for the monastery thereafter, until it changes to "
Peterborough Cathedral Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Pa ...
" in the reign of
King 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 disagr ...
.


An important Mercian monastery


Royal foundation

Located in
Mercia la, Merciorum regnum , conventional_long_name=Kingdom of Mercia , common_name=Mercia , status=Kingdom , status_text=Independent kingdom (527–879)Client state of Wessex () , life_span=527–918 , era= Heptarchy , event_start= , date_start= , ...
, near the border with
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
, Medeshamstede was described by Sir Frank Stenton as "one of the greatest monasteries of the Mercian kingdom". Hugh Candidus, a 12th-century monk of Peterborough who wrote a history of the abbey, described its location as: Hugh Candidus also reports that Medeshamstede was founded in the territory of the " Gyrwas", a people listed in the
Tribal Hidage Image:Tribal Hidage 2.svg, 400px, alt=insert description of map here, The tribes of the Tribal Hidage. Where an appropriate article exists, it can be found by clicking on the name. rect 275 75 375 100 w:Elmet rect 375 100 450 150 w:Hatfield Ch ...
, which was in existence by the mid-9th century. There, the Gyrwas are divided into the North Gyrwas and the South Gyrwas: Medeshamstede was clearly founded in the territory of the North Gyrwas. Hugh Candidus explains "Gyrwas", which he describes in the
present tense The present tense ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense whose principal function is to locate a situation or event in the present time. The present tense is used for actions which are happening now. In order to explain and understand present ...
, as meaning people "who dwell in the fen, or hard by the fen, since a deep bog is called in the Saxon tongue ''Gyr''": use of the present tense indicates that inhabitants of the area were still known as "Gyrwas" in Hugh Candidus' own time.Roffe, D., '''On Middan Gyrwan Fenne'': Intercommoning around the Island of Crowland', in ''Fenland Research'' 8, 1993, p. 83. According to Bede, Medeshamstede was founded by a man named Seaxwulf, who was also its first
abbot Abbot is an ecclesiastical title given to the male head of a monastery in various Western religious traditions, including Christianity. The office may also be given as an honorary title to a clergyman who is not the head of a monastery. Th ...
. While it is possible that Seaxwulf was a local prince, Hugh Candidus described him as a "man of great power", and a man "zealous and eligious and well skilled in the things of this world, and also in the affairs of the hurch" Historian, Dorothy Whitelock, believed that Seaxwulf had probably been educated in
East Anglia East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
, given the
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state of Mercia prior to the mid-7th century. He was later appointed Bishop of Mercia, and his near contemporary Eddius Stephanus mentions, in his '' Life of St Wilfrid'', "the profound respect of the bishopric which the most reverend Bishop ''Seaxwulf'' had formerly ruled". A charter, dated 664 AD, records the gift by King Wulfhere of Mercia of "some additions" to the endowment for the monastery of Medeshamstede, already begun by his deceased brother King Peada of the Middle Angles, and by King Oswiu of Northumbria. This reference is to a later, grossly expanded version of the charter. A copy of what is no doubt the original version, modest by comparison, is printed as Birch, W. de Gray, ''Cartularium Saxonicum'', 3 vols., London, 1885–93, no.22a. This charter is a forgery, produced for Peterborough Abbey either in the late 11th century, or in the early 12th; but, like Hugh Candidus, clearly it reflects Peterborough tradition, and it is both accurate and historically interesting in a number of ways, including in the chronology of kings. The connection with Peada places Medeshamstede's foundation between about 653 and 656 AD. Numerous local saints are connected to varying degrees with Medeshamstede, and many of them are Mercian royal in nature. These include: * Guthlac, a former monk of Repton, in
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the no ...
. Repton had until recently been the Mercian episcopal see, and was most likely a colony of Medeshamstede. Guthlac is a titular saint of Crowland Abbey, about seven miles north of Medeshamstede, and is generally regarded as its founder. * Pega, whose name survives in " Peakirk", meaning "church of Pega", about five miles north of Medeshamstede. She was a sister of Guthlac. * Cyneburh and Cyneswith, sisters of King Peada. Cyneburh founded a
nunnery A convent is a community of monks, nuns, religious brothers or, sisters or priests. Alternatively, ''convent'' means the building used by the community. The word is particularly used in the Catholic Church, Lutheran churches, and the Anglican ...
at Castor, four miles west of Medeshamstede, and Cyneswith succeeded her as
abbess An abbess (Latin: ''abbatissa''), also known as a mother superior, is the female superior of a community of Catholic nuns in an abbey. Description In the Catholic Church (both the Latin Church and Eastern Catholic), Eastern Orthodox, Coptic ...
there. It seems that both sisters had been married into foreign Anglo-Saxon royalty, in Northumbria and East Anglia, and perhaps Medeshamstede and Castor then formed a double monastery for men and women, a feature of contemporary monasticism. Cyneburh is the titular saint of the parish church of Castor, as "St Kyneburgha". * Tibba, who is believed to have been a recluse at Ryhall, about twelve miles north west of Medeshamstede, as well as another relative of King Peada. *Tancred, Torhtred, and Tova: these are believed to have lived at Thorney, about five miles north east of Medeshamstede. It seems that Thorney was formerly known as ''Ancarig'', a name which was preserved only at Peterborough, and itself suggests the presence there of anchorites. Of these three saints, the first two were male, and the last is described as a female virgin; they are said to have been siblings, martyred during the late-9th-century
Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...
invasions. *Tondberht, "prince of the Gyrwas", and husband of St Æthelthryth of Ely. He is named as an English martyr in an early source, and, though nothing further is known of him, his name alliterates suggestively with those of Tancred, Torhtred and Tova, who thus may also have been drawn from local, petty royalty. *
Tatwin Tatwine ( – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he compos ...
e, monk of Breedon, Archbishop of Canterbury, and probably mentor to Guthlac. Given his connection with Breedon, and his similarly alliterative name, he may himself have been from Medeshamstede, and would naturally have been commemorated there.A Tatwine is an important figure, local to the Fenland area, in Guthlac's "Life" by Felix. Roffe, in '''On Middan Gyrwan Fenne''', p. 83, assumes that Crowland and Repton were both colonies of Medeshamstede. Most if not all of the churches originally associated with these local saints were probably sponsored by Medeshamstede, with the exception of
Ely Ely or ELY may refer to: Places Ireland * Éile, a medieval kingdom commonly anglicised Ely * Ely Place, Dublin, a street United Kingdom * Ely, Cambridgeshire, a cathedral city in Cambridgeshire, England ** Ely Cathedral ** Ely Rural District, a ...
. What is known of Sexwulf, combined with the identities of these local saints, suggests strongly that Medeshamstede was a major religious centre in the kingdom of Mercia, with an especially royal character.


Monastic colonies

King Wulfhere's charter, and
Bede Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom ...
's mention of Medeshamstede's foundation, place this in the period of the Christianisation of Mercia. Documents preserved at Peterborough Abbey indicate that Medeshamstede played a central role in spreading and consolidating Christianity in Mercia and elsewhere, for example through the pastoral care provided by a string of daughter churches. Apart from churches connected with the local saints mentioned above, these are held to have included, among other candidates, churches at Breedon in Leicestershire, and
Bermondsey Bermondsey () is a district in southeast London, part of the London Borough of Southwark, England, southeast of Charing Cross. To the west of Bermondsey lies Southwark, to the east Rotherhithe and Deptford, to the south Walworth and Peckha ...
and
Woking Woking ( ) is a town and borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in northwest Surrey, England, around from central London. It appears in Domesday Book as ''Wochinges'' and its name probably derives from that of a Anglo-Saxon settlement o ...
, in Surrey. Medeshamstede has also been identified as the mother church of Repton, in
Derbyshire Derbyshire ( ) is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands, England. It includes much of the Peak District National Park, the southern end of the Pennine range of hills and part of the National Forest. It borders Greater Manchester to the no ...
, which has been described as an 8th-century Mercian royal
mausoleum A mausoleum is an external free-standing building constructed as a monument enclosing the interment space or burial chamber of a deceased person or people. A mausoleum without the person's remains is called a cenotaph. A mausoleum may be con ...
. Another charter preserved at Peterborough was written at Repton in 848 AD, and concerned Breedon. This suggests that this monastic empire continued for some considerable time. However, this is the latest surviving reference to any connection between Medeshamstede and its daughter churches, and these connections probably suffered a similar fate to many of the episcopal sees of eastern England: extinguished in the later 9th century by
Viking Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and s ...
invasion. The importance of these daughter churches, and indeed that of Medeshamstede itself, is indicated by the likely relationship with royal Repton; by the consecration of the Breedon monk
Tatwin Tatwine ( – 30 July 734) was the tenth Archbishop of Canterbury from 731 to 734. Prior to becoming archbishop, he was a monk and abbot of a Benedictine monastery. Besides his ecclesiastical career, Tatwine was a writer, and riddles he compos ...
e as Archbishop of Canterbury in 731 AD, and his later
canonisation Canonization is the declaration of a deceased person as an officially recognized saint, specifically, the official act of a Christian communion declaring a person worthy of public veneration and entering their name in the canon catalogue of ...
; and by
St Guthlac Saint Guthlac of Crowland ( ang, Gūðlāc; la, Guthlacus; 674 – 3 April 714 CE) was a Christian hermit and saint from Lincolnshire in England. He is particularly venerated in the Fens of eastern England. Life Guthlac was the son of Penwal ...
's history as a former monk of Repton.


Later Anglo-Saxon history


Viking destruction

Medeshamstede is traditionally believed to have been destroyed by
Vikings Vikings ; non, víkingr is the modern name given to seafaring people originally from Scandinavia (present-day Denmark, Norway and Sweden), who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries raided, pirated, traded and se ...
in 870 AD. While this claim for Medeshamstede is derived from the Peterborough version of the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' is a collection of annals in Old English, chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons. The original manuscript of the ''Chronicle'' was created late in the 9th century, probably in Wessex, during the reign of A ...
, and from Hugh Candidus, both of which are 12th-century sources, destruction of churches by Vikings is a common feature in post-Conquest
historiography Historiography is the study of the methods of historians in developing history as an academic discipline, and by extension is any body of historical work on a particular subject. The historiography of a specific topic covers how historians hav ...
. It is part of a consensus, developed from the time of the English monastic reformation of the 10th century, that Danish Vikings had been responsible for a long period of religious decline in England. However, aspects of Medeshamstede's history, including the apparent survival of some of its pre-Viking archive, suggest that it did not suffer the same fate as other sites which were not so fortunate. According to S.E. Kelly,


Tenth-century refoundation

Medeshamstede was refounded c. 970 by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, with the assistance of one Ealdwulf, who was the new monastery's first abbot, and later became
bishop of Worcester A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of Episcopal polity, authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or offic ...
and
archbishop of York The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers ...
. The monastery was soon enclosed within a massive stone wall, and acquired the new name of "
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 const ...
", meaning "fortified place". The addition of the name "Peter", after the monastery's principal titular saint, served to distinguish it from similarly named places, such as the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, in
Suffolk Suffolk () is a ceremonial county of England in East Anglia. It borders Norfolk to the north, Cambridgeshire to the west and Essex to the south; the North Sea lies to the east. The county town is Ipswich; other important towns include L ...
, and gave rise to the modern name "Peterborough".


Physical remains and archaeology

The most visible remnant of sculptural and architectural activity at Medeshamstede is the sculpture now known as the
Hedda Stone Hedda may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Hedda Award, a Norwegian theatre award * ''Hedda Gabler'' (1890), a play by Henrik Ibsen * ''Hedda'' (film), 1975 film based on the play People with the given name * Hedda Østberg Amundsen (b ...
, dated by Rosemary Cramp to the late eighth or early ninth century, and kept on show at Peterborough Cathedral. Remnants of Anglo-Saxon buildings on the site of Medeshamstede have been identified in modern times, though it is not clear that any are remains of the original church. These include foundations under the crossing and south
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 with ...
of the Cathedral. Early buildings on the site incorporated materials, or "''
spolia ''Spolia'' (Latin: 'spoils') is repurposed building stone for new construction or decorative sculpture reused in new monuments. It is the result of an ancient and widespread practice whereby stone that has been quarried, cut and used in a built ...
''", removed from nearby Roman sites, such as the former town of Durobrivae, or possibly the very large villa at Castor. Such ''spolia'' have also been identified in the foundations of later Anglo-Saxon structures on the site. Five hundred years after the event, Hugh Candidus wrote that when work on the church commenced, Sexwulf "laid as its foundations some great stones, so mighty that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely draw any of them", and claimed that Sexwulf and his colleagues were "striving to build no commonplace structure, but a second Rome, or a daughter of Rome in England".Mellows, 1941, pp. 3–4; Mellows, 1949, pp. 6, 8. At 2 oxen to the yoke, Hugh Candidus intended 16 oxen. This is reminiscent of
Wilfrid Wilfrid ( – 709 or 710) was an English bishop and saint. Born a Northumbrian noble, he entered religious life as a teenager and studied at Lindisfarne, at Canterbury, in Francia, and at Rome; he returned to Northumbria in about 660, and ...
's actions at
Hexham Hexham ( ) is a market town and civil parish in Northumberland, England, on the south bank of the River Tyne, formed by the confluence of the North Tyne and the South Tyne at Warden nearby, and close to Hadrian's Wall. Hexham was the administ ...
.


See also

*
Abbot of Peterborough A list of the abbots of the abbey of Peterborough, known until the late 10th century as " Medeshamstede". Abbots Sources *'Houses of Benedictine monks: The abbey of Peterborough', ''A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2'' (1906), ...
* Peterborough Chronicle


References


External links


eSawyer

The Joint Burial Easter Time AD 656
A Poem by John Lock
Peterborough Museum page on historical Peterborough

Victoria County History entry for Peterborough Abbey
{{Peterborough History of Peterborough Populated places established in the 7th century Anglo-Saxon monastic houses Monasteries in Cambridgeshire Former populated places in Cambridgeshire Mercian settlements Christian monasteries established in the 7th century 7th-century establishments in England Burial sites of the House of Icel