Minster, also known as Minster-in-Thanet, is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in the Thanet District of

Kent Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...

, England. It is the site of

Minster in Thanet Priory Minster Abbey is the name of two abbeys in Minster-in-Thanet, Kent, England. The first was a 7th-century foundation which lasted until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. Beside its ruins is St Mildred's Priory, a Benedictine community of women f ...

. The village is west of

Ramsgate Ramsgate is a seaside town in the district of Thanet in east Kent, England. It was one of the great English seaside towns of the 19th century. In 2001 it had a population of about 40,000. In 2011, according to the Census, there was a populati ...

(which is the

post town A post town is a required part of all postal addresses in the United Kingdom and Ireland, and a basic unit of the postal delivery system.Royal Mail, ''Address Management Guide'', (2004) Including the correct post town in the address increases ...

) and to the north east of

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour. The Archbishop of Canterbury is the primate of t ...

; it lies just south west of Kent International Airport and just north of the River Stour. Minster is also the "ancient capital of Thanet".Minster-In-Thanet
; retrieved on 22 May 2008 At the 2011 Census the hamlet of Ebbsfleet was included.

Toponymy

The name ultimately comes from the

Medieval Latin Medieval Latin was the form of Literary Latin used in Roman Catholic Western Europe during the Middle Ages. In this region it served as the primary written language, though local languages were also written to varying degrees. Latin functioned ...

''monasterium'', denoting the historical presence of an

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 c ...

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 ...

; such names are common in England and indeed throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

History

Archaeology Archaeology or archeology is the scientific study of human activity through the recovery and analysis of material culture. The archaeological record consists of artifacts, architecture, biofacts or ecofacts, sites, and cultural landsc ...

has shown 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 at Minster-in-Thanet. The area became part of the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ( la, Imperium Romanum ; grc-gre, Βασιλεία τῶν Ῥωμαίων, Basileía tôn Rhōmaíōn) was the post-Roman Republic, Republican period of ancient Rome. As a polity, it included large territorial holdings aro ...

under the

emperor An emperor (from la, imperator, via fro, empereor) is a monarch, and usually the sovereign ruler of an empire or another type of imperial realm. Empress, the female equivalent, may indicate an emperor's wife ( empress consort), mother ( ...

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus (; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54) was the fourth Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Drusus and Antonia Minor ...

. Around 450AD, the

Jutes The Jutes (), Iuti, or Iutæ ( da, Jyder, non, Jótar, ang, Ēotas) were one of the Germanic tribes who settled in Great Britain after the departure of the Romans. According to Bede, they were one of the three most powerful Germanic nation ...

arrived in the Minster area and established a settlement.

Anglo-Saxon

In 597

Augustine of Canterbury Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.Delaney ''D ...

is said, by the

Venerable 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 ...

, to have landed with 40 men at nearby Ebbsfleet, in the parish of Minster-in-Thanet, before founding a

; a cross marks the spot of his landing.
Minster itself originally started as a monastic settlement in 670 AD. The buildings are still used as nunneries today. The first abbey in the village was founded by St

Domneva Domne Eafe (; floruit late 7th century), also ''Domneva'', ''Domne Éue'', ''Æbbe'', ''Ebba'', was, according to the Kentish royal legend, a granddaughter of King Eadbald of Kent and the foundress of the double monastery of Minster in Thanet P ...

, a widowed noblewoman, whose daughter St Mildred, is taken as the first

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, Copt ...

. The tradition is that Domneva was granted as much land as a hind could run over in a day, the hind remains the village emblem, see also Thanet. The abbey was extinguished 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 se ...

raiding. The next abbess after St Mildred was St Edburga daughter of King

Centwine of the West Saxons Centwine (died after 685) was King of Wessex from c. 676 to 685 or 686, although he was perhaps not the only king of the West Saxons at the time. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' reports that Centwine became king c. 676, succeeding Æscwine. Bede s ...

.
The third known abbess was Sigeburh, who was active around 762 AD and is known from the Secgan

hagiography A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

and from

Royal charter A royal charter is a formal grant issued by a monarch under royal prerogative as letters patent. Historically, they have been used to promulgate public laws, the most famous example being the English Magna Carta (great charter) of 1215, b ...

s. In 761AD

Offa Offa (died 29 July 796 AD) was King of Mercia, a kingdom of Anglo-Saxon England, from 757 until his death. The son of Thingfrith and a descendant of Eowa, Offa came to the throne after a period of civil war following the assassination of Æth ...

, king of the

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= , y ...

ns, granted Sigeburh a toll-exemption which king Æthelbald had previously granted to

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, Copt ...

Mildrith Saint Mildrith, also Mildthryth, Mildryth and Mildred, ( ang, Mildþrȳð) (born c. 660, died after 732), was a 7th and 8th-century Anglo-Saxon abbess of the Abbey at Minster-in-Thanet, Kent. She was declared a saint after her death, and later h ...

. Again in about 763 AD Eadberht II, king of Kent, granted the remission of toll on two ships at Sarre and on a third at Fordwich. It has been stated that in gaining these privileges, she may have been taking advantage of Æthelbald's political weakness.
Vikings attacked the surrounding area in 850 AD.

Norman

The parish church of

St Mary Mary; arc, ܡܪܝܡ, translit=Mariam; ar, مريم, translit=Maryam; grc, Μαρία, translit=María; la, Maria; cop, Ⲙⲁⲣⲓⲁ, translit=Maria was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth, the wife of Joseph and the mother of ...

-the-Virgin is largely Norman but with significant traces of earlier work, the problems of which are unresolved. 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-typ ...

is impressive with five

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a na ...

s, and the crossing has an ancient chalk block

vaulting In architecture, a vault (French ''voûte'', from Italian ''volta'') is a self-supporting arched form, usually of stone or brick, serving to cover a space with a ceiling or roof. As in building an arch, a temporary support is needed while ring ...

. The

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. ...

is Early English with later

flying buttress The flying buttress (''arc-boutant'', arch buttress) is a specific form of buttress composed of an arch that extends from the upper portion of a wall to a pier of great mass, in order to convey lateral forces to the ground that are necessary to pu ...

es intended to halt the very obvious spread of the upper walls. There is a fine set of misericords reliably dated around 1400. The tower has a curious turret at its southeast corner that is locally referred to as a

Saxon 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 ...

watch tower but is built at least partly from

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * Chri ...

was used by both the brethren of the second

, a dependency of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury, and as a

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, ...

. Socket holes in the piers of the crossing suggest that, as well as a

rood screen The rood screen (also choir screen, chancel screen, or jubé) is a common feature in late medieval church architecture. It is typically an ornate partition between the chancel and nave, of more or less open tracery constructed of wood, stone, o ...

, there was a further screen dividing

and crossing, such as still exists at Dunster in

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lor ...

. This abbey surrendered during the dissolution in 1534.

Twentieth century

Minster Abbey is a house incorporating remains of the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a 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-Saxons happened wit ...

abbey and alleged to be the oldest continuously inhabited house in England. It now houses the village's third religious community, a

priory A priory is a monastery of men or women under religious vows that is headed by a prior or prioress. Priories may be houses of mendicant friars or nuns (such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, Franciscans, and Carmelites), or monasteries of ...

Roman Catholic Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD * Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a let ...

Benedictine , 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 ...

sisters that is a daughter community of

Eichstätt Eichstätt () is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the district of Eichstätt. It is located on the Altmühl river and has a population of around 13,000. Eichstätt is also the seat of the Roman Catholic Diocese ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

. It was settled in 1937 by

refugee A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

s fleeing

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

and continues to flourish as an international community. The Priory has the care of a relic of St Mildred that had been in the care of a church in

Deventer Deventer (; Sallands: ) is a city and municipality in the Salland historical region of the province of Overijssel, Netherlands. In 2020, Deventer had a population of 100,913. The city is largely situated on the east bank of the river IJssel, ...

in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

since the

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and in ...

Landscape

Generally a flat landscape, the area's main features include

marsh A marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous rather than woody plant species.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p Marshes can often be found ...

es,

farm A farm (also called an agricultural holding) is an area of land that is devoted primarily to agricultural processes with the primary objective of producing food and other crops; it is the basic facility in food production. The name is use ...

s and

river A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of ...

Thanet District Council Thanet may refer to: *Isle of Thanet, a former island, now a peninsula, at the most easterly point of Kent, England * Thanet District, a local government district containing the island *Thanet College, former name of East Kent College *Thanet Canal ...

has, however, assessed Minster Marshes, south of the village, as being unstable, and some areas of Minster, particularly in the south of the village, have suffered from flooding.

Land reclamation Land reclamation, usually known as reclamation, and also known as land fill (not to be confused with a waste landfill), is the process of creating new land from oceans, seas, riverbeds or lake beds. The land reclaimed is known as reclamat ...

has had a strong history in Minster and Monkton, where the original reclamation was done by the monks themselves.

Education

The

Primary School A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

is called "Minster Church of England Primary School", which caters for the village's population. As of 2022, there are 383 pupils attending the school.

Transport

Minster railway station Minster railway station serves the village of Minster in Kent and surrounding villages. It is next to a junction between , and . Facilities The station, and all trains serving it, are operated by Southeastern. On the Ramsgate-bound platfo ...

lies to the south of the village, on the line from Canterbury West to

and on the junction to the Kent Coast Line. Bus services are provided by

Stagecoach A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are dra ...

Military

Minster has a war memorial dedicated to those lost in World War I and World War II and this is located in St Mary's church. In 2013, Minster hosted a memorial for

Jean de Selys Longchamps Baron Jean Michel P.M.G. de Selys Longchamps DFC (31 May 1912 – 16 August 1943) was a Belgian aristocrat and RAF fighter pilot during World War II. He is chiefly known for his single-handed attack on the Gestapo headquarters in Brusse ...

, a Belgian fighter pilot who is buried in Minster cemetery. This event was hosted by Minster & Monkton Royal British Legion in conjunction with Minster Parish Council and was attended by such dignitaries as The Lord Lieutenant of Kent and the Chief of the Belgian Air Defense.

Notable residents

*St

is said by the Venerable

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 ...

to have landed with 40 men at Ebbsfleet, within the

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...

of Minster, before beginning his mission in

, commemorated by

St Augustine's Cross St Augustine's Cross is a stone memorial in Kent, in a fenced enclosure on the south side of Cottington Road, west of Cliffs End, at Pegwell Bay, Thanet, about west of Ramsgate, north of Richborough Roman Fort, and east of Canterbury, in t ...

near

Cliffsend Cliffsend is a village (sometimes written, correctly, as Cliffs End) and civil parish situated almost west of Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom, in the Thanet local government district. Hengist and Horsa landed near here in 410AD, and St Augusti ...

. *

Richard Culmer The Most Reverend Canon Richard Culmer of Canterbury (1597–1662)B.A M.A Ddiv was an English Puritan clergyman. iconoclast and Theologian. He is listed by the ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''

, the infamous Puritan minister known locally as Blue Dick Culmer, was presented to the living but the people rejected him and his name - to this day - is still omitted from the role of incumbents in the church porch. *

Samuel Haywood Mirams Samuel Haywood Mirams (28 August 1837–10 October 1911) was a notable New Zealand engineer and architect. He was born on the Isle of Sheppey The Isle of Sheppey is an island off the northern coast of Kent, England, neighbouring the Tha ...

(1837–1911), born in Minster, New Zealand engineer and architect

References

External links

Village website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Minster-In-Thanet Villages in Kent Civil parishes in Kent Burial sites of the House of Icel