St Osyth's Abbey (originally and still commonly known as St Osyth's Priory) was a house of
Augustinian Augustinian may refer to:
*Augustinians, members of religious orders following the Rule of St Augustine
*Augustinianism, the teachings of Augustine of Hippo and his intellectual heirs
*Someone who follows Augustine of Hippo
* Canons Regular of Sain ...
canon
Canon or Canons may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base
* Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture
** Western ca ...
s in the
parish of St Osyth (then named Chich) in
Essex
Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
in use from the 12th to 16th centuries. Founded by
Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of London, , it became one of the largest religious houses in Essex. It was dedicated to Saints
Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
and
Paul
Paul may refer to:
*Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name)
*Paul (surname), a list of people
People
Christianity
*Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...
as well as
St Osyth (Osith), a
royal saint and virgin martyr.
[J. C. Dickinson, ''The Origins of the Austin Canons and their introduction into England'' (1950), 112-113.] Bishop Richard obtained the arm bone of St Osyth from
Aylesbury
Aylesbury ( ) is the county town of Buckinghamshire, South East England. It is home to the Roald Dahl Children's Gallery, David Tugwell`s house on Watermead and the Waterside Theatre. It is in central Buckinghamshire, midway between High Wy ...
for the monastic church and granted the canons the parish church of St Osyth.
The foundation began as 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 mon ...
, probably populated first by canons from
Holy Trinity, Aldgate.
The first prior of St Osyth's was
William de Corbeil
William de Corbeil or William of Corbeil (21 November 1136) was a medieval Archbishop of Canterbury. Very little is known of William's early life or his family, except that he was born at Corbeil, south of Paris, and that he had two brothers. E ...
, who was elected
archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
in 1123 and who crowned
King Stephen in 1135. The priory was converted into 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 conce ...
in the mid-12th century.
In ''
Gesta pontificum Anglorum'',
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 ...
spoke in praise of the piety and learning of the canons at St Osyth's in the twelfth century. One of the second generation of canons there was
William de Vere
William de Vere (died 1198) was Bishop of Hereford and an Augustinian canon.
Biography
The son of Aubrey de Vere II and Adeliza of Clare, probably the fourth of five sons,Barrow "Vere, William de" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' and b ...
, later
bishop of Hereford
The Bishop of Hereford is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Hereford in the Province of Canterbury.
The episcopal see is centred in the Hereford, City of Hereford where the bishop's seat (''cathedra'') is in the Hereford Cathedr ...
, who wrote a Latin ''Life of St Osyth'', in which he mentions that his mother Adeliza, daughter of
Gilbert fitz Richard
Gilbert Fitz Richard (–), 2nd feudal baron of Clare in Suffolk, and styled "de Tonbridge", was a powerful Anglo-Norman baron who was granted the Lordship of Cardigan, in Wales .
Life
Gilbert, born before 1066, was the second son and an heir ...
of
Clare, had been a
corrodian Corrodians were in essence pensioners who lived in monasteries or nunneries. They were usually well-to-do elderly lay people who paid or were sponsored for accommodation and food for the rest of their lives. This payment might be in cash but would m ...
at the abbey for twenty years of her widowhood.
A charter of
King Henry II confirmed the right of the canons of St Osyth's to elect their abbot and to hold a market every Sunday at Chich in the later 12th century.
John Depyng, prior of
St. Botolph's was made abbot of St Osyth's in 1434, and took with him goods of considerable value belonging to the priory. He never returned these, and after his death St Botolph's brought an apparently unsuccessful lawsuit in Chancery against St Osyth's for their recovery.
During the
Suppression of the Monasteries, the religious group was dissolved by
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 disag ...
in 1539, at which time there were a prior and sixteen canons. The king granted it to his minister
Thomas Cromwell
Thomas Cromwell (; 1485 – 28 July 1540), briefly Earl of Essex, was an English lawyer and statesman who served as chief minister to King Henry VIII from 1534 to 1540, when he was beheaded on orders of the king, who later blamed false charge ...
, but on his fall from favour, the abbey and its estates were returned to crown possession. In the reign of
King Edward VI
Edward VI (12 October 1537 – 6 July 1553) was King of England and King of Ireland, Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death in 1553. He was crowned on 20 February 1547 at the age of nine. Edward was the son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour ...
they were sold to Sir
Thomas Darcy for just under £400.
[''Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales,'' 218-219.] The gatehouse, dating from the late 15th century, is the most significant remnant of the original monastic structures still standing. The exterior is a fine example of decorative
flint work. It stood in for St Anselm's theological college in the BBC's miniseries adaptation of
P. D. James
Phyllis Dorothy James, Baroness James of Holland Park, (3 August 1920 – 27 November 2014), known professionally as P. D. James, was an English novelist and life peer. Her rise to fame came with her series of detective novels featuring th ...
' ''
Death in Holy Orders
''Death in Holy Orders'' is a 2001 detective novel in the Adam Dalgliesh series by P. D. James.
Setting
The novel is mainly set in and around an Anglo-Catholic theological college, Saint Anselm's, on the windswept coast of East Anglia. It pr ...
'' in 2003.
Five parts of the priory are Grade I
listed building
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 ...
s.
Burials
*
Richard de Belmeis I
*Adeliza de Clare de Vere, mother of
Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford
Aubrey de Vere, 1st Earl of Oxford ( – 26 December 1194) was an English noble involved in the succession conflict between King Stephen and Empress Matilda in the mid-twelfth century.
He was the son of Aubrey de Vere, Lord Great Chamberlain ...
*Lucy Young Rochford, wife of
William Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford
William Henry Nassau de Zuylestein, 4th Earl of Rochford, KG, PC (17 September 1717 O.S. – 29 September 1781) was a British courtier, diplomat and statesman of Anglo-Dutch descent. He occupied senior ambassadorial posts at Madrid and Paris, ...
References
External links
Picturesque England*B/W Drawing of the gateway: (from the magazine
''Once A Week'')
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Osyths Priory
Monasteries in Essex
1120s establishments in England
Christian monasteries established in the 12th century
1539 disestablishments in England
Augustinian monasteries in England
Grade I listed churches in Essex
Grade I listed monasteries
Grade II listed parks and gardens in Essex
St Osyth