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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref name="Anglo Saxon England p. 209">Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo Saxon England, p. 209.</ref> 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,<ref name="Anglo Saxon England p. 209"/> 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.<ref>Sarah Foot, ‘Æthelstan (893/4–939)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 2011</ref> A mint was founded at the Abbey around this time.<ref name="Anglo Saxon England p. 209"/>

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).<ref>V.C.H. Wilts. ii, pp. 125-7.</ref><ref>Dom. Bk. (Rec. Com.), i, 165.</ref><ref name="vch-210"/> 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

Name	Appointment	Died	Notes
Maidulbh<ref>Meidulf, William of Malmesbury: 265.</ref>		673	Irish hermit and founder of Malmesbury<ref>Maidulbh founded the monastery as a hermitage and taught local children including Aldhelm.</ref>
Aldhelm	639	709	first Old English writer in Latin, scholar and poet
Eaba ???			known only from a letter to Lullus
Ethelhard<ref>De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum.</ref>			a signatory to a charter of 749
Cuthbert			attended the council of Clofeshoh in 803
John Scotus Eriugena		c877	was murdered by his pupils<ref>Caribine, Deirdre, Great Medieval Thinkers, "John Scottus Eriugena" (Oxford University Press, 2000), p14.</ref>
Alfred of Malmesbury		999
Ælfric of Crediton<ref>De gestis pontificum Anglorum, ed. N(icholas) E. S. A. Hamilton, Rolls Series, 1870, p406.</ref>	974	1010	known for building work and his prophecy of the Viking sacking of Malmesbury
Æthelweard<ref name="GPA-411">William of Malmesbury: Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, The History of the English Bishops; Vol. I: Text and Translation: Volume I: 411.</ref>
Cineweard<ref name=cotton>B.M., Cott. MS. Vit. A. X.</ref>
Beorhtelm<ref name=cotton /><ref name="GPA-683">Template:Cite book</ref>
Beorhtold<ref name="GPA-683" />
Beorhtwold<ref name="vch-210">Template:Cite book</ref>			sold off portions of the abbey landsTemplate:Sfn
Eadric<ref name="GPA-411" />	c1012<ref>Cod. Dipl. ed. Kemble, no. 719.</ref>
Wulfsine		1034<ref name="GPA-411" />
Æthelweard II<ref name="vch-210" />
Ælfwine			almost nothing is known of him<ref name="vch-210" />
Beorhtwold II		1053	a man of bad character who collapsed and died during a drunken orgy in the town<ref name="vch-210" />
Beorhtric appointed	1053	1067	removed by William the Conqueror
Template:Ill	1067		moved by William I to Peterborough in 1070
Warin of Lyre (Évreux)	1070	1087	spent much of his time at court, squandering the abbey's resources<ref>"vir efficax": Gest. Pont. 425.</ref>
GodfreyTemplate:Sfn
Eadwulf			a monk of Winchester,<ref>Ann. Mon. (Rolls Ser.), ii, 42.</ref> expelled by Roger of Salisbury
Roger of Salisbury	1118	1139
John of Malmsbury	1139	1140	appointed by King Stephen after he took the abbey during the Anarchy<ref>Leland, Collect. ii, 272.</ref>
Peter Moraunt	1141	1159	obtained a bull of Pope Innocent II
Gregory	1159	1168
Robert	1172	1176	a physician to Henry II
Osbert Foliot<ref name="vch-210" />	1176	1182
Nicholas			deposed for running into debt 218Template:Clarify
Robert of Melûn	1189	1206
Walter Loring	1206	1222	signed Magna Carta,<ref>Magna Carta translation, Barons at Runnymede, Magna Charta Period Feudal Estates, h2g2, King John and the Magna Carta.</ref> received papal bull from Innocent III and gained permission from King John to demolish Malmesbury Castle.<ref>Bernard Hodge, A History of Malmesbury (Friends of Malmesbury Abbey, 1990).</ref>
John Walsh	1222	1246
Geoffrey, sacristan<ref>B.M., Cott. MS. Faust. B. VIII, f. 142a.</ref>	1246	1260	a monk of Malmesbury
William of Colerne	1260	1296
William of Badminton		1296
Adam de la Hoke			a monk of Malmesbury
Adam by John of Tintern		1349
Simon de Aumeney	1348	1361
Walter de Camme	1362	1396
Thomas Chelworth	1396	1424
Roger Pershore	1424	1434
John Bristow	1434	1456
John Andever	1456	1462
John Ayly	1462	1480
Richard Frampton	1480	1515
Richard Camme	1515	1533
Richard Selwyn			surrendered the Abbey to Henry VIII in 1539

Parish church

File:Malmesbury Abbey - geograph.org.uk - 1246543.jpg

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

The abbey, which owned Template:Convert 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.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

In 1949, the church was designated as a Grade I listed building.<ref>Template:National Heritage List for England</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

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,<ref>Template:Cite book </ref> 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. Template:Columns-list

Organ

File:Malmesbury Abbey pipe organ.JPG

The current organ, dating from 1984

The earliest organ was obtained in 1846<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and had formerly stood in the church of St Benet Fink, Threadneedle Street, London;<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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 (Template:Inflation).Template:Inflation-fn A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.<ref>Template:National Pipe Organ Register</ref>

Notable burials

File:AthelstanTomb.jpg

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

• Máel Dub, 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.<ref name="vch-210" />
• Aldhelm, first Bishop of Sherborne and saint
• Æthelwine and Ælfwine, sons of Æthelweard (son of Alfred)
• Æthelstan, regarded as the first king of England. He was buried in the tower, under the altar of St. Mary.<ref>Foot, S., 2011, Æthelstan: The First King of England, pp.187–88,243.</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>
• Daniel, Bishop of Winchester
• Hannah Twynnoy, 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.<ref>Plumb, C., 2015, The Georgian Menagerie: Exotic Animals in Eighteenth-Century London”.</ref>
• Sir Roger Scruton, 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.<ref> Template:Cite web</ref>

See also

• List of English abbeys, priories and friaries serving as parish churches
• Monk of Malmesbury
• The Old Bell, Malmesbury

Sources

• Template:Cite journal
• Template:Cite book
• Smith, M Q: The Sculptures of the South Porch of Malmesbury Abbey: A Short Guide, 1975
• Template:Cite book

Further reading

• Template:Cite book

External links

• Template:Official website
• Malmesbury Abbey at Window on Wiltshire's Heritage
• Image directory of Malmesbury Abbey at ArtServe
• Malmesbury Abbey at The Normans: A European People
• Template:CathEncy