Abbotsbury Abbey
Encyclopedia
Benedictine
Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...
monastery in the village of Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury is a large village and civil parish in the West Dorset district of Dorset, England; situated north-west of Weymouth. It is located from Upwey railway station and from Bournemouth International Airport. The main road running through the village is the B3157, connecting Abbotsbury to...
in Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. The abbey was founded in the eleventh century by King Cnut's thegn Orc and his wife Tola, who handsomely endowed the monastery with lands in the area. The abbey prospered and became a local centre of power, controlling eight manor house
Manor house
A manor house is a country house that historically formed the administrative centre of a manor, the lowest unit of territorial organisation in the feudal system in Europe. The term is applied to country houses that belonged to the gentry and other grand stately homes...
s and villages. During the later Middle Ages, the abbey suffered much misfortune. In the time of the dissolution of the monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
, the last abbot surrendered the abbey and the site was given to Sir Giles Strangways.
Today, the abbey's remains, and those of the nearby St Catherine
Catherine of Alexandria
Saint Catherine of Alexandria, also known as Saint Catherine of the Wheel and The Great Martyr Saint Catherine is, according to tradition, a Christian saint and virgin, who was martyred in the early 4th century at the hands of the pagan emperor Maxentius...
's chapel, are in the guardianship of English Heritage
English Heritage
English Heritage . is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport...
.
Foundation
The first reference to the site of Abbotsbury may be in a charterAnglo-Saxon Charters
Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in Britain which typically make a grant of land or record a privilege. The earliest surviving charters were drawn up in the 670s; the oldest surviving charters granted land to the Church, but from the eighth century surviving...
of King Edmund
Edmund I of England
Edmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...
(r. 939-946) recording a grant of five hides of land at Abbedesburi to the thegn Sigewulf. The name (Abbedesburi) may suggest that the land had once belonged to an abbot. During the reign of King Cnut (r. 1016–1035), the Scandinavian thegn Orc (also Urki, Urk) and his wife Tola took up residence in the area, having been granted land at Portesham
Portesham
Portesham is a village in the English county of Dorset, situated close to the south coast, between the towns of Weymouth and Dorchester. The village has a population of 708...
. Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor
Edward the Confessor also known as St. Edward the Confessor , son of Æthelred the Unready and Emma of Normandy, was one of the last Anglo-Saxon kings of England and is usually regarded as the last king of the House of Wessex, ruling from 1042 to 1066....
(r. 1042-1066) also granted him Wootton and it was early in his reign that the couple founded a monastery at Abbotsbury, previously the site of a minor church. Orc and Tola, who had no children, enriched the monastery with a substantial amount of land, some of which was bequeathed after their deaths. By the time of the Domesday survey
Domesday Book
Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...
, Abbotsbury (itself worth 21 hides) was recorded to have held more than 65 hides of land TRE
TRE
TRE might stand for:*3 , a mobile operator in Sweden*Tampere, a city in Finland*Telecommunications Research Establishment, British radar research organization...
. Orc also established his own guild, which according to the extant statutes, had its hall at Abbotsbury and protected the minster's interests.
14th-17th century
During the 14th century the Black DeathBlack Death
The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350. Of several competing theories, the dominant explanation for the Black Death is the plague theory, which attributes the outbreak to the bacterium Yersinia pestis. Thought to have...
killed many villagers and the abbot, and the village was repeatedly attacked from the sea, reducing the power of the abbey. In 1538 Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
dissolved the Monasteries
Dissolution of the Monasteries
The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...
and Abbotsbury Abbey was ruined as a condition of its sale so that its stone could be reused. The Great Barn, which at 272ft by 31ft is the largest thatched building in the world, and St Catherine's Chapel were spared, the latter used as a lookout across the sea. Both are Grade I listed buildings and Scheduled Ancient Monuments. The dissolution left the village impoverished.
Sir Giles Strangways
Giles Strangways
Giles Strangways was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons variously between 1640 and 1675. He fought on the Royalist side in the English Civil War...
, the commissioner who had dissolved Abbotsbury, bought the Abbey buildings, manor houses, water mills and Abbotsbury Swannery
Abbotsbury Swannery
Abbotsbury Swannery is the only managed colony of nesting mute swans in the world. It is situated near the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset, England, west of Weymouth on a site around the Fleet lagoon protected from the weather of Lyme Bay by Chesil Beach. The colony can number over 600 swans with...
and much of the Abbey's land for £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
1,906, 10s
Shilling
The shilling is a unit of currency used in some current and former British Commonwealth countries. The word shilling comes from scilling, an accounting term that dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was deemed to be the value of a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. The word is thought to derive...
. Much of the land still belongs to Strangways' descendant, the Earl of Ilchester
Earl of Ilchester
Earl of Ilchester, is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain. It was created in 1756 for Stephen Fox, 1st Baron Ilchester, who had previously represented Shaftesbury in Parliament. He had already been created Baron Ilchester, of Ilchester in the County of Somerset in 1741, and Baron Ilchester and...
.
Heads of Abbotsbury
| Incumbent | In office | Comments | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Æsuuerdus | ? | appears in 1075 | |||
| [ Roger, bishop of Salisbury Roger of Salisbury Roger was a Norman medieval Bishop of Salisbury and the seventh Lord Chancellor and Lord Keeper of England.-Life:... ] |
1107 – 1139 | ||||
| Geoffrey | 1140 | ||||
| Roger | ? | appears in 1129 x 1150. | |||
| Geoffrey II | ? | appears in 1166. | |||
| vacant | 1175, 1 – 8 July | ||||
| Ralph? | ? | ||||
| Roger II | ? | appears in 1201. | |||
| Hugh | ? | appears in 1204 x 1205. | |||
| vacant | 1213, 15 July | ||||
| Hugh II | ? – 1246? | ||||
| Roger de Brideton | 1246 – 1258? | ||||
| Joan of Hilton (Helton) | 1258 – 1284 | ||||
| Philip of Sherborne | 1284 – 1296 | ||||
| [William of Kingston] | |||||
| Benedict of Loders (Lodres) | 1297 – 1320 | ||||
| Ralph of Sherborne | 1320 – 1321 | ||||
| Peter of Sherborne | 1321 – 1324 | ||||
| William le Fauconer | 1324 – 1343 | ||||
| Walter de Saunford | 1343 – 1348 | ||||
| Walter de Stokes | 1348 – 1354 | ||||
| Henry (of) Toller (or Tolre) | 1354 – 1376 | ||||
| William Cerne | 1376 – 1401 | ||||
| Robert Bylsay | 1401 – 1426 | ||||
| Richard Percy | 1426 – 1442 | Edward Watton | 1442 – 1452 | ||
| William Wuller | 1452 – 1468 | ||||
| Hugh Dorchester | 1468 – 1496 | ||||
| John Abbotsbury | 1496 (elected) | ||||
| John Portesham | 1505 (elected) | ||||
| Roger Roddon | 1534 – 1539 | last abbot, surrendered. |
Henry VIII
Henry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
granted the abbey site to Sir Giles Strangways.