Various monasteries and other religious houses have existed at various times during the Middle Ages in the city of Exeter, Devon, England. [1]
Various monasteries and other religious houses have existed at various times during the Middle Ages in the city of Exeter, Devon, England. [1]
The monastic buildings in Exeter included:
The origins of monasticism in Exeter are uncertain. Christianity arrived in Britain when Exeter was still a Roman city [10] and the area's military and civic capital. However, the end of Roman rule in Britain led to the city being nearly abandoned for over 400 years. [11] During the Post-Roman period it was part of the Romano-British kingdom of Dumnonia. Celtic Christianity was introduced to the area during the fifth century by Welsh, Irish and Breton missionaries [10] and a church and cemetery are thought to have existed on the site of the present cathedral at this time. [11] The defeat of the British in 682 by King Centwine of Wessex allowed the Saxons to reach Exeter, [10] and in the late seventh century the church appears to have become a monastery under abbot Wulfhard. [11] The Saxons gave the name Monkton to Exeter as a consequence of the large number of monks that it contained. [12] According to Willibald, an Anglo-Saxon priest who wrote a "Life" of Saint Boniface, the saint was educated at a monastery in 690 in a place variously called Adestancester, Escancastre, or Examchester, [13] names that have been identified with Exeter. [12]
During the tenth century the population of Exeter grew to around 2,000 and the monastery was re-founded as a minster church by King Æthelstan in c. 930. The foundations of the minster were discovered in 1971 under the parish church of St Mary Major when it was demolished. King Edgar reintroduced monks to the city in 968 under the rule of Bishop Sideman, the Bishop of Crediton. A monastic revival was encouraged by the king during his reign and he identified Exeter as a place suitable for monks to join the clergy. [11] Exeter was sacked by the Danes in 1003, but the Benedictine monastery was restored by Cnut in 1019.
Bishop Leofric was appointed as Bishop of Cornwall and Bishop of Crediton in 1046. In 1050 he merged the two bishoprics to create the united see of Devon and Cornwall and moved the episcopal see to Exeter. [13] [14] The new combined see incorporated Exeter's three monastic buildings of the time, all of which were located in Saint Peter's Close. The nunnery of Saint Augustine, the Saxon monastery and the Benedictine monastery were united to form the Cathedral Church. [1] The monastery was suppressed and converted into a secular cathedral. [15]
During the subsequent two centuries a number of priories and friaries were founded. These were all dissolved with the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII and little remains. There is one building surviving from Polsloe Priory: the main part of the west range, built of the local red sandstone and believed to date from around 1320. [16] Nothing is extant from St James Priory except a cob wall surrounding the building currently on the site, which may be the precinct wall of the priory. [6] Parts of the Benedictine Priory of St Nicholas survive. The guest wing and a kitchen at its northern end were converted into an Elizabethan town house after dissolution, and this is now maintained as St Nicholas' Priory museum by Exeter City Council. [5] The refectory was used as a Georgian town house and is now owned by the Exeter Historic Buildings Trust. [17]
Lindisfarne, also called Holy Island, is a tidal island off the northeast coast of England, which constitutes the civil parish of Holy Island in Northumberland. Holy Island has a recorded history from the 6th century AD; it was an important centre of Celtic Christianity under Saints Aidan, Cuthbert, Eadfrith, and Eadberht of Lindisfarne. The island was originally home to a monastery, which was destroyed during the Viking invasions but re-established as a priory following the Norman Conquest of England. Other notable sites built on the island are St. Mary the Virgin parish church, Lindisfarne Castle, several lighthouses and other navigational markers, and a complex network of lime kilns. In the present day, the island is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and a hotspot for historical tourism and bird watching. As of February 2020, the island had three pubs, a hotel and a post office.
Exeter Cathedral, properly known as the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter in Exeter, is an Anglican cathedral, and the seat of the Bishop of Exeter, in the city of Exeter, Devon, in South West England. The present building was complete by about 1400 and has several notable features, including an early set of misericords, an astronomical clock and the longest uninterrupted medieval stone vaulted ceiling in the world.
Buckfast Abbey forms part of an active Benedictine monastery at Buckfast, near Buckfastleigh, Devon, England. Buckfast first became home to an abbey in 1018. The first Benedictine abbey was followed by a Savignac, later Cistercian, abbey constructed on the site of the current abbey in 1134. The monastery was surrendered for dissolution in 1539, with the monastic buildings stripped and left as ruins, before being demolished. The former abbey site was used as a quarry, and later became home to a Gothic mansion house.
Æthelwold of Winchester was Bishop of Winchester from 963 to 984 and one of the leaders of the tenth-century monastic reform movement in Anglo-Saxon England.
The Bishop of Exeter is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Exeter in the Province of Canterbury. The See has been vacant since Robert Atwell's retirement on 30 September 2023.
Folkestone Priory was a pre-Reformation Benedictine monastery at Folkestone in the English county of Kent. The priory church survives as the present parish church. It was the successor to Folkestone Abbey, an Anglo-Saxon nunnery on a different site.
Amesbury Abbey was a Benedictine abbey of women at Amesbury in Wiltshire, England, founded by Queen Ælfthryth in about the year 979 on what may have been the site of an earlier monastery. The abbey was dissolved in 1177 by Henry II, who founded in its place a house of the Order of Fontevraud, known as Amesbury Priory.
Events from the 7th century in England.
The Benedictine Priory of St Nicholas or just St Nicholas Priory was a Benedictine monastery founded in Exeter, England, in 1087. At the Dissolution of the Monasteries the church and chapter house range were pulled down but the domestic buildings were left intact. Parts of the north and west ranges of the monastery survive with the west range now being a museum owned by Exeter Historic Buildings Trust.
Christianity in Cornwall began in the 4th or 5th century AD when Western Christianity was introduced as in the rest of Roman Britain. Over time it became the official religion, superseding previous Celtic and Roman practices. Early Christianity in Cornwall was spread largely by the saints, including Saint Piran, the patron of the county. Cornwall, like other parts of Britain, is sometimes associated with the distinct collection of practices known as Celtic Christianity but was always in communion with the wider Catholic Church. The Cornish saints are commemorated in legends, churches and placenames.
Saint Eanswith, also spelled Eanswythe or Eanswide, was an Anglo-Saxon princess, who is said to have founded Folkestone Priory, one of the first Christian monastic communities for women in Britain. Her possible remains were the subject of research, published in 2020.
Polsloe Priory, also known as St Katherine's Priory, was a Benedictine priory for women in Devon, England. It was founded in around 1159 on land to the east of Exeter, on a site that is now part of the city's suburb of Polsloe. At the time it was the only religious house for women in Devon, but two others were founded later: at Cornworthy and Canonsleigh Abbey. The first prioress of whom any record survives was Avelina in 1218. Amongst the holdings of the priory was the Church of St Mary, Marston Magna in Somerset.
Monks Kirby Priory was a Benedictine priory established in 1077 in Monks Kirby, Warwickshire, England. The priory was suppressed in 1415 when its estates and revenues were given to the Carthusian priory of Axholme in Lincolnshire, in whose possession they continued until the Reformation. Remains of the priory form part of Monks Kirby village church today.
St Martin's Church in Cathedral Close, Exeter, Devon, England was built in the 15th century. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building, and is now a redundant church in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust. It was vested in the Trust on 1 August 1995.
St Mary's Priory and Cathedral was a Roman Catholic institution in Coventry, England, founded in the 12th century by transformation of the former monastery of St Mary, and destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the early 16th century. It was located on a site north of Holy Trinity and the former St Michael's parish churches in the centre of the city, on a site bordered by Priory Row to the south, Trinity Street to the west, and the River Sherbourne to the north. Excavated remains from the west end of the cathedral are open to the public.
The English Benedictine Reform or Monastic Reform of the English church in the late tenth century was a religious and intellectual movement in the later Anglo-Saxon period. In the mid-tenth century almost all monasteries were staffed by secular clergy, who were often married. The reformers sought to replace them with celibate contemplative monks following the Rule of Saint Benedict. The movement was inspired by Continental monastic reforms, and the leading figures were Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, Æthelwold, Bishop of Winchester, and Oswald, Archbishop of York.
The Church of St Mary Major, formerly Exeter Minster, was a historic church and parish in the City of Exeter, Devon, dating from the 7th century. It pre-dated the first Exeter Cathedral by some five centuries, was rebuilt several times, but was finally demolished in 1971. It was situated to the immediate south-west of Exeter Cathedral, the site today being a grass lawn.
Adestancester.