The minster hypothesis is a debated view that the organisation of the early Anglo-Saxon Christian church was based around minsters staffed by communities of clerics and providing spiritual services within a defined area (known as a parochia). [1]
John Blair put forward a description of the early Anglo-Saxon Christian church in England in a number of publications. [2] He believed that the organisation of the early church was based around minsters staffed by a community of clerics and providing spiritual services within a defined area (known as a parochia). Minsters were established close to royal vills, as part of the process by which pagan communities were converted to Christianity. [3] During 10th and 11th centuries, parochial duties were increasingly taken over by estate churches which were the property of local land owners. The diminishing role for minsters and the emergence of estate churches accompanied the fragmentation of the Anglo-Saxon multiple estates that had been common in the earlier landscape. [4] The new estate churches were frequently dependent to some extent on the original minster church within whose boundary they were located. [5] Sonning (Berkshire) is an example of an original minster which by the 12th century had eight dependent churches, four of which had become independent parishes by the 15th century. [6] Although minsters were in decline by 1086, it is still possible to identify them in Domesday wherever the description goes beyond the purely formulaic. Clues to identification of minsters include references to groups of priests; a church endowment exceeding one hide; tenure by a royal or named clerk; a separate valuation or survey or some additional sign of status. [7]
Blair did not himself coin the phrase "minster hypothesis", instead using (but not coining) the phrase "minster model". [8] The term "minster hypothesis" was first used in a critical review by Cambridge and Rollason. [9] The term has subsequently been widely adopted by both proponents and opponents of the underlying ideas. The term "minster system" has sometimes been used as an alternative.
Disputed points include
The Jutes, Iuti, or Iutæ 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 nations, along with the Angles and the Saxons.
The Kingdom of the South Saxons, today referred to as the Kingdom of Sussex, was one of the seven traditional kingdoms of the Heptarchy of Anglo-Saxon England. On the south coast of the island of Great Britain, it was originally a sixth-century Saxon colony and later an independent kingdom. The kingdom remains one of the least known of the Anglo-Saxon polities, with no surviving king-list, several local rulers and less centralisation than other Anglo Saxon kingdoms. The South Saxons were ruled by the kings of Sussex until the country was annexed by Wessex, probably in 827, in the aftermath of the Battle of Ellendun.
Minster is an honorific title given to particular churches in England, most notably York Minster in Yorkshire, Westminster Abbey in London and Southwell Minster in Nottinghamshire.
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England, and parts of Wales, from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground.
Meldreth is a village and civil parish in South Cambridgeshire, England, located around 10 miles (16 km) south-west of Cambridge. At the 2011 Census, the population of the parish was 1,783.
Eynsham is an English village and civil parish in Oxfordshire, about 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Oxford and east of Witney. The 2011 Census recorded a parish population of 4,648. It was estimated at 5,077 in 2018.
Blackburn Hundred is a historic sub-division of the county of Lancashire, in northern England. Its chief town was Blackburn, in the southwest of the hundred. It covered an area similar to modern East Lancashire, including the current districts of Ribble Valley, Pendle, Burnley, Rossendale, Hyndburn, Blackburn with Darwen, and South Ribble.
Ecgbert was an 8th-century cleric who established the archdiocese of York in 735. In 737, Ecgbert's brother became king of Northumbria and the two siblings worked together on ecclesiastical issues. Ecgbert was a correspondent of Bede and Boniface and the author of a legal code for his clergy. Other works have been ascribed to him, although the attribution is doubted by modern scholars.
Bosa was an Anglo-Saxon Bishop of York during the 7th and early 8th centuries. He was educated at Whitby Abbey, where he became a monk. Following Wilfrid's removal from York in 678 the diocese was divided into three, leaving a greatly reduced see of York, to which Bosa was appointed bishop. He was himself removed in 687 and replaced by Wilfrid, but in 691 Wilfrid was once more ejected and Bosa returned to the see. He died in about 705, and subsequently appears as a saint in an 8th-century liturgical calendar.
Bookland was a type of land tenure under Anglo-Saxon law and referred to land that was vested by a charter. Land held without a charter was known as folkland.
Anglo-Saxon charters are documents from the early medieval period in England which typically made a grant of land or recorded 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 charters were increasingly used to grant land to lay people.
The Haestingas, or Heastingas or Hæstingas, were one of the tribes of Anglo-Saxon Britain. Not very much is known about them. They settled in what became East Sussex sometime before the end of the 8th century. A 12th-century source suggested that they were conquered by Offa of Mercia, in 771. They were also recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (ASC) as being an autonomous grouping as late as the 11th century.
The Stoppingas was a tribe or clan of Anglo-Saxon England. Their domain was Wootton Wawen and the valley of the River Alne in modern-day Warwickshire. The name of the tribe may have come from the personal name Stoppa, who could have been the tribe's founder or leader, or earliest common ancestor.
The Husmerae were a tribe or clan in early medieval England, possibly forming an early settlement of the Hwicce subkingdom. Charter evidence also referred to the group as Wiogorna and was also considered a prouvincia or provincia, an administrative division with its own territorial boundaries. An account also refer to the Husmerae territory as a regio.
Domne Eafe, 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 at Minster-in-Thanet during the reign of her cousin King Ecgberht of Kent. A 1000-year-old confusion with her sister Eormenburg means she is often now known by that name. Married to Merewalh of Mercia, she had at least four children. When her two brothers, Æthelred and Æthelberht, were murdered she obtained the land in Thanet to build an abbey, from a repentant King Ecgberht. Her three daughters all went on to become abbesses and saints, the most famous of which, Mildrith, ended up with a shrine in St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.
St Oswald's Priory was founded by Æthelflæd, daughter of Alfred the Great, and her husband Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia, in the late 880s or the 890s. It appears to have been an exact copy of the Old Minster, Winchester It is a Grade I listed building.
An Anglo-Saxon multiple estate was a large landholding controlled from a central location with surrounding subsidiary settlements. These estates were present in the early Anglo-Saxon period, but fragmented into smaller units in the late Anglo-Saxon period. Despite some academic criticism, the concept has been widely used and a large number of possible examples have been proposed.
All Saints' Church, Shuart, in the north-west of the Isle of Thanet, Kent, in the south-east of England, was established in the Anglo-Saxon period as a chapel of ease for the parish of St Mary's Church, Reculver, which was centred on the north-eastern corner of mainland Kent, adjacent to the island. The Isle of Thanet was then separated from the mainland by the sea, which formed a strait known as the Wantsum Channel. The last church on the site was demolished by the early 17th century, and there is nothing remaining above ground to show that a church once stood there.
St Mary's Church, Reculver, was founded in the 7th century as either a minster or a monastery on the site of a Roman fort at Reculver, which was then at the north-eastern extremity of Kent in south-eastern England. In 669, the site of the fort was given for this purpose by King Ecgberht of Kent to a priest named Bassa, beginning a connection with Kentish kings that led to King Eadberht II of Kent being buried there in the 760s, and the church becoming very wealthy by the beginning of the 9th century. From the early 9th century to the 11th the church was treated as essentially a piece of property, with control passing between kings of Mercia, Wessex and England and the archbishops of Canterbury. Viking attacks may have extinguished the church's religious community in the 9th century, although an early 11th-century record indicates that the church was then in the hands of a dean accompanied by monks. By the time of Domesday Book, completed in 1086, St Mary's was serving as a parish church.
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.