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.[4] 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,[4] 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.[5] A mint was founded at the Abbey around this time.[4]
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.
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).[6][7][8] These lands were valued at £188 14s. in all and were assessed as 3 knights' fees.
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.
The remaining part of the nave of Malmesbury Abbey, blocked off to the west, currently used as the parish church
The abbey, which owned 23,000 acres (93km2) 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.[26]
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.[27]
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, 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.
1301 Reginald de Souple
1312 Roger Snell to Alynton
1332 Walter Drueys
1336 John de Ashebi
1348 Stephen de Tettebury
1353 Walter le Walker
1369 Richard de Lokenham
1379 John Oseborn
1387 Thomas Wibbe
1394 John Comeleygh
1428 William Butte
1439 Hugh Thomas
1462 William Sherewode
1497 Richard Chaunceller
1503 Thomas Long
1519 William Barlow
1535 Richard Turner
1544 John Aprice
1564 John Skinner
1565 James Procter
1566 Thomas Trinder
1567 John Sarney
1611 Matthew Watts
1616 Anthony Watson
1618 William Noble
1633 William Latimer
1649 Robert Harpur
1659 Simon Gawer
1664 John Hodges
1667 Nicholas Adee
1669 John Clarke
1676 John Binion
1701 Christopher Hanley
1705 Thomas Earle
1749 John Copson
1786 Henry Strong
1793 George Bisset
1829 Charles Pitt
1874 George Windsor Tucker
1920 Charles Paterson
1925 James Deade
1944 Arthur Beaghen
1975 Peter Barton
1994 David Littlefair
2004 Neill Archer
2018 Oliver Ross
Organ
The current organ, dating from 1984
The earliest organ was obtained in 1846[30] and had formerly stood in the church of St Benet Fink, Threadneedle Street, London;[31] 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.[32] 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 (equivalent to £288,247in 2023).[33] A specification of the organ can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register.[34]
Notable burials
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.[8]
Æthelstan, regarded as the first king of England. He was buried in the tower, under the altar of St. Mary.[35] 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.[36]
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.[37]
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.[38]
Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex. He was certainly not, as his early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine. After his death he was venerated as a saint, his feast day being the day of his death, 25 May.
Sherborne Abbey, otherwise the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England church in Sherborne in the English county of Dorset. It has been a Saxon cathedral (705–1075), a Benedictine abbey church (998–1539), and since 1539, a parish church.
Pershore Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was an Anglo-Saxon abbey and is now an Anglican parish church, the Church of the Holy Cross.
William of Malmesbury 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 gifted historical scholar and an omnivorous reader, impressively well versed in the literature of classical, patristic, and earlier medieval times as well as in the writings of his own contemporaries. Indeed William may well have been the most learned man in twelfth-century Western Europe."
Ælfweard was the second son of Edward the Elder, the eldest born to his second wife Ælfflæd.
Eilmer of Malmesbury was an 11th-century English Benedictine monk best known for his early attempt at a gliding flight using wings.
Ælfthryth was Queen of the English from her marriage to King Edgar in 964 or 965 until Edgar's death in 975. She was a leading figure in the regency during the minority of her son King Æthelred the Unready between 978 and 984.
Stigand was the last Bishop of Selsey, and first Bishop of Chichester.
Osbern of Canterbury or Monk Osbern was a Benedictine monk, hagiographer and musician, precentor of Christ Church, Canterbury.
Herman (died 1078) was a medieval cleric who served as the Bishop of Ramsbury and of Sherborne before and after the Norman conquest of England. In 1075, he oversaw their unification and translation to Salisbury. He died before the completion of the new cathedral.
Æthelweard was the younger son of King Alfred the Great and Ealhswith.
Æthelwald or Æthelwold was ealdorman of East Anglia. He is mentioned in Byrhtferth's life of Oswald of Worcester along with other members of his family.
Saint Edith of Polesworth is an Anglo-Saxon abbess associated with Polesworth (Warwickshire) and Tamworth (Staffordshire) in Mercia. Her historical identity and floruit are uncertain. Some late sources make her a daughter of King Edward the Elder, while other sources claim she is the daughter of Egbert of Wessex. Her feast day is 15 July.
Events from the 1120s in England.
Ælfgifu of Shaftesbury was the first wife of King Edmund I. She was Queen of the English from her marriage in around 939 until her death in 944. Ælfgifu and Edmund were the parents of two future English kings, Eadwig and Edgar. Like her mother Wynflaed, Ælfgifu had a close and special if unknown connection with the royal nunnery of Shaftesbury (Dorset), founded by King Alfred, where she was buried and soon revered as a saint. According to a pre-Conquest tradition from Winchester, her feast day is 18 May.
The Gesta Pontificum Anglorum, originally known as De Gestis Pontificum Anglorum and sometimes anglicized as The History or The Chronicle of the English Bishops, is an ecclesiastical history of England written by William of Malmesbury in the early 12th century. It covers the period from the arrival of St Augustine in AD 597 until the time it was written. Work on it was begun before Matilda's death in 1118 and the first version of the work was completed in about 1125. William drew upon extensive research, first-hand experience and a number of sources to produce the work. It is unusual for a medieval work of history, even compared to William's other works, in that its contents are so logically structured. The History of the English Bishops is one of the most important sources regarding the ecclesiastical history of England for the period after the death of Bede.
Malmesbury is a town and civil parish in north Wiltshire, England, which lies approximately 14 miles (23 km) west of Swindon, 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Bristol, and 9 miles (14 km) north of Chippenham. The older part of the town is on a hilltop which is almost surrounded by the upper waters of the Bristol Avon and one of its tributaries.
St Osyth's Abbey was a house of Augustine Canons Regular in the parish of St Osyth in Essex, England in use from the 12th to 16th centuries. Founded by Richard de Belmeis, Bishop of London, c. 1121, it became one of the largest religious houses in Essex. It was dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul as well as St Osyth (Osith), a royal saint and virgin martyr. Bishop Richard obtained the arm bone of St Osyth from Aylesbury for the monastic church and granted the canons the parish church of St Osyth.
Æthelwine of Athelney was a 7th-century saint venerated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. He lived as a hermit on the island of Athelney in the marsh country of Somerset, and is known to us through being recorded in the hagiography of the Secgan Manuscript. He was venerated as a saint after his death, Nov. 26.
Eadwold of Cerne, also known as Eadwold of East Anglia, was a 9th-century hermit, East Anglian prince and patron saint of Cerne, Dorset, who lived as a hermit on a hill about four miles from Cerne. His feast day is 29 August.
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The abbey precinct
Ground plan of the abbey
The Abbey in the 14th century: only the brightened area is now used, following collapses of the spire and west tower
The fine parvise over the south porch
Interior of the Abbey, showing the unusual watching-loft projecting above the nave
The Abbey interior; the ruined area lies beyond the blank wall rising above the altar
