The Reform of the Abbey
Alfred's descendants inherited the patronage of Bath Abbey.
Athelstan and several of his successors arranged for the Abbey to
celebrate the anniversaries of their deaths by the gift of alms to the
poor.(1) In 1535 that custom
was laconically noted as alms distributed to various paupers
and lepers...from the endowment of Kings Athelstan, Edgar, Ethelred and
Edwy and many other founders
,(2)
which is probably the source of the misconception that Athelstan
founded a leper hospital in Bath. Athelstan did give several books to
the Abbey, including a copy of The Acts of the Council of
Constantinople, inscribed King Athelstan gave
this book to God and to the holy mother of Christ and to the saints
Peter and Benedict in the monastery of...Bath.
(3)
The dedication to St Benedict is curious at this date,
suggesting that Bath had already adopted the Rule of Benedict, but it
may simply be that this note was added a few years later. A stricter
form of monasticism was reviving across the Channel, but in England it
had a mixed reception by the Crown. In 944 King Edmund granted refuge
in Bath Abbey to Flemish monks expelled from St Bertin for refusing to
live to rule.(4) Edmund did
appoint the reformer Dunstan Abbot of Glastonbury, but Dunstan was
exiled by Edmund's son Edwy.(5)
The young King Edwy held witans close to Bath in 956 and 957, which
drew his attention to local affairs and produced a spate of charters.(6) His reaction to the city crept
into them: one refers to the hot springs and another to the marvellously
built
monastery.(7)
Under Edwy, Bath remained a royal eigenkloster,
ruled by his chaplain Wulfgar. However, Edwy's brother Edgar admired
and supported the reformed monasticism. On his accession he recalled
Dunstan, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 961. Dunstan brought the
monastic revival to
England, encouraging the adoption of the Rule of St Benedict, with its
emphasis on poverty, chastity and communal living.(8)
In the following years Bath Abbey was presumably reorganised on
Benedictine lines, with communal buildings around a cloister and the
monks ruled by an abbot. William of Malmesbury tells us that Edgar,
delighted by the grandeur of the place, enlarged it
after his
manner
.(9) It was
probably not designed for a huge community; in 1077 there were eighteen
monks including the abbot.(10)
Saxon cross-fragments found in various places in Bath probably date
from around this period.(11)
The early years of the reformed monastery
were not without problems, some mercilessly recorded by the biographer
of St Ælfheah
(Elphege). Ælfheah
left Deerhurst monastery for a hermit's cell near Bath, where he
attracted followers much against his will. Once a monastery large
enough to house them was built, he withdrew again to a solitary life
and provision for the community was delegated to a suitable prior,
presumably Æscwig,
Abbot of Bath in 965 and 970. However, lapses in discipline all too
often required Ælfheah's
personal attention. He had to chastise those slipping out at night for
drunken revels, or reluctant to forsake all personal property. This may
explain why Ælfheah
was also styled as Abbot of Bath over the same period as Æscwig.(12) Ælfheah was later appointed
Archbishop of Canterbury, but his name was long remembered at Bath. St
Alphege's Well on Lansdown, just north of Upper Weston, may be a clue
to the location of his hermitage.(13)
Centuries later Bath Priory was still giving ten bushels of wheat a
year to their tenants in Weston, called St Alphegis grist as
hath been used in tymes past
,(14)
perhaps the saint's recompense for their kindness to a hermit.
The reformed abbey had powerful supporters.
On one of Dunstan's rounds of encouragement and exhortation, he visited
the place where hot springs burst forth from their hiding
place in the abyss in steaming droplets, a place which the inhabitants
call Bathum in the vernacular.
(15)
Edgar was a generous patron of the monastery, as were some of those
close to him,(16) and in 973 he
chose Bath Abbey as the setting for his splendid coronation by
Archbishops Dunstan and Oswald.(17)
But on 8 July 975, Edgar died suddenly and was succeeded by his young
son Edward. Resentment of Edgar's generosity to the monasteries emerged
into the open. Ælfhere,
Ealdorman of Mercia, disbanded several monasteries within the diocese
of Worcester. According to Leland, he expelled the monks of Bath for a
time. Since Bath was in Wessex by then, that seems unlikely. In any
case anti-monastic feeling gradually wore away after the accession of
Ethelred in 979.(18)
Notes
- Two Chartularies, chart.2, no.808.
- Valor Ecclesiasticus, Vol.1 (1810), p.177.
- S.Keynes, 'King Athelstan's books' in M.Lapidge and H.Gneuss eds., Learning and Literature in Anglo- Saxon England (Cambridge, 1985), pp.159-64.
- English Historical Documents Vol.1, p.318.
- E.John, 'The age of Edgar' in Campbell ed., The Anglo-Saxons, p.185.
- At Cheddar, Soms. in November 956 and Edington, Wilts. in May 957. S.Keynes, The Diplomas of King Aethelred 'The Unready' 978-1016 (Cambridge 1980), pp.59-61, 67.
- Two Chartularies, chart.1, nos.5, 18 (Sawyer nos.610, 643).
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; English Historical Documents Vol.1, nos.234, 238.
- Willelmi Malmesbiriensis de Gestis Pontificum, p.194.
- Two Chartularies, chart.1, no.4; translated by D.A.E.Pelteret, Catalogue of English Post-Conquest Vernacular Documents (Woodbridge, 1990), no.78.
- Hinton, 'Saxon finds' in Cunliffe ed., Excavations in Bath 1950-1975, pp.140, 180.
- 'Vita Elphegi' in [Warton ed.], Anglia Sacra (1691), Vol.2, pp.122-42; D.Knowles et al., The Heads of Religious Houses 940-1210 (Cambridge, 1972), p.28.
- Aston, 'The Bath region', pp.80-81.
- British Library Harl Ms 3970, f.31; Calendar of Patent Rolls: Elizabeth Vol. 5 (1966), p.358.
- Memorials of St.Dunstan, p.46; translation Leslie, p.23.
- Two Chartularies, chart.1, nos.20, 23-25 (Sawyer nos.694, 737, 777, 785); D.Whitelock ed. and trans., Anglo-Saxon Wills (Cambridge, 1930), nos.8, 9 (Sawyer nos.1484-5).
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicle; The Historians of the Church of York and its Archbishops, ed. J.Raine, Rolls, pp.436-38.
- E.John, 'The return of the Vikings' in Campbell, p.192; Itinerary of John Leland ed. L.Toulmin Smith (1907-10), Vol.1, p.143; Keynes, Diplomas of King Aethelred, pp.169-72.