CHAPTER II.

FOUNDATION OF THE MONASTERY-ITS EARLIER HISTORYPOSSESSIONS PRIVILEGES-CELLS.

AFTER the pagan Saxons had nearly obliterated the religion of the gospel in this kingdom, by the slaughter and dispersion of the christian Britons-and when, after three hundred years of national idolatry, the mission of Augustine from the see of Rome had substituted a modified species of christianity, even then the inherent excellence of christian doctrine began, during the reign of Wulphere, son of the tyrant Penda-his successor in the important division of Mercia to reclaim from the brutalizing influence of idolatry the Saxon chiefs. So entirely was Ethelred his brother and successor imbued after his conversion with the ascetic notions of his partially enlightened guides, that as if believing monachism to be the prelude of a millennial state, he in the year 701 conferred on Ecgwin third bishop of the Huiccians the whole peninsula, holme, or plain, skirted by the Avon, on which the town of Evesham at present stands, to found a monastery thereon. This, as may be seen beneath, is expressly stated in one of the existing manuscripts of the abbey.7

6 This powerful and extensive kingdom of the Saxon Heptarchy-or rather Octarchy-comprehended, beside a part of Hertfordshire, no fewer than sixteen of our present counties, viz. Huntingdon, Rutland, Lincoln, Northampton, Leicester, Derby, Nottingham, Oxford, Chester, Salop, Gloucester, Worcester, Stafford, Warwick, Buckingham and Bedford. Leicester, the Rate of the Romans, was its capital.

7" Rex Ethelredus, filius Pendæ regis Merciorum, primus et præcipuus fundator noster, dedit beato Ecgwino locum illum, qui tunc Ethomme, nunc Eveshamia vocatur, ubi monasterium construxit anno domini DCCI."-Ex Registro quodam Abbathiæ de Evesham, in Dugdale's Monasticon, ii. p. 14.

Having thus referred to the authority from whence our information respecting the gift from Ethelred is derived, it may be well here to acquaint the general reader with the nature of those documents to which reference will hereafter be often made, as being the only source from whence many particulars can be derived. The inmates of our monasteries, among other exercises, were accustomed to copy documents and to chronicle events which they considered memorable. In most instances these related to their own convent, and were added from time to time to the monastic archives. They are usually engrossed with extreme neatness, but with numberless contractions, in corrupted Latin, upon vellum, having initial letters and other portions elaborately decorated in brilliantly colored inks, with which those of our own day bear no comparison. At the dissolution, these manuscripts were in most instances sold as lumber, or destroyed; some few however were rescued by contemporaries, and have been thus preserved. Among such relating to this abbey, thus fortunately available, the British Museum contains the chief. These are, first a cartulary or manuscript volume, in the Harleian collection, numbered 3763, chiefly filled with copies of charters granted to the abbey at various times. From an entry on one of the leaves dated 1721-22, we find that this volume was in 1628 in the possession of Richard Fleetwood of Penwortham, esq. to whose family the abbey property there was granted in the 34th of Henry VIII. A second cartulary is included among the Cotton manuscripts, and numbered as Vespasian B xxiv. A third volume in the same collection-Titus C ix.-is chiefly occupied as a Register of Richard Bremesgrave's abbacy. A fourth, numbered in the same division as Vitellius E xvii. is almost destroyed by fire, but has been copied by Stevens, the continuator of Dugdale's Monasticon. Four original charters belonging to the monastery are also preserved in the Museum. The foregoing documents, with occasional notices among other manuscripts, furnish the principal material from whence our history of this important abbey is deduced.

The cause of Ethelred's munificence is attributed by the conventual annalists to a supernatural appearance manifested here to a swineherd of the bishop's named Eoves, while tending his charge with three other herdsmen upon a portion of the woodland appropriated to the sustenance of the Worcester monks. Not that all

were privileged to witness it. But Eoves alone going deeply into the wood beheld a virgin attended by two others, "her splendour darkened that of the sun, and her beauty exceeded all worldly features." 8 This the affrighted herdsman hastened to detail to the bishop. He, after fasting and prayer took with him, we are told, three companions and walked barefoot in their company, devoutly singing psalms till they approached the place. Then quitting his followers, the bishop advanced into the wood, and in the place which the hind had mentioned, fell prostrate in prayer. On rising he beheld the females whom Eoves had seen. She in the midst surpassed her companions in height and splendour, and was attired in raiment "infinitely exceeding lilies in whiteness and roses in odour." In one hand she held a book, and in the other a cross of gold radiant with celestial light, which stretching forth toward the bishop she conferred upon him the benediction. This he at once regarded as a heavenly intimation that a church should be erected on the spot to the honor of the Virgin Mary.

The bishop having duly recounted these circumstances to king Ethelred, secured the holme by royal grant: as we learn from the charter of endowment, attributed to Ecgwin, dated in the year 714, that he had at that time completed the erection of this monastery, "to the honor of Almighty God and of the holy Mary, and of all the elect in Christ, and for the furtherance of his own salvation, in order that the brethren, serving God according to the rule of St. Benedict, might there, without disturbance, pass their lives."9 That this charter was, however, executed at the early period assigned to it, may reasonably be doubted from the last mentioned clause. The rule of St. Benedict being generally considered as unrecognized in England till introduced by Odo, the Anglo-saxon primate, early in the tenth century, and urged forward by Dunstan "the man who set England in flames." But that the document is, nevertheless, an early production, we have every reason to believe. Such monastic fabrications having been frequent, immediately prior to the survey

Church History of Brittany by Paulin de Cressy, folio, Rouen 1668, p. 528. • Carta Ecguuini Wigorniensis Episcopi; in Dugdale's Monasticon, ed. 1817, ii. page 16.

of Domesday, in order to render titles valid in appearance, when the Norman commissioners should appear.1 10

The erection of the monastery commenced, according to bishop Tanner, in the same year that the site was given to Ecgwin by Ethelred; the same monarch also endowing the institution with a castle at Chadbury 11 and a convent at Fladbury to be held during Ecgwin's life, which, as we learn from his charter, he deemed advisable to exchange for a religious house at Stratford. William of Malmesbury, in recording the foundation, while he confirms the description given in the cartulary of the previous loneliness of the spot, tells us, apparently to enhance the sanctity of the site, that a small church had from an early period existed here, and that it was probably built by the Britons.12 Ethelred having subsequently resigned his crown to become abbot of Bardney, and he being succeeded on the throne of Mercia by his nephew Cenred, we now find the latter prince leagued with "Offa king of the east Saxons" 13 in a further endowment of Ecgwin's foundation, by charter, in 709, whereby were given to the infant institution sixty-five manses, or farms, on both sides of the Avon. Three of these are described as being in Homme [Evesham], one in Lenchwic, seven in Norton, one in Offeham, thirteen in Litleton, one in Aldintone, five and a half in Baddeseie, twelve in Bretforton, two and a half in Huniburn, seven in Willerseie, three in Wicwon [Wickham], and nine in Benigwrthie [Bengeworth] and Hamton. Seven cassates of land at Morton, given by Cenred to Ecgwin in 703 "toward building the monastery then to be erected" were likewise by the same instrument confirmed.

10 Compare Ellis's Introduction to Domesday Survey, p. xiii.

11 Harleian MS. 3763, copied in Dugdale, ii. 14, and in Tindal's Evesham, p. 46. 12" Locum illum quo nunc cœnobium visitur, peculiariter amasse, incultum antea et spinetis horridum, sed ecclesiolam ab antiquo habentem, ex opere forsitàn Brittanorum." In English, thus-The place wherein the monastery is now seen, he [Ecgwin] is said to have particularly loved; it was a spot previously untilled and overgrown with brambles, but where a little church had stood from ancient time, perhaps erected by the Britons.-W. Malmesbury, fol. 162.

13 "Ego Offa divina permissione Orientalium Anglorum gubernator."-MS. Cott. Vesp. B xxiv.