Minster, demands our first consideration. It is very explicit, and from its origin and surroundings claims the fullest and clearest acceptance. From it we gather that the monastery was founded in honour of the Holy Trinity and Indivisible Unity, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The dedication of this abbey appears to be very contradictorily recorded in various documents, as is shown by the following table : DEDICATION OF NEW MINSTER. Holy Trinity, the Unity, and St. Mary ... ... A.D. 903 ... between A.D. 925 and 941 ... A.D. 940 A.D. 957 A.D. 966 ... A.D. 959 ... ... see above. see p. 207. ... ... see pp. 196, 215. see p. 217. see Cartul. Saxon., No. 1000. see Cartul. Saxon., No. 1045. see Cartul. Saxon., No. 1190. (Illumination.) ... A.D. 982 ... ... ibid. (text). Liber de Hyda, p. 217. Holy Trinity before A.D. IOIO Kemble, Cod. Dipl., No. DCCXXII. St. Saviour," Salvator cosmi," c. A.D. 1020 DEDICATION OF HYDE ABBEY. Holy Trinity, St. Peter, and St. Grimbald Henry I see p. 31. see p. 196. time of Henry I C. A.D. 1220 St. Peter see p. 291. Rp. V, p. 322. see p. 292. But the Cathedral or Old Minster is clearly indicated as being dedicated to the Holy Trinity in A.D. 934, Cartul. Saxon., No. 705; and at the renewal of the Cathedral by King Æthelstan he says "in nomine Sancte Trinitatis renovo," A.D. 937, Cartul. Saxon., No. 713. The beginning of the foundation was in this wise. King Eaduuard,1 son of King Alfred, having overcome the 1 A.D. 901-925. 2 But this must be taken with the record In Harley MS. 261, fol. 1076., “Novum Monasterium Wyntonie: Anno domini DCCCmo XCVI Rex Alfredus Wyntonie novum monasterium fundavit in qua ipse postea traditus sepulture." It is remarkable that there is no reference to New Minster in King Alfred's will. enemies of the kingdom, seeks to achieve the spiritual improvement of his country, and acquires from the Bishop of Winchester a private property in land1 sufficient to contain a monastery properly adapted for royal uses.2 The bishop sells to the king land amounting to three acres and three virgates at a good price, viz., at the rate of one mancus of refined gold for each pace. The boundaries given in Liber de Hyda are, however, not very intelligible.3 Later on he proceeds to invite, among other foreign personages of prominent sanctity, Grimbald, of St. Berhtin's monastery of Thérouanne near St. Omer, to preside over the secular clergy, after whose death5 numberless heavenly manifestations are wrought in proof of his virtues. The Anglo-Saxon chronicle, one copy of which was evidently prepared in New Minster Abbey, records that in A.D. 903, "Pys ylcan geares pas gehalgod Nipemynster on Pincester and S. Judoces cyme."-" This same year was the consecration of the New Minster at Winchester and St. Judoc's coming." Edwards points out that Alfred may have established Grimbald to be the head of some temporary religious house, as a preliminary step towards the foundation of the intended monastery, but this is not supported by the Liber de Hyda; and he points to the passage in some copies of William of Malmesbury's Gesta Regum, where the phrase "in famosa civitate Wenta. . . facto interim monasteriolo," etc., occurs, which gives the clue to the error, so frequently 1 According to the Liber de Hyda, p. 51, Ælfred had bought land for a chapel and dormitory, and left instructions to Eaduuard to complete the projected monastery. 2 p. 4. 3 cf. the charter of which a fragment still remains in the Register, p. 155. * See the Letter of Fulco, Archbishop of Rheims, recommending Grimbald, sacerdos et monachus, to the king, about A. D. 885, in Cartul. Saxon., No. 555. 58 Id. Jul., A.D. 903, A.S. Chron., ad an. The Liber de Hyda gives many details of Grimbald's history, his exhortation to Eadward for the fulfilment of his father's purpose, etc. Claud. c. ix; Harl. MS. 261. repeated, that attributes to Alfred both the foundation and building of New Minster. Alfred's share was simply the purchase of the site immediately before his death; the imparting to Grimbald his intention of building the monastery, and (on death supervening and preventing his carrying out this object) his desire that his son and successor should carry it out. Eaduuard having completed and adorned his monastery, translated the remains of his father-which had lain, awaiting sepulture, in the Old Minster-in a shrine of his own erecting, wherein lie buried also the remains of his mother Ealhsuuyo, foundress of Nunnaminster.2 Thither, too, certain religious men, i.e. monks, of Ponthieu had conveyed the relics of St. Judoc the confessor, which were received with pious joy by the clergy and a large concourse of the faithful. Eaduuard's death took place on 16th of the kalends of August (17 July), A.D. 925, and he lies buried on the right side of the altar, where the tombs of his parents were situated. His sons, Ædeluuard and Ælfuuerd, who never came to the throne, lie there also, cut off by a premature death; the former while Clito, or heir-apparent to the king, the latter "regalibus infulis redimitus": a phrase perhaps expressing that he had been associated with his father in the kingly dignity. The chronicler here passes over the reign of Athelstan (A.D. 925 to 940), natural son of the king, and perhaps the most shining light of Anglo-Saxon times, after Alfred. This is an unaccountable oversight, for the world-renowned 1 The monks declared that the king's ghost returned to his body at night and wandered about, and this determined Eadward to remove his father's body to New Minster, pro deliramento canonum dicentium regios manes, resumpto cadavere, noctibus per domos oberrare, filius ejus Edwardus genitoris ossa tulit et in Novo Monasterio posuit," Liber de Hyda, pp. 61, 62, 76. 2 See the Nunna-mynster Codex, pp. 5, 6. 3 See the list of Filii Regum, p. 14. piety, if not the sinister origin, of Athelstan might have furnished a pregnant theme upon which he could not fail to have plenty to say, and, indeed, the abbey appears to have been indebted to him for some of its most precious reliques. Be this as it may, the writer passes on abruptly to Eadmund I or the Elder, the fifth son of Eadward the Elder, who succeeded Æthelstan in A.D. 940. Eadmund's well-intended improvement of the buildings at Hyde were frustrated by his decease in A.D. 947; Eadred, his brother, succeeded3 in A.D. 947, but was prevented by death in A.D. 955, and Eaduui, the eldest son of Eadmund, a youth of robust promise, was also carried off, to the universal grief of the people, by an early death in A.D. 957 or 959, and buried in this venerable abbey. To Eadgar then, the "Vir strenuissimus, nemini priorum in temporali gloria vel divinitatis amore secundus," the brother of Eaduui, the royal mantle descends, and the religious world of England looked to him for shelter and advancement. Nor were its hopes to be disappointed this time. In his time the monastic rule was placed on a more substantial and better regulated basis; the reputed excesses of the secular clergy (probably on account of some specially flagrant cases which had come before his notice) gave an opportunity for monachism (credited with greater piety and purity), to come to the front and claim royal patronage; and at Winchester, as at many other places, the king turned his attention to the improvement of the buildings of the Benedictine establishment and the 1 About this period Wulfgar bequeathed the inalienable reversion of Collingbourn, co. Wilts, to New Minster, after the death of Affe (his wife), Cotton ch. viii, 16; Thorpe, Dipl., p. 495, dated 'after A.D. 931." 2 See p. 162. 3 In his time the abbey acquired land at Leckford, co. Hants, by gift from the mass-priest Edulf, Cart. Sax., No. 825. 4 He granted Heaton, co. Hants, to the abbey, Cart. Sax., No. 1000; and Bighton, No. 1045. extension of the sphere of religious influence which almost seems to have threatened to monopolise the best part of the city. "ut1 omnia secundum sanctissimi patris Benedicti institutum intra monasterium haberentur, a parte occidentis, septemtrionis et orientis usque ad plateam civitatis terminos dilatavit monasterii." And this indeed he would have subsequently enlarged, broad as it was, had not the land of the Nunna-minster stood in the way, by adding the land lying between the east and the walls: insuper 2 ab ortu solis usque ad moenia civitatis terminos prolongasset, ni sanctimonialium obfuissent fines." 4 3 Two Anglo-Saxon charters are extant which shew very clearly how the monastic bent of Eadgar's mind was warping the political foresight which he should have exercised for the good and advancement of his capital city. The first is the Adjustment of the boundaries between the Old-Minster, New-Minster, and Nunnaminster, a copy of which, with translation, has been printed in the appendix to my volume relating to Nunna-minster, which is already in the hands of the members of this Society. To this ample gift, another, and probably not much later in point of date, must be added, both texts having fortunately been preserved to these days in the Codex Wintoniensis, or Anglo-Saxon Register of Winchester Cathedral, a manuscript of the highest literary value towards the correct understanding of the early history of Hampshire. In the second charter, after the usual proem or preamble, Eadgar declares that "non solum habitaculum VETUSTI monasterii, sed etiam NOVI æque SANCTIMONIALIUM, ut cenobitæ inibi degentes, a civium tumultu remoti, tranquillius Deo servirent honorifice, magna dilatavi cautela; spaciumque omne prefatis cenobiis contiguum, dissipatis 1 p. 8. 2 p. 8. 3 Cartularium Saxonicum, No. 1163. 4 Cartul. Saxon., No. 1302; Kemble, Cod. Dipl., DLXXXII, "about 974." |