Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury Part 1

Bell's Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury.

by H. J. L. J. Ma.s.se.

PREFACE.

My heartiest thanks are here expressed to all who have helped me in any way during the compiling of this book--to Sir Charles Isham, of Lamport, for allowing me the use of his _Registrum Theokusburiae_ for several months, and for permission to reproduce two pages from it; to Mr. J.T. Micklethwaite for permission to make use of his paper on _Saxon Churches_ published in the Journal of the Archaeological Inst.i.tute, and to the Inst.i.tute for leave to reproduce the three blocks of Deerhurst; to Mr. W.H. St. John Hope for several suggestions; to Mr. A.H. Hughes, of Llandudno, Dr. Oscar Clark, and Mr. R.W. Dugdale, of Gloucester, for so liberally supplementing my own store of photographs; to Mr. S. Browett, of Tewkesbury, for the loan of the wood block on page 17; and, lastly, to Mr. W.G. Bannister, the sacristan of the Abbey, who placed his thorough knowledge of the building, its records, and its heraldry, together with the whole of his valuable MS. notes on these points, unreservedly at my disposal.

H.J.L.J.M.

TEWKESBURY ABBEY.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF THE FOUNDATION AND FABRIC OF THE ABBEY CHURCH, AND SOME ACCOUNT OF ITS BENEFACTORS.

Tradition, originating in the desire to account for the name of the town, would a.s.sign the foundation of a cell or chapel to Theoc, or in Latin form Theocus, in or about 655. In support of this theory Camden and others a.s.sert that it was called in Anglo-Saxon times Theocsburg or Theotisbyrg. Others would derive the name from the Greek "Theotokos," as the Church is dedicated to St. Mary, and others again refer us back to a very early name, Etocisceu--Latinised as Etocessa.

In Domesday Book the town is called Teodechesberie, and throughout the Chronicles of the Abbey is called Theokusburia.

The Chronicles of the Abbey tell us that the first monastery at Tewkesbury was built by two Saxon n.o.bles, Oddo and Doddo, in or about the year 715, a time when Mercia was flourishing under Ethelred, and later, under Kenred and Ethelbald. It was dedicated to the Virgin Mary, and endowed with the manor of Stanway and other lands for the support of the Benedictine monks who, under a Prior, were there installed. Oddo and Doddo died soon afterwards, and were buried in the abbey church of Persh.o.r.e.

Much has been written about these mythical founders, and confusion in the minds of the chroniclers, and in those of subsequent writers too, has been caused by the similarity between the names of Oddo and Doddo, and Odda and Dodda. It is stated in the old Tewkesbury Chronicle that Oddo and Doddo were brothers, who in 715 founded a small cell at Tewkesbury, and that Doddo built a church at Deerhurst to show his love for a brother who had died some time before. They seem to have been two n.o.ble dukes, members of an ill.u.s.trious family and renowned for their great virtue. Oddo is said to have become a monk, and after his death to have been buried at Persh.o.r.e Abbey.

As Mr. b.u.t.terworth points out in his book on Deerhurst, this seems to be a travesty of what actually happened. There were in the eleventh century two brothers, Odda and aelfric, with probably a third brother, Dodda, who were related to Edward the Confessor, and were, besides, his friends and followers. Charters are extant bearing their signatures and names, and covering the period 1015-1051. It is this Odda who caused to be built the "aula regia" at Deerhurst in memory of his brother aelfric, with a stone[1] bearing an inscription of which a copy is now in the Saxon Chapel at Deerhurst. This Odda, with his brother, was buried at Persh.o.r.e. Odda's existence at this time is further confirmed by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (edited by Ingram), which states that Odda was in 1051 made Earl over Devonshire, Somerset, Dorset, and the Welsh. The same chronicle says that Odda was also called Agelwin. Florence of Worcester says that he was also called Ethelwin.

It is perhaps easy to see how a chronicler writing 250 years later, should be led to a.s.sume that Oddo and Doddo were identical with Odda and Dodda. Sir Charles Isham's "Registrum Theokusburiae" gives a full-page ill.u.s.tration of this "_par n.o.bile fratrum_," as Dr. Hayman calls them, in which they are termed "_duo duces Marciorum et primi fundatores Theokusburiae_" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning on their own coats repeats.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PAGE FROM THE "REGISTRUM THEOKUSBURIae."

(_H.J.L.J.M._)]

According to the chronicle, Hugh, a great Earl of the Mercians, caused the body of Berthric or Brictric, King of Wess.e.x, to be buried in the chapel of St. Faith in the church at Tewkesbury, in 799 or 800, and Hugh himself was buried at Tewkesbury in 812. Of this fact confirmation is given by Leland, who said that Hugh's tomb was there in his time, on the north side of the nave.

The Priory suffered terribly at the hands of the invading Danes--in fact, it was in the centre of the theatre of war in which, under Alfred, the decisive struggle was fought to an end at Boddington Field, where a spot called the Barrow still marks the site. In consequence of the continued ravages the Priory was so reduced in 980 that it became a cell dependent on the Abbey at Cranbourn, in Dorset, a Benedictine foundation of which Haylward de Meaux, Hayward Snow, or Hayward de Meawe as the Isham MS. Chronicle spells it, was the founder and patron. He and his wife Algiva are depicted in that MS. as sitting on a mound with a cruciform building in their hands. The church has a lofty embattled tower surmounted with a spire. Hayward fell at Essendune in 1016, and was buried at Cranbourn. Tewkesbury Priory continued to be dependent on Cranbourn for about one hundred years.

Hayward's son, Earl Algar, inherited the patronage of Cranbourn and Tewkesbury, and on his death it pa.s.sed to his son Berthric, or, according to the Isham MS., Britricus Meawe. This Britric, while on an emba.s.sy in Flanders, refused the hand of the Earl's daughter Matilda, who was subsequently the wife of William Duke of Normandy, the conqueror of England. When the lady became Queen of England she had Britric's manors confiscated, and he died in prison at Winchester.

Thus Tewkesbury pa.s.sed into the hands of the Normans.

At the time of the Domesday Survey the priory was possessed of 24- hides (or 3,000 acres) of land, which in Edward the Confessor's reign had been valued at 1 per hide.

In 1087 William Rufus bestowed the honour of Gloucester, together with the patronage of the Priory of Tewkesbury, upon his second cousin once removed, Robert Fitz-Hamon, or, to give him his full t.i.tles as recorded in the Charters, "Sir Robert Fitz-Hamon, Earl of Corboile, Baron of Thorigny and Granville, Lord of Gloucester, Bristol, Tewkesbury and Cardiff, Conqueror of Wales, near kinsman of the King, and General of his Highness' army in France."

Robert Fitz-Hamon is the reputed founder of the present structure, but the credit of the founding, or rather refounding, is due to Giraldus, Abbot of Cranbourn. Like Abbot Serlo of Gloucester fame, he had originally come over from De Brienne, in Normandy, the ancestral home of the De Clare family, and a town closely connected with Tewkesbury at a later date. Giraldus had been chaplain to Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and subsequently to Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester. He was appointed Abbot of Cranbourn by William Rufus, who acted on the advice of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury. Giraldus then secured the a.s.sistance of Fitz-Hamon, and the munificent endowments of the latter supplied the means for building the n.o.ble foundation at Tewkesbury. Fitz-Hamon is said to have been inspired by a wish to make atonement for the wanton destruction of Bayeux Cathedral by Henry I.

By the year 1102 Giraldus and the members of St. Bartholomew's Abbey at Cranbourn removed to Tewkesbury, which was by that time ready to receive them; and the establishment at Cranbourn, under the rule of a Prior and two monks, became in its turn (after 120 years) a cell dependent on the new Abbey of Tewkesbury. After a few years Giraldus, "having neither the inclination nor the ability to satiate the King's avarice (Henry I.) with gifts," was obliged to leave Tewkesbury and returned to Winchester, where he died in 1110.

Fitz-Hamon had died in 1107 from the effects of a wound received at the siege of Falaise, and was buried temporarily in the Chapter House, which stood on the south side of the building.

In 1123 the Abbey was complete, and was consecrated on November 20th, with much ceremony, by Theulf, Bishop of Worcester, a.s.sisted by the Bishops of Llandaff, Hereford, Dublin, and another whose name is unknown.

The main part of the church, as it now stands, is usually a.s.signed to about 1123, and substantially is as strong now as it was then.

In the following year, 1124, Abbot Robert died, and soon afterwards Theulf, the old Bishop of Worcester, also pa.s.sed away.

Of Fitz-Hamon's four daughters two became abbesses, another was married to the Earl of Brittany, and Mabel was given to Robert, one of the many illegitimate sons of Henry I. She seems to have been a business-like lady, and to have hesitated at the proposed union with a nameless lord, unless a t.i.tle could be made to go with him. As Robert of Gloucester writes:

"The Kyng understood that the mayde seyde non outrage And that Gloucestre was chief of hyre eritage.

'Damozel,' he seyde, 'thy lord shall have a name For hym and for hys eyrs, fayr wyth out blame, For Robert of Gloucestre hys name shall be and is: For he shall be Erl of Gloucestre and his eyres, I wis.'"

This Robert Fitzroy, thus made the first Earl of Gloucester, was a great benefactor to the Abbey. To him are due the completion of the church and the greater part of the tower. According to Leland, the stone was brought over from Caen, but some seems to have been local stone from Prestbury and Cheltenham. He was as prominent in the arts of peace as he was afterwards in those of war, inheriting his taste for the former from his scholarly father. It is to him that the chronicler William of Malmesbury dedicated his work.

Robert Fitzroy died in Gloucester in 1147, but was buried at St.

James' Priory, Bristol, another foundation which was indebted to his munificence. His successor was William Fitzcount, the second Earl of Gloucester.

In 1178 the monastery was partly burnt down, the church fortunately suffering but little. There are some slight traces of fire on the exterior walls of the south and west faces of the tower, and on the interior of the south transept. The Annals of Winton say, "_Combusta est et redacta in pulverem Ecclesia de Theokesberia_"--an untenable hypothesis; but the Tewkesbury Chronicles merely mention that the monastery and the offices were destroyed. John, Earl of Cornwall, better known as King John, was entertained in the monastery soon afterwards, so that the damage cannot have been quite so overwhelming as the Winchester Chronicles allege it to have been. The fire might have been much more serious than it was, and it seems that only the fact of the wind being north-east saved the church. Judging by the marks of calcination on the outside of the tower, and the chief arch of the south transept, the roof must have been seriously damaged, and the roof of the cloister walk ab.u.t.ting on to the south aisle must have been completely burned. In all probability the group of roofing next to the south transept was destroyed.

William Fitzcount, dying in 1183, after a long and successful life, was buried at Keynsham, a magnificent abbey built by him in memory of a son who died young. Earl William's other children were girls, and the lordship of Gloucester was vested in Henry II. for some years. In 1189 the Abbey lands were granted by Richard I. to his brother John (who was afterwards king, 1199 to 1215), the first husband of Isabella, third daughter of William Fitzcount. Being divorced from John after his accession in 1199, she married Geoffrey de Mandeville, Earl of Ess.e.x, who paid 20,000 marks for the honour of Gloucester and the possessions of the Lady Isabel.

The earldom of Gloucester finally pa.s.sed in 1221 to Amice--sister of the Lady Isabella--great granddaughter of Fitz-Hamon the founder, who had married Richard de Clare, Earl of Hertford. This Richard de Clare was the ancestor of the Tewkesbury De Clares, a family which held the honour of Tewkesbury for nearly a century.

His son, Gilbert de Clare, married Isabelle de Marechal. His name, as also that of his father, is among the signatories of Magna Charta, and he was a strenuous supporter of the barons against the King. Though he died in Brittany, his body was brought home and buried in Tewkesbury, at the foot of the steps leading up to the high altar. In a few months' time his widow, Isabelle, married Richard, Earl of Cornwall, brother of King Henry III. At her death she wished to be buried next to Gilbert de Clare, but as her husband objected to this, she bequeathed her heart to the Abbey, and this was duly interred in Gilbert de Clare's grave. As the Register quaintly says in its rhyming hexameters--

"Postrema voce legavit cor comitissa Pars melior toto fuit huc pro corpore missa Haec se divisit dominum recolendo priorem Huc cor quod misit verum testatur amorem His simul ecclesiae sanctae suffragia prosint Ut simul in requie caelesti c.u.m Domino sint."

Gilbert de Clare bequeathed to the Abbey the manor called Mythe, on the hill just outside the town, and Isabelle also left to it many relics, besides vestments, and much valuable church furniture.

On the death of Gilbert de Clare, his son Richard became a ward of the King. Marrying Margaret de Burgh, a daughter of the great Earl of Kent, without permission, he incurred the royal displeasure, and was eventually forced to divorce his young wife in favour of the lady chosen for him. He supported the barons against the King, with whom he had never been in agreement. In 1262 he died, and was buried in the Abbey. One of his wife's sisters married Robert Bruce, compet.i.tor for the Scottish Crown and grandfather of King Robert Bruce.

His son Gilbert the second, Rufus or Rubens, _i.e._ Red, is another well-known figure. Like his father, he at first supported the barons, but soon after the battle of Lewes he took the King's side, and fought for him at Evesham. Again from pique he deserted him, returning to his allegiance once more in 1270. He was buried in the Abbey in 1295.

Gilbert de Clare the third, who was born at Tewkesbury in 1291, was perhaps the most famous of the De Clares. Whilst he was still in early manhood, he was twice chosen by Edward II. to serve as Regent of England in his absence, once even before he had attained full age. His promising career was cut short at Bannockburn in 1314, and the last of the De Clares was buried in the Choir in 1314, his widow being placed later by his side.

The lordship of Tewkesbury then pa.s.sed from the De Clares, who had held it for ninety years, to Eleanor, Gilbert's eldest sister. By her marriage in 1321 to Hugh le Despenser, the lordship came into the hands of the Despensers. This Hugh the younger, or Hugo Secundus as the Register calls him, was too faithful a supporter of Edward II., and he paid for his fidelity with his life in 1326, having been hanged, drawn, and quartered in Hereford about three weeks after his aged father had suffered a similar fate at Bristol. His remains were collected and buried in the tomb at the back of the sedilia, where Abbot John's tomb was placed at a later date.

The next lord of Tewkesbury was Hugh, the son of Hugh the younger and Eleanor de Clare. His tomb is to be seen on the north side of the high altar, with his effigy upon it, together with that of his wife, the Lady Elizabeth, who, though thrice married, preferred to be buried with him. She retained the manor of Tewkesbury after her marriage to Sir Guy de Brien, and on her death in 1359 it pa.s.sed to her nephew, Edward le Despenser.

This Edward le Despenser took part in the battle of Poitiers, and was one of the first Knights of the Garter. On his death at Cardiff in 1375 his body was brought to Tewkesbury, and his effigy is to be seen on the roof of the Trinity Chapel on the south side of the high altar.

He was buried close to the presbytery, and his wife was, in 1409, buried next to him.

Thomas le Despenser, the third son of Edward, was for two years only Earl of Gloucester, and being attainted, was executed at Bristol in 1400. No trace remains of his grave at Tewkesbury.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RICHARD BEAUCHAMP, FIRST HUSBAND OF ISABELLE DESPENSER, AND HIS ARMORIAL CONNECTIONS.

From the _Registrum Theokusburiae._ (_H.J.L.J.M._)]

With the death of his son Richard in 1414, the lordship of the Despensers in the male line, after ninety-three years, became extinct.