The Abbey of Bury St Edmunds was once among the richest Benedictine monasteries in England. Its ruins lie in Bury St Edmunds, a town in the county of Suffolk, England.
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History [link]
When, in the early 10th century, the relics of the martyred king, St Edmund, were translated from Hoxne to Beodricsworth, afterwards known as St. Edmundsbury,[1] the site had already been in religious use for nearly three centuries. To the small household of Benedictine monks who guarded the shrine the surrounding lands were granted in 1020, during the reign of Canute. Monks were introduced from St Benet's Abbey under the auspices of the Bishop of Elmham and Dunwich. Two of them became Bury's first two abbots, Ufi, prior of Holme, (d. 1044), who was consecrated abbot by the Bishop of London, and Leofstan (1044–65). After Leofstan's death, the king appointed his physician Baldwin to the abbacy (1065–97). Baldwin rebuilt the church and reinterred St Edmund's body there with great ceremony in 1095. The cult made the richly endowed abbey[2] a popular destination for pilgrimages.
The Abbey of St Edmund at Bury St Edmunds was built in the 11th and 12th centuries on a cruciform plan, with its head (or apse) pointed east. The shrine of St Edmund stood behind the high altar. The abbey was much enlarged and rebuilt during the 12th century. At some 505 feet long, and spanning 246 ft across its westerly transept, Bury St Edmunds abbey church was one of the largest in the country. St James's Church, now St Edmundsbury Cathedral, was finished around 1135. St Mary's Church was first built around 1125, and then rebuilt in the Perpendicular style between 1425-35.
Abbey Gate, opening onto the Great Courtyard, was the secular entrance which was used by the Abbey's servants. In 1327, it was destroyed during the Great Riot by the local people, who were angry at the power of the monastery, and it had to be rebuilt. Norman Gate dates from 1120–48 and was designed to be the gateway for the Abbey Church and it is still the belfry for the Church of St James, the present cathedral of Bury St Edmunds. This four-storey gate-hall is virtually unchanged and is entered through a single archway. Great Gate is an impressive 14th century stone gatehouse, designed to be the gateway for the Great Courtyard. One of the best surviving examples of its type, this two storey gate-hall is entered through a single archway which retains its portcullis. The Crankles was the name of the fishpond near the river Lark. The vineyard was first laid out in the 13th century. There were three breweries in the Abbey as each monk was entitled to eight pints a day.
The Abbey's charters granted extensive lands and rights in Suffolk. By 1327, the Abbey owned all of West Suffolk. The Abbey held the gates of Bury St Edmunds; they held wardships of all orphans, whose income went to the Abbot until the orphan reached maturity; they pressed their rights of corvée. In the late 12th century, the Abbot Adam Samson forced the Dean Herbert to destroy the new windmill he had built without permission. Adam said: "By the face of God! I will never eat bread until that building is destroyed!" The town of Bury St Edmunds was designed by the monks in a grid pattern. The monks charged tariffs on every economic activity, including the collecting of horse droppings in the streets. The Abbey even ran the Royal Mint. During the 13th century general prosperity blunted the resistance of burghers and peasants; in the 14th century, however, the monks encountered hostility from the local populace. Throughout 1327, the monastery suffered extensively, as several monks lost their lives in riots, and many buildings were destroyed. The townspeople attacked in January, forcing a charter of liberties on them. When the monks reneged on this they attacked again in February and May. The hated charters and debtors' accounts were seized and triumphantly torn to shreds. On October 18 1327, a group of monks entered the local parish church. They threw off their habits, they were armoured underneath, and took several hostages. The people called for the hostages' release, the monks fired on them, killing some. In response, the citizens swore to fight the abbey to the death. They included a parson and 28 chaplains. They burnt the gates and captured the abbey.[3] In 1345, a special commission found that the monks did not wear habits or live in the monastery.[4] Already faced with considerable financial strain, the abbey went further into decline during the first half of the 15th century. In 1431 the west tower of the abbey church collapsed. Two years later Henry VI moved into residence at the abbey for Christmas, and was still enjoying monastic hospitality four months later. More trouble arose in 1446 when the Duke of Gloucester died in suspicious circumstances after his arrest, and in 1465 the entire church was burnt out by an accidental fire. Largely rebuilt by 1506, the abbey of Bury St Edmunds settled into a quieter existence until dissolution in 1539. Subsequently stripped of all valuable building materials and artefacts, the abbey ruins were left as a convenient quarry for local builders.
In the late 19th century, a manuscript discovered in France revealed the burial location of eighteen of the Abbey's abbots. The location of the Abbey's chapter house was subsequently excavated, and on New Year's Day 1903 the coffins and remains of five of the Abbey's abbots were shown to the public. The abbots were (pictured from front to rear in photo): Edmund of Walpole (1248–1256); Henry of Rushbrooke (1235–1248); Richard of the Isle of Ely (1229–1234); Samson (1182–1211); and Ording (1148–1157). The antiquary and author Montague R. James, an authority on the Abbey's history, oversaw the excavation of the abbots' graves.[5]
The ruins are owned by English Heritage and managed by St Edmundsbury Borough Council.
The Abbey Gardens surrounding the ruins had an "Internet bench" installed in 2001, which people could use to connect laptops to the Internet. It was the first bench of its kind.[6]
Burials [link]
- Edmund the Martyr
- Thomas of Brotherton (d. 1338), Earl of Norfolk, Marshal of England, son of King Edward I, buried in the choir
Holders of Corrodies [link]
- (-1511) Hugh Denys of Osterley(d.1511), Groom to the King's Close Stool of Henry VII.[7]
- (1511-) William Gower, Groom of the Chamber to Henry VIII.[8]
See also [link]
Notes [link]
- ^ Schoch, Richard W. "'We Do Nothing but Enact History'": Thomas Carlyle Stages the Past." Nineteenth-Century Literature. Jun. 1999. 27-52 JSTOR. Web. 17 Nov. 2011. Page 51.
- ^ With the manors granted by Edward the Confessor, the abbey was in possession of fully a third of Suffolk (A History of the County of Suffolk).
- ^ Terry Jones, Medieval Lives, page 87
- ^ Terry Jones, Medieval Lives, page 106
- ^ Bury St Edmunds Past and Present Society, burypastandpresent.org.uk
- ^ "Bad start for internet bench". BBC News Online. 9 August 2001. https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1481783.stm. Retrieved 2007-12-30.
- ^ Letters & Papers, For. & Dom. Henry VIII, vol 1 (1920)
- ^ "William Gower, Groom of the Chamber, grant of a Corrody in the Monastery of St. Edmund's Bury vice Hugh Denys deceased. Greenwich, 4th Jan. 1512". Letters & Papers, For. & Dom. Henry VIII, vol 1 (1920)
External links [link]
- suffolkchurches.co.uk page
- 'Houses of Benedictine monks: Abbey of Bury St Edmunds', A History of the County of Suffolk: Volume 2 (1975), pp. 56-72
- English Heritage page
"The Abbey of Bury St. Edmund's". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. 1913.
Coordinates: 52°14′39″N 0°43′09″E / 52.2441°N 0.7192°E
https://wn.com/Bury_St_Edmunds_Abbey
Bury St Edmunds
Coordinates: 52°14′51″N 0°43′06″E / 52.2474°N 0.7183°E
Bury St Edmunds is a market town in Suffolk, England.Bury St Edmunds Abbey is near the town centre. Bury is the seat of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, with the episcopal see at St Edmundsbury Cathedral.
The town, originally called Beodericsworth, was built on a grid pattern by Abbot Baldwin around 1080. It is known for brewing and malting (Greene King brewery) and for a British Sugar processing factory, where Silver Spoon sugar is produced. The town is the cultural and retail centre for West Suffolk and tourism is a major part of the economy.
Bury St Edmunds is represented in Parliament by Conservative Jo Churchill who was elected at the 2015 General Election.
Origin of the name
The name Bury is etymologically connected with borough, which has cognates in other Germanic languages such as the German "burg" meaning "fortress, castle"; Old Norse "borg" meaning "wall, castle"; and Gothic "baurgs" meaning "city". They all derive from Proto-Germanic *burgs meaning "fortress". This in turn derives from the Proto-Indo-European root *bhrgh meaning "fortified elevation", with cognates including Welsh bera ("stack") and Sanskrit bhrant- ("high, elevated building"). There is thus no justification for the folk etymology stating that the Cathedral Town was so called because St Edmund was buried there.
Bury St Edmunds (UK Parliament constituency)
Bury St Edmunds is a constituency in Suffolk centred on the town of Bury St Edmunds that elects a Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The electorate has elected Conservative Party candidates at the general elections and two by-elections since the Liberal Party victory of 1880 however the Labour Party candidate came 368 votes short of winning it in 1997, less than 1% of the vote short.
In terms of election expenses and type of returning officer it has been a county constituency since 1918, before which it was a borough constituency that was created in 1614, returning two MPs to the House of Commons of England until 1707, then to the House of Commons of Great Britain until 1800, and from 1800 to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom. Its representation was reduced to one seat under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885; it was extended and its type was switched under the Representation of the People Act 1918.
Bury
Coordinates: 53°35′35″N 2°17′53″W / 53.593°N 2.298°W
Bury (/ˈbɛri/, locally also /ˈbʊrɪ/) is a town in Greater Manchester, England, on the River Irwell, 5.5 miles (8.9 km) east of Bolton, 5.9 miles (9.5 km) west-southwest of Rochdale, and 7.9 miles (12.7 km) north-northwest of Manchester. Bury is the largest settlement and administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Bury and in 2011 had a population of 55,856.
Historically part of Lancashire, Bury emerged in the Industrial Revolution as a mill town manufacturing textiles.
Bury is known for the open-air Bury Market and the local traditional dish, black pudding. The Manchester Metrolink tram system terminates in the town.
Bury resident Sir Robert Peel was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom and founded the Metropolitan Police Service and Conservative Party. The Peel Memorial is outside Bury parish church and the Peel Monument stands on Holcombe Hill overlooking Ramsbottom.
History
Toponymy
The name Bury, (also earlier known as "Buri" and "Byri") comes from an Old English word, meaning "castle", "stronghold" or "fort", an early form of modern English borough.
Burh
A burh (Old English pronunciation: [ˈburx]) or burg was an Old English fortification or fortified settlement. In the 9th century, raids and invasions by Vikings prompted Alfred the Great to develop a network of burhs and roads to use against such attackers. Some were new constructions; others were situated at the site of Iron Age hillforts or Roman forts and employed materials from the original fortifications. As at Lundenburh (medieval London), many were also situated on rivers: this facilitated internal lines of supply while aiming to restrict access to the interior of the kingdom for attackers in shallow-draught vessels such as longships.
Burhs also had a secondary role as commercial and sometimes administrative centres. Their fortifications were used to protect England's various royal mints.
Name
Burh and burg were Old English developments of the Proto-Germanic word reconstructed as *burg-s, cognate with the verb *berg-an ("to shut in for protection"). They are cognate with German Burg and Scandinavian borg and, in English, developed variously as "borough", "burg", and (particularly in the East Anglian region of England and Scotland) "burgh".
Bury (UK electoral ward)
Bury is an electoral ward of Chichester District, West Sussex, England and returns one member to sit on Chichester District Council.
