Croyland Abbey
Croyland Abbey ( also known as Crowland Abbey, Latin : Croilandia since the English monasteries were dissolved in the 16th century ) was formerly a Benedictine monastery and is now a parish church of the Church of England in Crowland , Lincolnshire , England. The building is a Grade I listed building .
history
The abbey was founded in 716 by Æthelbald , King of Mercia , in honor of St. Guthlac built. This, son of a mercian nobleman, retired as a monk in 699 to the solitude of today's Crowland, at that time an uninhabited island in a swampy environment, where he built a hermit's cell and died in 714. Croyland Abbey was dedicated to the Virgin Mary , the Apostle Bartholomew, and Saint Guthlac. In the third quarter of the 10th century Crowland came into the possession of the noble Turketel , a relative of Osketel, who was Archbishop of York . The cleric Turketul became abbot and provided Croyland with extensive property. It is believed that Croyland adopted the Benedictine rule around this time. In the 11th century Hereward the Wake was a tenant of the abbey.
The marshland around the island was drained by the monks, and little by little a settlement grew up near the abbey, which lived off the abbey. The abbey also owned the oldest known windmill in Central Europe around 870 . Over the centuries the abbey was more or less destroyed three times, so in 870 by the Danes and in 1091 and 1170 by conflagration. From then on, the development of the monastery until its dissolution in the 16th century was undisturbed, also because of its comparatively isolated location; the tomb of St. Guthlac also attracted pilgrims from the highest classes, which made Croyland a wealthy convent and one of the most important monasteries in England. Soon the abbey had estates in six counties. The wealth has enabled the construction of a stately church, of which today only ruinous Westwerk enter and the times outlasting North vessel's certificate. The west facade ruin in the decorated style with a large window, arcades and figurative decorations is about to be built in the 12th and 13th centuries. (lower area) and 14./15. Century (upper area) back. The north aisle and the tower were built by the Benedictine monk and master mason William von Wermington, who died in 1427.
In 1537 the Abbot of Croyland wrote to Thomas Cromwell and sent him a fish as a present: "ryght mekely besychinge yowr Lordshippe favorably to accept the same fyshe, and to be gude and favorable Lord unto me and my poore House." Despite this attempt, the abbey was dissolved in 1539. The monastery buildings, including the choir, transepts, and crossing of the church, appear to have been demolished fairly quickly, but the nave has since been used as a parish church. During the reign of King Edward VI. was given to Lord Edward Clinton Croyland, followed by the Hunter family.
During the English Civil War the remains of the abbey were fortified and occupied by a royalist garrison under Thomas Stiles . After a brief siege, the former abbey was taken by parliamentary troops under Oliver Cromwell in May 1643 , and the structure of the abbey appears to have been badly damaged. The roof of the nave collapsed in 1720, the ruins served the residents as a quarry from then on, and the southern main wall was demolished in 1744. Only the north aisle was renovated and survived as a parish church - the side aisle served in this function even before the Reformation. Since then, the sacred building has belonged to the Anglican community of Crowland.
Croyland is well known to historians as the likely home of the Historia Croylandensis of the Pseudo-Ingulf , begun by one of his monks and continued by several other hands.
John Clare wrote a sonnet entitled Crowland Abbey , first published in The Literary Souvenir in 1828 and reprinted in his last book, The Rural Muse, in 1835 .
Equipment of the north aisle
- The rood screen is attributed to the monastery brother Simon Eresby in the 15th century.
- Only remains of the colored glass windows from the Middle Ages have survived.
- Until it was stolen in 1982, there was a skull in a box on the inner tower wall, which probably came from Abbot Theodore, who was slain at the altar in 850. The skull was returned anonymously in 1999.
- Six vault keystones are very well preserved, including a “ Green man ”, a pagan fertility symbol.
Bells
Croyland Abbey is said to be the first church in England and one of the first in the world to have a tuned chime or bell ring (circa 986). According to the Historia Croylandensis , the abbot Egelric, who died in 984, delivered the carillon:
- “He also had two large bells made, which he named Bartholomäus and Bettelm, as well as two medium-sized ones, which he named Turketul and Tatwin, and two small ones, which he named Pega and Bega. Lord Abbot Turketul had previously had a very large bell called Guthlac made, and when it was rung with the aforementioned bells, it created an exquisite harmony, and there was no such ringing of bells in any of England in those days. "
The stories attributed to Abbot Ingulf from the 11th century are now considered to be inventions of the pseudo-Ingulf from the 14th century, which raises doubts about the genesis of the bells. One of the bells hanging in the tower is from the 15th century, the rest are more recent.
Burials
Remarks
- ↑ Historic England, Crowland Abbey, ( online, accessed May 21, 2019 )
- ^ Vita beati Franconis e chronico monasterii Villarensis Brabantiae, pervetusto, excerpta et anglice reddita , Hodges-Smith (1858), page xx
- ^ David Oswald Hunter Blair (1908), Abbey of Croyland , in: Charles Hebermann (Ed.), Catholic Encyclopedia , Volume 4, New York ([Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) / Abbey of Croyland wikisource])
- ↑ online
- ↑ Ingulf's Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland , translated from Latin by Henry T. Riley London, 1854.
Coordinates: 52 ° 40 ′ 35.7 " N , 0 ° 9 ′ 54.3" W.