File:The greater abbeys of England (1908) (14784764702).jpg

Identifier: greaterabbeysofe01gasq (find matches)
Title: The greater abbeys of England
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Gasquet, Francis Aidan, 1846-1929
Subjects: Abbeys
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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the ground round aboutwas marshy, and the church and domestic build-ings were set on an island or raised ground in the sur-rounding low-lying country, always of a swampy nature,and at times, when the Test overstepped its bounds, prac-tically impassable. This, at least, is what we should ex-pect from the nature of the situation as we survey it to-day, and indeed it is what the name of Romsey, or ReedIsland, would convey to us. The abbey was Benedictine, and, according to someauthorities, was founded by a Saxon nobleman namedEthelwold in the reign of King Edward the Elder fora community of nuns placed under the care of Elfleda,Ethelwolds daughter. We are on surer ground whenwe come to the reign of King Edgar. In 967 the monas-tery, which had previously been destroyed, was rebuilt,and the new community were placed under the AbbessMerwenna. In the same year the church was finishedand dedicated to the Blessed Virgin and St. Elfleda atWhitsuntide in the Kings presence. Peter Langtoft, (234)
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XHDOc/) Xh O CQ< D s ROMSEY writing in the fourteenth century, whilst praising Edgarbecause: MIkille he wirschipped God and served our LadyThe abbey of Rumsaye he feffed richly, says that he placed there a hundred nuns, and thoughthis may have been at the time somewhat of a poeticallicense, at the time he wrote a hundred may well havebeen the number of the religious in the cloister of Rom-sey, and we know that at one election of an abbess aboutthis period ninety nuns gave their votes. Before the end of the tenth century it seems most prob-able that Romsey suffered, if not extinction, at least greatdestruction at the hands of the Danes. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the year 994 we read that Olafand Sweyn came to London on September 8 with ninety-four ships. They were repulsed and sailed down theThames, and then they went thence and wrought thegreatest evil that ever any army could do, in burning andin harrying and in manslayings, as well by the sea coastas in Essex and

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