Peterborough Abbey

“ It lay thus for some time; but was at length ordered to be embalmed, and buried, with royal pomp, in the Cathedral at Peterborough,—a vulgar artifice used by Elizabeth to stifle the gnawing remorse of her own conscience, and make an empty atonement for her cruelty. Twenty-five years afterwards, James VI. wishing to perform an act of tardy justice to the [Pg 257] memory of his mother, ordered her remains to be removed from Peterborough to Henry VII.’s Chapel, in Westminster Abbey. ”

“ Peterborough Cathedral—Remains of Cloisters.
Whilst Edward was preparing for war against Scotland, he sent five successive times to this abbey for money to assist him in carrying on his enterprise, and Godfrey gave him in all about £500. His other gifts and entertainments were sumptuous and large, and the sum of money which he expended during his abbacy was £3646 4s. 3d. This remarkable man died in 1321, after a splendid rule of twenty-two years. The value of the monastery possessions in his time, about Peterborough alone, was £621 16s. 3d ”

“ Nine miles north of Peterborough the ruins of Crowland Abbey arise out of the flat fen country like a lighthouse out of the sea. With only the nave and north aisle standing, it breathes the very spirit of romance even in its decay. It is easy to picture the time when four streams surrounded the monastery and church and formed an island in the fens, and to recall how Hereward the Wake demanded entrance to the abbey to see Torfrida, and was refused admittance by the Abbot Ulfketyl. In those days two rivers met in the High Street of the little town that grew round St. ”

“ These are G.A. Poole, formerly Vicar of Welford, whose paper on the Abbey Church of Peterborough was published among the Transactions of the Architectural Society of the Archdeaconry of Northampton in 1855, and the late Professor F.A. Paley, a second edition of whose pamphlet, "Remarks on the Architecture of Peterborough Cathedral," was issued in 1859. It by no means detracts from the value of the method employed that the results of the investigations of these two careful students of the fabric do not accord with one another. Much must always be left to inference or conjecture. ”

“ He possessed great power over the whole hundred. And even after the See of Peterborough was constituted, and the Abbey Church became a cathedral, many of the ancient privileges were retained by the newly formed Dean and Chapter. They still retained the proclamation and control of the fairs; their officer, the high bailiff, was the returning officer at elections for parliament; they regulated the markets; they appointed the coroner. Professor Freeman contrasts an Abbot's town with a Bishop's town, when speaking about the city of Wells. [1] "An Abbot's borough might arise anywhere ”

“ Two miles further, the grand old priory church of Deeping-St.-James lies a mile to the left. This was attached as a cell to Thorney Abbey in 1139, by the same Baldwin FitzGilbert who had founded Bourne Abbey. A diversion of a couple of miles northwards would bring us to a fine tower and spire at Langtoft, once a dependency of Medehamstead [1] Abbey at Peterborough, together with which it was ruthlessly destroyed by Swegen in 1013. On the roof timbers are some beautifully carved figures of angels, and carved heads project from the nave pillars. ”

“ Peter’s Hill, were the lands of the abbey of Peterborough, which had been granted to it by Ælswith before the Conquest, and by Colegrim afterwards, and had been confirmed to it by royal charter. [56] On this land probably stood the [136] Church of St. Peter, of which too little is known to justify definite statement. [57] Near the church he would see the opening of Castlegate, east of which lay the Castle, the visible symbol of the royal lordship. He would keep straight on along the higher ground. ”

“ After the abbey of Medeshamstede was finished in 972, he ratified all the former charters which it possessed, and gave it the name of Burgh.
The first abbot of the monastery, after its destruction, was called Adulphus, formerly the king's chancellor; but having accidentally been the cause of the death of his only son, he could no longer live happily in the world, and he therefore endowed the abbey with all his wealth, and was elected its first abbot. ”

“ The bonesPg 222 of saint or martyr had to be guarded with pious care or they were likely to be stolen by the enterprising churchmen of some rival establishment. Shortly afterwards, it would transpire that miracles were being successfully performed by the relics in the hands of the new possessors.
Leaving the main road a detour of a few miles enabled us to visit Crowland Abbey shortly before reaching Peterborough. It is a remarkable ruin, rising out of the flat fen country, as someone has said, "like a light-house out of the sea." ”

“ Peterborough was founded by Wulfhere, king of Mercia from 659 to 674: it formed part of the diocese of Lincoln till the xvi c. Ramsey and Thorney were other fen monasteries. Ramsey was on the borders, in Huntingdonshire, but Thorney was in Cambridgeshire. Peterborough and Thorney with Ely and Crowland were sacked by the Danes in 870. All these were ‘black Benedictine’ houses.
[19] Cottenham 7 miles north of Cambridge; the benefice became an advowson of Chatteris abbey in the isle of Ely, and was bestowed by the abbess on Warham in 1500. ”

“ Having laid waste Peterborough, then known as Medhampsted, they came across the fens to Ely. The abbey and all the buildings pertaining to it were burnt; the monks and nuns put to the sword. Before setting fire to the buildings the Danes had secured for themselves all they contained of value, and great was the store, for the people of the neighbourhood had brought their goods into the monastery as to a place of safety. All was seized by the invaders, and what they could not carry away they destroyed. Thus Etheldreda's Abbey, after lasting 200 years, was left a deserted ruin ”

“ One of the earliest examples of the abbatial staff in England is on the tomb of Abbot Vitalis (died 1082) in the cloister of Westminster Abbey, and another early instance of its use is supplied by the effigy of Abbot Andrew (1193-1200) in Peterborough Cathedral. Parker, the last Abbot of Gloucester, lies buried in the Cathedral there, and Philip Ballard de Hanford, the last Abbot of Evesham, in Worcester Cathedral, each with his crosier. ”

“ No positive crime was alleged against him—at least the monks have not mentioned any in their accounts of the monastery.
The next abbot of whom we read is Benedict, a man of great learning, who was appointed to the rule of the monastery by the king in 1177, after he had held it in his possession two years. The abbot brought several relics to the monastery, and finished the chapel of Thomas à Becket. He was very zealous likewise in his endeavours to re-obtain the abbey lands which had been forfeited or seized during the rule of his predecessors ”

“ Thorold set out for Peterborough, but Brand did not [Pg 11] live to be despoiled of his abbey. Hereward hearing that the fighting monk was coming, hastened to Peterborough with some of his men, and when they found that the monks were not at all inclined to bar the entrance of Thorold, they took all the crosses, and golden cups, the sacred robes and staffs belonging to the abbey, and carried them to their quarters in Ely. And soon after this the monks of Peterborough opened the gates to the Normans. ”

“ Peterborough, Lichfield and Salisbury cathedrals have hue examples of the sculpture of the 13th century: in the chapter-house of the last the spandrels of the wall-arcade are filled with sixty reliefs of subjects from Bible history, all treated with much grace and refinement. To the end of the same century belong the celebrated reliefs of angels in the spandrels of the choir arches at Lincoln, carved in a large massive way with great strength of decorative effect. Other fine reliefs of angels, executed about 1260, exist in the transepts of Westminster Abbey ”

“ In cases where a nunnery was in some sort of dependence upon an abbey or priory of monks, it is usual to find a religious of that house acting as custos of the nuns. At St Michael’s Stamford, for instance, the abbots of Peterborough had the right of nominating a resident prior, subject to the approval of the Bishop of Lincoln, and the office was often held by a monk of Peterborough [766] . Similarly a monk of St Albans acted as custos of Sopwell [767] and a canon of Newhouse dwelt at Brodholme “to say daily mass for the sisters and to overlook their temporalities” [768] . ”

“ During this period we have the dedications,—which shew that the work was sufficiently forward for the choir to be used,—of Ely, Rochester, Norwich, Canterbury, and some others. Several new works were commenced also, as Tewkesbury Abbey, St. Botolph’s, Colchester, St. Bartholomew’s, Smithfield, the nave of Durham, the choir of Peterborough, and Reading Abbey: but we do not find any difference between the early parts of these and those which immediately preceded them. ”

“ The army which defeated the East Anglian levies at Thetford in 870 marked its progress across Mercia and East Anglia by the destruction of monasteries, chief among them the abbey of Peterborough. During the next hundred years, under the constant pressure of Danish invasion, little or no church-building can have been done ”

“ A farmhouse near Fotheringay is still pointed out where the executioner lodged the night before the deed; and some claim [Pg 14] this distinction for the ancient inn in which are incorporated some remains of the castle.
As is known, the Queen of Scots' body was buried first in Peterborough Cathedral, whence it was removed to Westminster Abbey. There is a superstition in Northamptonshire that if a body after interment be removed, it bodes misfortune to the surviving members of the family. ”

“ To that episode I do not hesitate to assign a charter entered in the Peterborough ‘Liber Niger’ belonging to the Society of Antiquaries. It is a general confirmation of the abbey’s possessions, “petente abbate Brand,” [52] and is witnessed thus:
Huic testes affuere: Aldredus Eboracensis archiepiscopus; Wlwinus Lincoliensis episcopus; Merlesuen vicecomes; Ulf filius Topi; Willelmus comes; Willelmus Malet; Ingelri [cus] presbyter.
Here we have first Ealdred, by whom William had been crowned; then Wulfwig, bishop of Dorchester, here described as bishop “of Lincoln.” ”

“ An account of the church which is now the cathedral church of a diocese that was only constituted in 1541, must of necessity trace its history for some centuries before it attained its present dignity, and when it was simply the church of an abbey. Three centuries and a half of cathedral dignity have not made its old name of Minster obsolete; it is indeed the term usually employed. [2]
The village was first known by the name of Medeshamstede, the homestead in the meadows. There is no evidence that any houses were built at all before the foundation of the monastery. ”

“ In 1541 the monastery (then a mitred abbey) was converted by Henry VIII. into a cathedral and bishop’s see. Before Peada’s time, Peterborough was a village called Medhamsted.—See Drayton, Polyolbion, xxiii. (1622) .
Peters (Dr.) , benevolent, eccentric physician, who is a sympathetic fellow-sinner to the most depraved of his patients, going through it all “with a grimly humorous hope that some good, in some unseen direction, may come of it.” ”

“ It can truly be said that stone seems, by the cunning labour of the chisel, to have been robbed of its weight and density and suspended aloft as if by magic, while the fretted roof is achieved with the wonderful minuteness and airy security of a cobweb. Similar roofs appear in Bath Abbey (the architect of which was Dr. Oliver King, a member of King's) , in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, in Henry VII's Chapel at Westminster, in Sherborne Minster, and in the ambulatory of the choir of Peterborough ”

“ His mother, Eleanor, was daughter of George Moore, minor canon of Peterborough. A sister, Mrs. Jane Alice Sargant, who kept a school at Hackney, and died 23 Feb. 1869, was the author of ‘Ringstead Abbey,’ a novel (1830) ”

“ The last abbot became the first bishop.
It is remarkable that of the two queens buried at Peterborough, the body of one has been removed to Westminster by the orders of her son, and that a similar removal had been previously designed for the body of the other. Queen Katherine's daughter, Queen Mary, left directions in her will that "the body of the virtuous Lady and my most dere and well-beloved mother of happy memory, Queen Kateryn, which lyeth now buried at Peterborowh," should be removed and laid near the place of her own sepulture, and that honourable monuments should be made for both. ”

“ The old parish church of St John originally stood to the east of the cathedral, but was rebuilt on its present site in the centre of the city (1401–1407) in Perpendicular style. The educational establishments include the Henry VIII. grammar or chapter school, which used the chapel of St Thomas à Becket until 1885, the St Peter’s training college for schoolmasters for the dioceses of Peterborough, Ely and Lincoln, erected from designs of Sir Gilbert Scott (1864) ; and Deacon’s and Ireland’s charity school, established in 1721 for the clothing and educating of twenty poor boys. ”

“ Probably nobody speaks or thinks of Peterborough cathedral without immediately associating it with its glorious west front. Many believe that there is little else in the building that is worthy of any particular attention. And yet nowhere in the kingdom is there to be found a finer and more complete Norman church. Arches, windows, mouldings, more elaborate and more grand may no doubt be found elsewhere; but where else can we find, as here, choir, transepts, and nave, with all the original Norman, from ground to roof, with two insignificant exceptions, remaining unaltered? ”