Exploring Medieval Monasteries, part 6

Hello. By the end of the 8th century, we've got several monasteries founded, and they're becoming increasingly influential as centres of learning and of the arts, producing wonderful illuminated manuscripts such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, and playing a significant part not just in religious life, but in social and economic activity as well. And the founders are missionaries, provided with grants of land by the royal houses or by nobles. And we assume that the motive behind all these foundations is religious zeal and piety. But that is possibly not the case. We have a long letter. It was written in 734 by Bede from the monastery at Jarrow, and he is writing to Bishop Egbert of York. And he suggests that some monasteries have been set up as a kind of tax dodge, if you like, a way of families avoiding their responsibilities as citizens. They might be living together as Christians, but not under the authority of an abbot, and not following any strict religious observance. I'm going to read you a little bit from Bede's letter. This is what he says. There are many such places, as we all know, that only in the most foolish way deserve the name monastery, having absolutely nothing of real monastic life about them. Such places which are, in the common phrase, useless to God and man, because they neither serve God by following a regular monastic life, nor provide soldiers or helpers that might defend our people from the barbarians, who are both numerous and large. And of course, Lindisfarne will be attacked and destroyed in a Viking raid in 793. Remember, these monasteries are set in isolated places. They are sitting targets, and as they become wealthier, then they are attractive targets as well. By the time Alfred becomes the King of Wessex in 871, organised monasticism has largely collapsed. Outside of Wessex itself, all we have is perhaps a few houses of priests that might keep a few records or run a school. The turning point is Alfred's defeat of the Great Heathen Army at the Battle of Eddington in 878. It doesn't end the Viking threat, it changes the balance of power. It's a change of fortunes, a change in the relationship between the Anglo-Saxons and the Danes. But in the lead up to that victory, Alfred, very much on the back foot, he made his base on the Isle of Athelne, on the Somerset Levels. That EY suffix in the place name is the clue here. It means an island or a watery place. And Athelne isn't a true island, but in the medieval period it is surrounded by water and bogs. There is some evidence that there was a causeway or a bridge in Alfred's time. Otherwise, it's only accessible by boat. And Alfred founded a monastery here on a rise of land on the east end of Athelne. And there have been two Time Team episodes here. It's where Alfred's monument stands today. Two Time Team episodes, one in 1993, one 10 years later. And the geophysics survey that they did showed a number of walls that couldn't really be organised into something that would tell us what Alfred's monastery looked like. They're walls that come from different phases of the abbey. And Alfred also founded a religious house for nuns at Shaftesbury in Dorset. I'm going to read you something else now. This is from Asa's life of Alfred. Asa was a Welsh monk. He was Alfred's tutor and Alfred's biographer. But he tells us some very interesting details. Alfred ordered two monasteries to be constructed. One of these was for monks and was located at a place called Athelne. In this monastery, he gathered monks of various nationalities from every quarter and assembled them there. The reason is that first, he had no noble or freeborn man of his own race who would have his own accord undertake the monastic life. Not surprisingly, since for many years past, the desire for monastic life had been totally lacking in the entire race, and then Aserads, and in a good many other peoples as well. Even though quite a number of monasteries that had been built in that area still remain, they do not maintain the rule of monastic life in any consistent way. So there are some remnants of monastic life in Wessex, not following any consistent monastic life. Those in the north, the Midlands, East Anglia, and the southeast have been largely destroyed. Now this is the Alfred Jewel. It's in the Ashmolean Museum. It was found only three or four miles from Athelne, and it's inscribed around the side, Alfred ordered me to be made, and it's gold with a rock crystal and clozanne enamel. It would have had a pointer, probably made of ivory, and it's something called an eastel, and it was used to follow text, and Alfred commissioned translations of religious texts from Latin to Anglo-Saxon, and distributed them throughout his kingdom, and would have sent these eastels with them for them to be used when reading. Now Alfred's daughter, Ethelgeva, became the first abbess at Shaftesbury, and Shaftesbury Abbey was built on Gold Hill, and Shaftesbury is in this period a fortified town. This is not an isolated site. This is a site that can be protected, and Shaftesbury Abbey became the wealthiest and most important nunnery in England. There was a saying at the time of the dissolution, that if the abbess of Shaftesbury and the abbot of Glastonbury could wed, their son would be richer than the king of England. This carving is the Shaftesbury Angel. It's one of the remnants of the earlier abbey that's now in the museum on site, and the site is now within a walled garden. There's also a plan of the medieval, the later medieval abbey, but we have no idea of the layout of Alfred's Anglo-Saxon original, either here at Shaftesbury or at Athelney. A brief description of the abbey church at Athelney by William of Malmesbury, he simply says it's of moderate size and has four timber piers, so it really doesn't tell us very much. But across Europe, the rule of Benedict has become universal in monasteries, and a standard design plan has been adopted. Church encloisters at the centre, and the various buildings deemed necessary to religious life around the outside. Those ideas are incorporated in what has become known as the St Gal plan. This is because it was kept at St Gal Monastery in Switzerland. The monastery at St Gal commissioned it. It was probably made, the work is probably done, under Bishop Heito of Basel, who was also the abbot of Reichenau Abbey on Lake Constance. The design dates to about 820. And what we can see here, cloister at the centre, and one church. This is a change, remember those early sites we looked at frequently had two churches in line. And then surrounding are the ranges for dormitory, latrines, refectory, an infirmary, accommodation for guests, kitchen, cemetery, a mill, barn, brewhouse, bakehouse, gardens, orchards, vineyards, a farm, and estate buildings. Everything you need for a self-sufficient community. It doesn't show a water supply or a drainage scheme, but the layout would accommodate a supply from a nearby stream. And I suspect Alfred would have copied something along these lines, simpler. We're still talking about a complex of buildings, but something along these lines. And we know from that description by Asser that Alfred imported monks from various nationalities. Importing the monks, he's going to bring in the latest continental ideas also. And I think the same will be true of the other monasteries that have founded or refounded after Alfred's time in the 10th century. Church at the centre, cloisters attached, communal buildings around. And what we see in this phase of monastic renewal is a break in the tradition from what had gone before. Remember those monastic villages, two churches in line, surrounded by individual huts and cells. The St Gal model is much more communal, and it's the basis of a standard design format that emerges as monastic life is re-established across Britain. And I'm going to follow that thread next time. If you've enjoyed this video, hit the like and subscribe buttons, and click on the notification bell to be informed when the next video is released. Or you can subscribe by clicking on the rose window over my shoulder.