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A SHORT ACCOUNT OF ROMSEY ABBEY
A Description of the Fabric and
Notes on the History of the
Convent of Ss. Mary & Ethelfleda
by
THE REV. T. PERKINS
Rector of Turnworth, Dorset
Author of "Amiens," "Rouen," "Wimborne and Christchurch," Etc.
With XXXII Illustrations
[Illustration: ROMSEY ABBEY FROM THE EAST]
[Illustration: Abbess's Seal]
London George Bell and Sons 1907
Chiswick Press: Charles Whittingham and Co.
Tooks Court, Chancery Lane, London.
PREFACE
The architectural and descriptive part of this book is the result of
careful personal examination of the fabric, made when the author has
visited the abbey at various times during the last twenty years. The
illustrations are reproduced from photographs taken by him on the
occasions of these visits.
The historical information has been derived from many sources. Among these
may especially be mentioned "An Essay descriptive of the Abbey Church of
Romsey," by C. Spence, the first edition of which was published in 1851;
the small official guide sold in the church, and "Records of Romsey Abbey,
compiled from manuscript and printed records," by the Rev. Henry G. D.
Liveing, M.A., Vicar of Hyde, Winchester, 1906. This last-named work
contains all that is at present known, or that is likely to be known, of
the history of the abbey from its foundation early in the ninth century up
to the year 1558. To this book the reader who desires fuller information
and minuter details than could be given in the following pages is
referred.
The thanks of the writer are due to the late and present Vicars for kind
permission to examine the building, and to take photographs of it from any
point of view he desired.
TURNWORTH RECTORY,
BLANDFORD, DORSET.
_March, 1907._
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER I. HISTORY OF THE BUILDING 15
II. THE EXTERIOR 27
III. THE INTERIOR 39
IV. THE ABBESSES OF ROMSEY 67
VICARS OF ROMSEY 79
INDEX 81
DIMENSIONS OF THE ABBEY CHURCH 82
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
ROMSEY ABBEY FROM THE EAST _Frontispiece_
ABBESS'S SEAL _Title-page_
APSIDAL CHAPEL, SOUTH TRANSEPT 14
THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST 19
JUNCTION OF NORMAN AND EARLY ENGLISH WORK 21
VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST 23
THE ABBESS'S DOOR 26
THE WEST END AND SOUTH TRANSEPT 29
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT FROM THE WEST 31
THE SAXON ROOD 33
THE CHOIR, SOUTH SIDE 35
THE NAVE, NORTH SIDE 38
CYLINDRICAL PIER: NORTH NAVE ARCADE 40
THE CLERESTORY OF NAVE 41
EARLY ENGLISH BAYS OF THE NAVE 43
THE SOUTH SIDE OF THE CHOIR 44
TRIFORIUM ARCH IN THE NORTH TRANSEPT 45
THE INTERIOR FROM THE WEST 46
BASE OF A PIER IN THE NAVE 47
ARCADING IN THE TOWER 48
IN THE RINGERS' CHAMBER 49
THE WEST WALL OF NORTH TRANSEPT 50
THE NORTH CHOIR AISLE 51
THE AMBULATORY 52
THE SOUTH CHOIR AISLE 55
SAXON CARVING, SOUTH AISLE 56
THE NORTH-EAST ANGLE OF THE CROSSING 57
TOMB AND EFFIGY IN THE SOUTH TRANSEPT 61
THE NORTH AISLE OF THE NAVE 63
THE SOUTH TRANSEPT 66
PIER IN THE NORTH NAVE ARCADE 73
PLAN _End_
[Illustration: APSIDAL CHAPEL, SOUTH TRANSEPT]
ROMSEY ABBEY
CHAPTER I
HISTORY OF THE BUILDING
The etymology of the name Romsey has been much disputed. There can be no
doubt about the meaning of the termination "ey"--island--which we meet
with under different spellings in many place-names, such as Athelney, Ely,
Lundy, Mersea and others, for Romsey stands upon an island, or rather
group of islands, formed by the division of the river Test into a number
of streams, which again flow together to the south of the town, and at
last, after a course of about seven miles, empty themselves into
Southampton Water. But several derivations have been suggested for the
first syllable of the name. Some writers derive it from Rome, and regard
Romsey as a hybrid word taking the place of "Romana insula," the first
word having been shortened and the second translated into Old English, or
Saxon as some prefer to call it. Now it is true that there were several
important Roman stations in the neighbourhood: Sorbiodunum (Old Sarum),
Brige (Broughton), Venta Belgarum (Winchester), and Clausentum (near
Southampton), and in passing to and fro between these the Roman legions
must frequently have marched either through or near to the site of Romsey.
Roman coins found in the immediate neighbourhood clearly show that the
place was inhabited during the Roman occupation. Another derivation is the
Celtic word "Ruimne" (marshy); this would make the name mean "Marshy
island," and there can be no doubt that this would be an apt description
of the place in olden times; against this may be alleged that again the
word would be hybrid. Yet another derivation which avoids this objection
is the Old English "Rum" from whence we get "room" and if we adopt this
derivation Romsey, or Rumsey as it is still sometimes written and more
often pronounced, would mean the roomy or "Spacious Island." The reader
can form his own opinion as to which is the most probable of these three
suggestions. The writer is inclined to favour the third. But the visitor
who, arriving at the railway station either by the branch line via
Redbridge or by that which runs from Eastleigh, or from Salisbury, or
Andover, proceeds to the Abbey, would not realize when he arrived at his
destination that he was in an island, for the minor streams are not
spanned by bridges, but have been completely covered in and run through
small tunnels beneath some of the streets.
We have no records of Romsey before the original foundation of the Abbey,
nor indeed for many years afterwards. The first authentic mention of the
abbey is found in the chronicle of Florence of Worcester, who died in
1118, and whose work, at least that part of it which deals with English
history, is a Latin translation of the Old English Chronicle. He writes
"In anno 967. Rex Anglorum pacificus Edgarus in monasterio Rumesige, quod
avus suus Rex Anglorum Eadwardus senior construxerat, sanctimoniales
collocavit, sanctamque Marewynnam super eas Abbatismam constituit."[1]
[1] In the year 967, Eadgar the Peaceable, King of the English, placed
nuns in the monastery which his grandfather, Eadward the Elder, King of
the English, had built, and appointed St. Meriwenna abbess over them.
This Eadward, also surnamed the Unconquered, was the son and successor of
the greatest of the Old English Kings, AElfred, and reigned from 901 to
925. Sometime during his reign he founded the Romsey nunnery. There is no
documentary evidence to fix the exact date, but it is generally assumed to
have been 907. It is said that about two centuries earlier there had been
a monastery at Nursling nearer the mouth of the Test, and on the tideway
of the river. It was here that the great missionary to the Germans Winfrid
or St. Boniface had been trained, but it was within reach of the ships of
the Danish pirates, and in 716 they had ravaged it and reduced it to such
utter ruin that scarcely one stone remained on another to mark the site.
This monastery was never rebuilt, and Eadward, probably having its fate in
mind, now chose a safer position for the new foundation, for the river at
Romsey was too shallow to allow of the seagoing vessels of the marauding
Danes to reach it. Eadward's eldest daughter AElflaed and her sister
AEthelhild both adopted the religious life, and lived for a time at the
monastery at Wilton. Here AEthelhild was buried, while AElflaed was buried at
Romsey. Their half-sister St. Eadburh became abbess of St. Mary's Abbey at
Winchester; and it is highly probable that AElflaed ruled as abbess over the
sister establishment at Romsey. Probably this was only a small religious
community. Whether it was continued or not when she died no record remains
to tell, but, as we have seen, it was refounded by Eadgar the Peaceable in
967, and on Christmas day of the year 974 St. Meriwenna was put in charge
of the completed Abbey, which was constituted according to the Benedictine
Rule. Some traces of this church still remain, though only discovered in
1900. Under the pavement of the present church, immediately below the
tower, the foundations of an apsidal east ending of a church were found;
now as it is well known that this is a Norman form for the east end, it
must not be supposed that this apse was built in the time of Eadgar, but
it very probably occupied the same position as the choir of his church.
Other foundations were then looked for and found. And as a result of this
investigation, it appears that the nave of Eadgar's church extended as far
to the west as the fourth bay of the present nave, that its crossing lay
immediately to the west of the present transept, and that the apsidal
choir was as wide as the present nave, and extended eastward as far as the
screen now dividing the choir from the transept. Thus the total interior
length of the church was about 90 ft. instead of about 220 ft., the length
of the present building. Although the church was comparatively small,
Eadgar made provision in the domestic buildings for one hundred nuns, a
number rarely exceeded in after days. Peter de Langtoft, a canon of
Bridlington who died early in the fourteenth century, writing of Eadgar
says:
Mikille he wirschiped God, and served our Lady;
The Abbey of Romege he feffed richely
With rentes full gode and kirkes of pris,
He did ther in of Nunnes a hundreth ladies.
Eadgar's church, however, was not destined to last long. Early in the year
1003, according to one of the few legends connected with the abbey, the
form of St. AElflaed appeared during mass to the Abbess Elwina, and warned
her that the Danes were at hand, and would plunder and destroy the abbey;
whereupon she, not disobedient to the heavenly vision, gathered her nuns
together, and, collecting all the treasures that could be carried away,
sought safety at Winchester, and there they abode until the danger was
past; on their return they found the abbey in ruins. The inroad of the
Danes in this year, led by Swegen, was undertaken as a retribution on the
English for the cowardly and barbarous massacre on St. Brice's Day,
November 13th of the previous year, in which Swegen's sister, in spite of
the fact that she had embraced Christianity, had been condemned to death
by AEthelred.[2]
There is no record of the rebuilding of the abbey after this destruction,
but it could not have been long delayed, since we hear that in 1012
AEthelred's wife AElfgyfu (who afterwards married Knut, and is known under
the name Emma) gave lands to the abbey, and shortly after Knut came to the
throne, we learn from a still existing list that, including two who are
marked as abbesses, there were fifty-four nuns at Romsey.[3]
[2] According to some accounts, the raid in which the abbey was destroyed
took place in 994, but the later date is more probable since it is said
that Swegen's son, Knut, who was born in 994, took part in it.
[3] This list shows us what were the names most in favour at the time.
Eight nuns bore the name of AElfgyfu, six of AElflaed, four of Eadgyth
(Edith), four of Eadgyfu, three of Wulflaed; besides these there were two,
each bearing the names of AEthelgyfu, AElfgyth, AElfhild, Byrhflaed,
Wulfthryth, Wulfrun. It is worthy of note that none of these, and only one
of the remaining seventeen nuns, namely, Godgyfu, had a scriptural or
Christian name. The old names common among their heathen ancestors still
survived, no less than ten being compounded of the word AElf, the modern
Elf, or mountain spirit.
The church restored after the raid mentioned above probably remained
untouched until after the Conquest, when possibly the apsidal east end was
built. It would seem that about 1120 the present church was begun, as
usual from the east. As this church is so much larger than the earlier
one, it is quite possible that its outer walls were built without in
any way disturbing the eleventh century church within them, so that the
services could be conducted without interruption. The general character of
the work is late Norman. At this time a double eastern chapel measuring
about 21 ft. from east to west and 25 ft. from north to south, as we know
from excavations made by the late vicar, the Rev. Edward Lyon Berthon, was
built to the east of the choir. This was entered by two arches, which
may still be seen leading out of the ambulatory. Traces of the position of
two altars were found; the floor was lower than that of the rest of the
church.
[Illustration: THE NAVE, LOOKING WEST]
The three western bays were added in the thirteenth century, and at the
end of the same, or the beginning of the fourteenth, two windows with
plate tracery were inserted in the east wall, and two chapels measuring
forty feet from east to west took the place of the double Norman chapels
mentioned above.
It will be seen, then, that the church shows specimens of Norman, Early
English, and Decorated work, all of the best periods of the style, and
therefore it is a splendid example for the student of architecture. We
may be thankful that, with the exception of a few windows on the north
side there is no Perpendicular work. When we remember that the wealth
which flowed into the coffers of many cathedral and abbey churches during
the Middle Ages chiefly in the form of offerings from pilgrims at
wonder-working shrines, was often used in almost entirely rebuilding, or,
at any rate remodelling, the churches in the fifteenth century, we may be
surprised to find so little work of this period at Romsey. Possibly it is
due to the fact that it did not possess any such shrine, and so did not
attract pilgrims.
It is not improbable that Henry of Blois, the builder of the Church at St.
Cross, near Winchester, may have had something to do with designing the
Norman part of the church at Romsey. We know that Mary, the daughter of
his brother, King Stephen, was abbess from about 1155 until she broke her
vows, left the Abbey, and married Matthew of Alsace, son of the Count of
Flanders, about 1161. Henry was Bishop of Winchester from 1129 until 1171.
What more likely, then, than that Mary should consult her uncle, known to
be a great builder, about the erection of the large church at Romsey?
In the time of Juliana, who probably succeeded Mary, and was certainly
abbess for about thirty years before her death in 1199, the transitional
work in the clerestory of the nave was carried out.
[Illustration: JUNCTION OF NORMAN AND EARLY ENGLISH WORK, ON THE NORTH
SIDE OF THE NAVE]
In the next century the church was extended westward by the erection of
three bays and the west front with its three tall lancets and the small
cinquefoil window above the central one, all inclosed within a pointed
comprising arch. This work was done during the time when Henry III was
king; there are records of several gifts to the abbey of timber by him
from the royal forest. This was no doubt used in constructing the roof
of the westward extension of the nave and aisles. The next work was the
insertion of the two large east windows and the building of the pair of
Decorated chapels, one of which was dedicated to Our Lady, and the other
to St. AEthelflaed, or Ethelfleda, as her name was then spelt. They were
probably divided by an arcade, and stood until the dissolution of the
Abbey, when they were pulled down, being of no further use in the church
of the abbey which was purchased by the people of Romsey and converted
into a parish church.
[Illustration: VIEW FROM THE NORTH-WEST]
It has been said that little Perpendicular work is to be seen in Romsey
Abbey, but some did exist at one time. At Romsey, as at Sherborne, there
were disputes between the abbey and the town, though fortunately at Romsey
an amicable arrangement was arrived at. The north aisle of the abbey
church had been for many years set apart for the use of the people of
Romsey as a parish church, and was known by the name of St. Laurence; in
the year 1333 the abbess endowed a vicarage. As the town increased in size
the north aisle became too strait for the parishioners, and at times of
great festivals they used to encroach on the nuns' church. This led to
disputes, and the matter was referred to William of Wykeham, the
celebrated Bishop of Winchester, remodeller of his cathedral church, and
founder of Winchester School, and New College, Oxford. He persuaded the
nuns to give up the north arm of the crossing to make a choir for a new
parish church to be built adjoining the abbey church, in such a way that
the north aisle should be cut off by a wall and included in the new
church. The north aisle of the abbey church thus became the south aisle of
the parish church, the new building its nave, and the north end of the
transept of the abbey church the parish chancel, the Norman apsidal
chantry attached to the transept made a fitting eastern termination to the
chancel. A chantry of the Confraternity of St. George, built on the north
side of the new church, took the place of a north aisle. This was
separated from the nave by a carved oak screen, part of which has been
utilized in the construction of the screen between the nave and choir of
the existing church. The building of this new parish church unfortunately
involved the destruction of the north porch of the abbey church. When,
after the dissolution of the nunnery, the people bought the abbey church
of the King, the nave and north aisle of the new parish church were no
longer needed, and were therefore demolished, the windows were inserted in
the arches that had been cut in the wall of the north aisle of the abbey
church, when these openings were again walled up. Two of these have,
however, been removed, and modern Norman windows constructed on the old
mouldings have taken their place. A doorway which had been cut in the
north wall of the transept when the new parish church was built was no
longer used after the church was pulled down, and a low side window near
it has been blocked up and converted into a cupboard. The two eastern
chapels were also demolished, and their east windows were inserted in
the masonry used to block up the entrances into the chapels from the
ambulatory. During the time that succeeded the Reformation many changes
were made in the fittings of the church, galleries were erected in the
transept and at the west end of the nave where the organ was placed. The
walls were covered with whitewash, and probably with a view to make it
easier to warm the church, walls were built behind the triforium arcading
all round the church. These walls are shown in some of the illustrations
made a few years ago; they have now been entirely removed. The internal
appearance of the church about the middle of the nineteenth century was
extremely distasteful to those affected by the Gothic revival, and
drastic changes were made. "Restoration" was begun at first under the
direction of Mr. Ferrey, who also restored Christchurch Priory. The inner
roof of the three western bays of the nave aisles which had not been, like
those of the other bays, vaulted in stone, were restored in wood and
plaster about 1850, when the Hon. Gerard Noel was vicar; the nave roof was
rebuilt a little later. Under the direction of Mr. Christian, architect to
the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, the chancel roof was restored, and the
roof of the north arm of the transept was taken in hand by Mr. Berthon.
Other work has been done more recently, and the present vicar has the
intention of building a porch with a room over it on the north side, to
take the place of the porch which was destroyed when the nave of the
church of St. Laurence was built in the time of William of Wykeham, as
already described.
The curious wooden erection on the top of the tower, somewhat resembling a
hen coop or gigantic lobster pot, was added in comparatively recent times
to contain the bells; drawings made at the beginning of the nineteenth
century do not show it, but, those made about the middle of the century
do. It is ugly, and adds nothing to the dignity of the church; probably
the tower was originally crowned by a pyramidal roof which gave it the
appearance of height so much required.
The east ends of the two choir aisles have in quite recent years been
provided with altars and fitted up as chapels for week-day services. The
two apsidal chapels attached to the transept are used as vestries, the one
on the south for clergy and that on the north for the choir.
[Illustration: THE ABBESS'S DOOR]