24 Malmesbury. 



turn to quit. The monks joyfully raised their heads again. This 

 monastery recovered all liberties and lands that had been taken from 

 it, particularly Eastcourt, near Crudwell. In the document, dated 

 974, by which King Edgar restored that estate, he says, " Con- 

 sidering what offering I should make from my earthly kingdom to 

 the King of Kings, I resolve to rebuild all the holy monasteries 

 throughout my kingdom, which as they are outwardly ruinous with 

 mouldering shingles and worm-eaten boards even to the rafters, so, 

 what is still worse, they have been internally neglected and almost 

 destitute of the service of God. Wherefore, ejecting these illiterate 

 clerks (the seculars), subject to the discipline of no regular order, 

 in many places I have appointed pastors of a holier race, that is, of 

 the monastic order, supplying them with ample means out of my 

 royal revenues to repair their churches wherever dilapidated. One 

 of these pastors, by name ^Ifric, I have appointed guardian (i.e. 

 Abbot) of that most celebrated monastery which the Angles call 

 by the twofold name of Maldelrasburg." This is, I believe, the 

 only instance where the name is so written, and it looks as if the 

 writer derived it from the joint names of Maldulph and Aldhelm. 

 The old historical notices relating to the actual building of a 

 church or churches attached to Malmesbury Abbey, are very few, 

 and not very distinct. It does not seem altogether clear, whether 

 this Abbot jElfric added to the monastery a second church, called 

 St. Mary's, or whether he only rebuilt a church of St. Mary which 

 Aldhelm had built. William of Malmesbury in one passage of 

 his history' (speaking of King Athelstan's reign 924 — 941) says, 

 " Moreover it may be necessary to observe, that at that time the 

 Church of St. Peter was the chief of the monastery which now (i.e. 

 in the Historian's own time, c. 1139) is deemed second only: the 

 church of St. Mary which the monks at present frequent was built 

 afterwards in the time of King Edgar, under Abbot Elfric." But 

 from the account given of the matter by the same historian in 

 another of his works ^ it would seem more likely that St. Mary's 

 had already existed, and was only restored by Abbot ^Ifric. 



* Chronicle of the Kings of England, Bohn's Antiq. Library, p. 138. 

 ' Lib. v., De Pontificibus. 



