242 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



build a place to the praise of our Lord, besought the King 

 to bestow upon him a place called Hethomme. The 

 bishop's reason for requestnig a gift of this particular 

 place was that there the Virgin Mary had appeared to a 

 herdsman named Hoves, and subsequently to Ecgwin 

 himself. The King granted the request, and the Bishop 

 at once built a Monastery there ; and in consequence of 

 the sanctity of Eoves he called the place Eovesham, whence 

 the present name and spelling Evesham. 



The town of Evesham therefore, as was the case at 

 Tewkesbury, Winchcombe, Pershore, and Malvern, grew 

 up round the Abbey, whereas at Gloucester and Worcester 

 Abbeys were placed because those towns had existed from 

 Roman times or earlier. In its early days Evesham Abbey 

 was the home of the secular monks ; in the middle of the 

 lOth century the Benedictine rule was imposed on it, (as 

 also on the Abbeys of Pershore and Winchcombe) by 

 Oswald, Bishop of Worcester; but on the death of 

 Oswald the secular monks were reinstated. We read 

 that in 1075 " the seven Monasteries of Worcester, 

 " Evesham, Pershore, Chertsey, Bath, Winchcombe, and 

 " Gloucester, agreed to be as one Minster, with one heart 

 "and one soul." In the 13th century too, the Monks 

 of Evesham joined with others in developing their work 

 of su[)plying trained teachers for the Ministry of the 

 Church by availing themselves of the advantages of 

 University Teaching ; and when a Monk of Gloucester, 

 first of all the Benedictine Monks in England, attained to the 

 degree of D.D. at Oxford, the Abbot of Evesham was 

 among the Abbots who were present at his inception, and 

 who showed their regard for him by divers gifts. Another 

 proof of the important position occupied by the Abbey of 

 Evesham is the fact that in the middle ages it was one of 

 the twenty-seven mitred Abbeys of England, whose Abbots 

 enjoyed the privilege of a seat in the House of Peers. In 

 the " Chronicle of Evesham," is the autobiographical 



