310 WHITBY. 



him converted to tlie Christian religion, and bap- 

 tised by Paulinas, first archbishop of York. St. 

 Hilda died in 685, aged 66. 



The building of this monastery wa& begun in 657, 

 and though founded, and dedicated to St. Peter, and 

 endowed by Oswy, king of Northumberland, yet the 

 honour of having so done is generally given to St. 

 Hilda, the first prioress of it. 



This religious heuse continued to flourish till 

 about 867, when the Danes landed in Dunus Sinus, 

 now Dunsley bay, two miles west of Whitby, and 

 destroyed it ; upon which the community was dis- 

 persed. John, the abbot, fled with the relics of St. 

 Hilda to (} las ton bury ; and the building lay in 

 ruins till a little time after the conquest, by William, 

 duke of Normandy, who gave a large tract of land 

 in this country to Hugh, first earl of Chester; and 

 he granted most of it to William de Percy, ancestor 

 of the earls of Northumberland, vv ho soon began to 

 re-edify the building, and restored the priory, de- 

 dicating it anew, to God, to St. Peter, and St. Hil- 

 da, and placed in it monks of the Benedictine order, 

 from the abbey of Evesham, in Worcestershire, 

 under the government of Reinfred, with the title of 

 prior, and granted to them this town arid lordship 

 of Whitby, with a great tract of land in the neigh 

 bourhood, amounting to 720 acres ; this remained 

 a priory till the reign of Henry I,, when it was ad- 

 vanced to be an abbey. 



Henry the second gave to this abbey the church 

 of All Saint's in Fishergate, within the city of York; 

 and its revenues were immense. There were 29 



