Jtntieni Connection heitoten 

 atib 



By T. W. W. SMART, M.D. 



HE ancient relationship between the Abbeys of 

 Cranborne and Tewkesbury gives us here an 

 interest in that rich monastic institution which 

 sprung up in the Severn Valley under the 

 auspices of the Lords of the Honour of Glouces- 

 ter, in whose vast domains both these abbeys 

 were included. It will probably be remembered that the Abbey 

 of Cranborne was founded some time about A.D. 980, in the reign 

 of King Ethelred II. This appears by a particular account of the 

 transaction recorded in a valuable document the Chronicle of 

 Tewkesbury, which is preserved in the Monasticon Anglicanum. It 

 is, of course, in Latin, the translation of which reads as follows : 

 " About the year of Grace 930, in the reign of the first and 

 famous King Athelstan, there lived a noble knight named Aylward 

 Sneaw (or Snow), so called from his fair complexion, a descendant 

 of the illustrious family of King Edward the Elder. He was a 

 man of great bravery, distinction, and spotless integrity. Being 

 mindful of his death, he founded a small monastery for himself 

 and his wife Elgiva, in the time of King Ethelred and St. 

 Dunstan, in honour of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, and His 

 mother, and of St. Bartholomew, in his demesne at Cranborne, 



