A HISTORY OF HAMPSHIRE 



2. 



NEW MINSTER, OR THE 

 ABBEY OF HYDE 



time also the church was enriched with the 

 relics of St. Judoc or Josse the confessor, which 

 The abbey of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Were brou g ht the re by certain monks of 

 Virgin Mary, and St. Peter of the New Min- nthleu who fled to England from Danish 

 - raiders. 



Shortly after the dedication of the church 

 the remains of Alfred were carried in solemn 

 procession to the New Minster from their 

 temporary resting-place in the church of St. 

 Swithun or the Old Minster in Winchester 

 and buried on the right side of the altar. In 

 the same tomb were also interred Edward's 

 mother, Queen Ealhswith, foundress of Nun- 

 naminster, and afterwards the bodies of 

 Edward and his two sons, Ethelward and 

 Elfward, were buried in a tomb adjoining 

 that of his parents. At a later date the New 

 Minster became the burial place for several 

 members of the Saxon royal house. 8 



The church was served by secular canons, 

 who, as it is said by the later chroniclers that 

 had no sympathy with the seculars and mar- 

 ried priests, permitted great laxity of discipline 

 and were the cause of scandal. About 963 

 Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, with the 

 approval of King Edgar and St. Dunstan, as a 

 part of his scheme for monastic reform in his 

 diocese, insisted upon the adoption of the 

 Benedictine rule by the inmates of New Min- 

 ster under pain of expulsion, and King Edgar 

 supplied a series of laws to be used by the 

 monastery. 9 The majority of the house re- 

 fused to accept the new rules and were 

 driven from the monastery, their places being 

 taken by regular monks from Abingdon, over 

 whom Ethelgar was placed as abbot. Ethelgar, 

 like most of the Church reformers of this 

 date, was a man of distinct individuality ; he 

 had received his monastic training under 

 Ethelwold at Abingdon and upon his appoint- 

 ment to New Minster he took in hand the 

 reform of the monastery with the zeal copied 

 from his late master. Not only did he look 

 to the rule of the house, but he carried 

 out various works on the buildings including 

 the erection of a tower, said to be of great 

 height and beauty, and a richly carved ceiling. 

 He became Bishop of Selsey in 980 and suc- 

 ceeded St. Dunstan as Archbishop of Canter- 

 bury in 988. 



King Cnut was a great benefactor to the 

 Minster, not only in lands but by the gift of 

 the golden cross richly adorned with precious 

 stones with two great images of gold and 

 silver and sundry relics of saints. Among 

 other benefactions received by the monastery 



8 Neviminster (Hants Record Soc.), Pref. xvii. 



ster l in Winchester was founded in 901 by 

 Edward the Elder in accordance with the 

 wishes of his father King Alfred. It would 

 appear that towards the close of the ninth 

 century Alfred, being anxious to promote the 

 better education of the children of his nobles, 

 summoned Grimbald, a learned priest and 

 monk of St. Berlin at St. Omer in Flanders 

 to assist him in- this work. Grimbald arrived 

 in 893,* but it was not till the last year of 

 his reign that Alfred told him of his inten- 

 tion to build a new monastery at his royal 

 borough of Winchester. 3 The king only 

 lived long enough to purchase the site for the 

 monastery in the open churchyard immediately 

 to the north of the cathedral or the Old Min- 

 ster from Bishop Denewulph and the canons 

 of the Old Minster and others. 4 It was left 

 to Edward the Elder to carry out his father's 

 intention to build the monastery and to place 

 Grimbald 6 there as the first Abbot. The 

 Church was consecrated in 903 6 and in the 

 same year Edward endowed the monastery 

 with considerable possessions, including the 

 land of Micheldever and lands of Stratton, 

 ' Burcote,' Popham, Woodmancote, Candover, 

 Cranborne, Drayton juxta Nunneton,- Swar- 

 raton, Northingtone, Norton juxta Selborne, 

 ' Slastede,' Tatchbury, Abbots Anne, ' Colen- 

 gaburna,' 'Ceoseldene' and Durley. 7 At this 



1 According to Edward's first charter the dedi- 

 cation was to the honour of the Holy Trinity only, 

 but in his second the dedication was as is given 

 here (Liter de Hyda, Rolls Series, Introd. xxix.). 

 At a later date the dedications to the honour of 

 St. Saviour and St. Grimbald appear (see a table 

 of the dedications at various periods in Netvminster 

 and Hyde Abbey, Hampshire Rec. Soc. Pref. viii.). 

 * Liber de Hyda (Rolls Series), 36 ; see also 

 Hist, of the Engl. Church, by W. Hunt, 275 ; and 

 Diet, of Nat. Biog. under ' Grimbald.' 



' These facts and most of the particulars given 

 in this sketch are taken from the Liber Vita: or 

 register and martyrology of the abbey, edited for 

 the Hants Record Society by Dr. de Gray Birch, 

 and the Liber de Hyda, edited by Mr. Edward 

 Edwards for the Rolls Series. 



4 There is some doubt whether Alfred or his 

 son purchased the land for the site (Diet, of Nat 

 Biog. 'Grimbald'). 



6 Grimbald died in 903. He became a tute- 

 lary saint of the foundation attaining to a place 

 in the English calendar in the next century (Plum- 

 met's Life of Alfred the Great, 137-9). 



6 jingh-Saxoa Chron. (Rolls Series), 181. 



7 Cott. MS. Domit. A. xiv. 7*b. and Harl. 

 MS. 1761, f. 47. 



116 



etc. 



9 



Printed in Dugdale's Monastics, ii. 439. 



