THE CHARM OF ST. MARY’S ABBEY AND 
T 4 
Worcestershire, to the North. One found his way to Durham, 
another to Whitby, and the third—Elfwy stayed at York and 
found a monastery here dedicated to St. Mary. Ingulph also 
refers to it, and says that when lie was made Abbot of Crowland 
in Lincolnshire, 1076, he found six monks there from the 
Monastery of St. Mary at York, and who had fled therefor refuge. 
The same Anglo-Saxon Chronicler says that “ in the year 1056 
Siward, the brave Earl of Northumberland, died and was buried 
in the cloister of St. Mary’s Abbey which he had built.’' Hove- 
den makes a similar statement, but he calls the place Galmanho, 
and his date for its foundation is 1055. 
Both Dr. Burton and Tanner assert that St. Mary’s Abbey was 
built on a site never before occupied by monks, and give their 
reasons for the assertion. These writers favour the Whitby record 
which gives not the slightest hint that the place on which the 
Abbey was built had “ ever before been possessed by any religious." 
Therefore it will be as well for a few moments to refer to this 
Whitby account, which was written by the first Abbot of St. 
Mary's and preserved. Briefly it runs thus :— 
Reinfred, the first of the Evesham monks, fixed his cell at 
Whitby, and re-founded the monastery there. Shortly afterwards, 
he appointed Stephen, who had shown remarkable aptitude, ruler 
of the monastery, which became rapidly successful. But before 
very long the great benefactor of the monks, William de Percy, 
became their enemy. The monks had to flee from their home, 
and eventually found a brief resting-place at Lastingham. Here 
they fell a prey to robbers, and were discovered by their old foe, 
William de Percy, and once more put to flight. Abbot Stephen 
found a protector in the Earl of Richmond, son of Eudo Earl of 
Brittany, who in earlier days was a close companion of Stephen. 
Among the 166 manorial estates he had received from the Con¬ 
queror, was the Church of St. Olaf at York with land adjacent ; 
these he generously gave to his friend, Abbot Stephen, to erect his 
new home. This is the account given by Abbot Stephen ; and 
the late Chancellor Raine agrees with Burton and Tanner, and 
states that the word “ minster ” simply meant parish church. If 
we accept this theory, then the early chroniclers must have been 
guilty of a great fraud. But the statements of the chroniclers 
must not be summarily dismissed. Ingulf was a contemporary, 
and Hoveden lived shortly afterwards, and both expressly refer to 
a pre-Conquest monastery. 
