From Abbeys, Castles and Ancient Halls of England and Wales, Their Legendary Lore and Popular History, by John Timbs, Volume II, re-edited, revised, and enlarged by Alexander Gunn; Frederick Warne and Co.; London; pp. 54-58.
As the railway traveller approaches Reading, the country town of Berkshire, an interesting relic of the architecture of seven hundred years since can scarcely fail to arrest his attention, among the modern buildings of the town. This relic is the hall of one of the richest religious houses in the kingdom, and of the class called Mitred Abbeys, or, in other words, whose Abbots sat in Parliament: the Abbot of Reading took precedency in the House of Peers, next after the Abbots of St. Albans and Glastonbury.
It appears that in the year 1006, when Reading was burnt by the Danes, they also destroyed an Abbey of nuns, said to have been founded, amongst others, by Elfrida, first the wife of Earl Athelwold, and afterwards of King Edgar; the foundation being in atonement for the murder of that Prince’s son, Edward, which was perpetrated by her command, when she was queen-mother. Upon the site of this nunnery, King Henry I. laid the foundation of another edifice in the year 1121, and endowed the same for the support of 200 monks of the Benedictine order, and bestowed on it various important privileges. Among them were those of conferring knighthood, coining money, holding fairs, trying and punishing criminals, &c. The founder also gave a relic, assumed to be the head of the Apostle James. The new monastery was completely finished within the space of four years. It was dedicated to the 55 Holy Trinity, the blessed Virgin, St. James, and St. John the Evangelist. At Reading, it was commonly known as St. Mary’s. Henry authorized the abbey to coin in London, and keep there a resident master or moneyer. The body of King Henry was interred here, as well as those of his two queens, Matilda and Adeliza; though it seems that the King’s bowels, brains, heart, eyes, and tongue, by a strange fancy of disseveration, were buried at Rouen; and here, probably was interred their daughter Maud, the wife of the Emperor Henry IV., and mother of Henry II. of England. Her epitaph, recorded by Camden, has been deservedly admired:
William, eldest son of Henry II., was buried at his grandfather’s feet. Constance, the daughter of Edmund Langley, Duke of York; Anne, Countess of Warwick, and a son and daughter of Richard Earl of Cornwall, certainly here found their latest abiding-place in this world. There was an image of the royal founder placed over his tomb; but that, and probably many other monuments, either suffered demolition or removal, when this religious house was changed into a royal dwelling. Camden says: “The monastery wherein King Henry I. was interred, was converted into a royal seat, adjoining to which stands a fair stable, stored with horses of the King’s, &c.;” but this does not justify Sandford in asserting that the bones of the persons buried were thrown out, and the Abbey converted into a stable; nor does such a circumstance seem likely to have taken place at this time, or on such an occasion; though such indignities afterwards characterized the days of Cromwell.
A well-known trial by battle occurred here in 1163, at which Henry II. sat as judge. It was the appeal of Robert de Montfort against Henry of Essex, the King’s standard-bearer, for cowardice and treachery, in having in a skirmish in Wales, at which the King was present, cast away the royal standard and fled, upon a report of his Sovereign being killed. Essex pleaded that at the time he believed the report to be true. The combat took place, it is supposed, on an island by Caversham Bridge. Montfort was the victor, and the body of Essex, who was apparently killed, was given to the monks of the Abbey for burial. He recovered, however, from his wounds, and being permitted to assume the habit of a monk, was received into the monastery. His estates were, of course, forfeited.
The Abbey provided for the poor, and necessary entertainment for travellers. William of Malmesbury, who, however, died about 1142, says, there was always more spent by the monks on strangers than on 56 themselves. One Amherius, the second Abbot of this house, had already founded an hospital for the reception of twelve leprous persons, where they were maintained comfortably. Hugo, the eighth Abbot, founded another hospital near the gate, for the reception of certain poor persons and pilgrims, who were not admitted into the Abbey. To this hospital the Church of St. Lawrence is given in the grant for ever, for the purpose of maintaining thirteen poor persons; allowing for the keeping of thirteen more out of the usual alms. The reason assigned by the Abbot was that (though we are told more money was laid out on hospitality than expended on the monks), yet, he had observed and lamented a partiality in entertaining the rich, in preference to the poor. But some have suspected that this was a mere pretence whereby to exclude the meaner sort entirely from the Abbot’s table.
At the Dissolution, in 1539, the Abbot, Hugh Cook, alias Hugh Farringdon, whom Hall, in his Chronicle, calls a stubborn monk, and absolutely without learning, was, with two of his monks, hanged, drawn, and quarters, for refusing to deliver up the abbey to the Visitors, and immediate possession was taken. The clear revenues at this period, Lysons, writing in 1806, considered equivalent to at least 20,000£. The Commissioners found here considerable quantities of plate, jewels, and other valuable articles. Henry VIII. and his successors for some time kept a portion of the Abbey reserved for their occasional residence. No record exists of the time when the buildings were first dismantled, but it is evident that they were in ruins in the reign of queen Elizabeth; for when the church of St. Mary in the town or Reading was rebuilt, the Queen granted two hundred loads of stones from the old Abbey, to be used as materials. But after the reign of James I. it does not appear to have been long occupied as a royal residence. The buildings generally began to decay, and immense quantities of the materials were carried off. Some of these were used in the construction of the Hospital for poor Knights at Windsor, as well as in the rebuilding of St. Mary’s Church; and large masses were used by General Conway in the construction of a bridge at Henley. the Abbey appears to have been surrounded by wall, with four arched and battlemented gateways, the ruins of some of which are still visible. There was also an inner court, with a gateway, which still exists. The north front has a beautiful Saxon arch, with an obtuse point at the top, rising from three clustered pillars without capitals. Among the chief remains is a portion of the great hall, now used as a school-room. The dimensions of the all, were 80 feet by 40. Here it is supposed were held the numerous parliaments which sat here. What remained 57 of the Abbey church up to the period of the Civil War was then further dilapidated; the ruins of the north transept, in particular, are then recorded to have been blown up. The Abbey mills are still remaining in excellent preservation and exhibit arches evidently coeval with the Abbey itself. Over the mill race is a large Norman arch, with a zig-zag moulding. In 1815 a fragment of a stone sarcophagus in two pieces, was found about the center of the choir, supposed, with some probability, to be the coffin of King Henry I.
In those ages, when a belief existed in the efficacy of real or fancied relics of saints, a most singular object of this kind was presented to the Abbey by the Empress Maud, who brought it from Germany in the reign of Henry II. It was the hand of St. James the Apostle, and in such high estimation was this relic held, that it was carefully inclosed in a case of gold, of which it was afterwards stripped by Richard I. This monarch, however, granted an additional charter, and gave one mark of gold to cover the hand, in lieu of the precious metal he had taken away. His brother, King John, confirmed this charter, and presented to the Abbey another equally wonderful relic, namely, the head of St. Philip the Apostle. The relic of St. James’s hand is at present in existence: it was discovered about 80 years ago by some workmen, in digging, and after passing through various hand, at last found its way into the Museum of the Philosophical Society of Reading. The relic consists of the left hand of a human being half-closed, with the flesh dried on the bones. Among other relics were a quantity of glazed tiles on the floor of the church. These were covered with various ornaments, and appeared originally to have formed a kind of cross of mosaic work, but the greater portion was missing. Fragments of stained glass of beautiful colours were found; in one place a kind of coffin, or excavation, was discovered, just capable of receiving a human body: it contained bones, but had no covering. The steps leading down to what is supposed to have been the cellar have been laid open, while the fragments of carved stones which have been found show that the building, in its pristine state, must have been as beautiful as it was extensive.
Prynne, in his history of the Papal Usurpation, tells us that the Abbot of Reading was one of the Pope’s delegates, together with the legate Randulph, and the Bishop of Winchester, commissioned for the excommunication of the Barons that opposed King John, in 1215, and the succeeding year. The maintenance of two Jewish female converts was imposed on this House by King Henry III. The same prince, desiring to borrow a considerable sum of money of the greater abbeys, the Abbot of Reading positively refused to comply with the requisition. 58 There is in existence a letter of Edward, the first Prince of Wales, written in 1304, to Adam de Poleter, of Reading, commanding him to lodge four tuns of good wines in the Abbey of Reading, against the arrival of the Prince’s servants at the Tournament about to be held there.
Of the ancient glory of the Abbey, but a few walls, or a ragged, broken skeleton, remain; though, in recent excavations, the plan of the building has been traced; and “there have been brought to the surface, from the neighbourhood of the high altar, the relics of kings, and warriors, and holy men, the fathers and founders of a church, which they probably trusted would have confined their bones till doomsday.”
The Franciscan Friars settled here in 1233. Their convent stood near the west end of Friar-street. On its Dissolution, the warden petitioned that he and his brethren, being aged men, might be permitted to occupy their lodgings during life; but even that humble request was denied. According to Leland, there was also on the north side of Castle-street “a fair house of Grey Friars.”
Among the Curiosities shown to the stranger in Reading is a stratum of sand in Catsgrove-lane, which is filled with oyster-shells and other marine fossils. In Dr. Plot’s amusing Natural History of Oxfordshire (in which the wonders of any other county are, however, gladly laid under contribution), their situation is proposed to be accounted for by a hypothesis as good in its way as Voltaire’s pilgrims’ cockle-shells, and for which it might have afforded a hint. When the Danes were besieged in Reading by King Ethelred and his brother Alfred, they endeavoured to secure themselves by cutting a trench across the meadows. Now, says Dr. Plot, “the Saxons having in all probability removed their cattle, it is likely that they might be supplied by their navy with oysters, which, during the time of the abode of their army on land, might be very suitable employment for it. Which conjecture allowed, there is nothing more required to make out the possibility of the bed of oysters coming thither, without a deluge, but that Catsgrove was the place appointed for the army’s repast.”
[For another shorter article on Reading Abbey by H. Claiborne Dixon, go HERE. You will note a remarkable and unattributed similarity of language in this later book to Timbs. — Elf.Ed.