Bells Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury | Page 3

buried in the chapel of St. Faith in the church at Tewkesbury, in 799 or 800, and Hugh himself was buried at Tewkesbury in 812. Of this fact confirmation is given by Leland, who said that Hugh's tomb was there in his time, on the north side of the nave.
The Priory suffered terribly at the hands of the invading Danes--in fact, it was in the centre of the theatre of war in which, under Alfred, the decisive struggle was fought to an end at Boddington Field, where a spot called the Barrow still marks the site. In consequence of the continued ravages the Priory was so reduced in 980 that it became a cell dependent on the Abbey at Cranbourn, in Dorset, a Benedictine foundation of which Haylward de Meaux, Hayward Snow, or Hayward de Meawe as the Isham MS. Chronicle spells it, was the founder and patron. He and his wife Algiva are depicted in that MS. as sitting on a mound with a cruciform building in their hands. The church has a lofty embattled tower surmounted with a spire. Hayward fell at Essendune in 1016, and was buried at Cranbourn. Tewkesbury Priory continued to be dependent on Cranbourn for about one hundred years.
Hayward's son, Earl Algar, inherited the patronage of Cranbourn and Tewkesbury, and on his death it passed to his son Berthric, or, according to the Isham MS., Britricus Meawe. This Britric, while on an embassy in Flanders, refused the hand of the Earl's daughter Matilda, who was subsequently the wife of William Duke of Normandy, the conqueror of England. When the lady became Queen of England she had Britric's manors confiscated, and he died in prison at Winchester. Thus Tewkesbury passed into the hands of the Normans.
At the time of the Domesday Survey the priory was possessed of 24-? hides (or 3,000 acres) of land, which in Edward the Confessor's reign had been valued at ��1 per hide.
In 1087 William Rufus bestowed the honour of Gloucester, together with the patronage of the Priory of Tewkesbury, upon his second cousin once removed, Robert Fitz-Hamon, or, to give him his full titles as recorded in the Charters, "Sir Robert Fitz-Hamon, Earl of Corboile, Baron of Thorigny and Granville, Lord of Gloucester, Bristol, Tewkesbury and Cardiff, Conqueror of Wales, near kinsman of the King, and General of his Highness' army in France."
Robert Fitz-Hamon is the reputed founder of the present structure, but the credit of the founding, or rather refounding, is due to Giraldus, Abbot of Cranbourn. Like Abbot Serlo of Gloucester fame, he had originally come over from De Brienne, in Normandy, the ancestral home of the De Clare family, and a town closely connected with Tewkesbury at a later date. Giraldus had been chaplain to Hugh Lupus, Earl of Chester, and subsequently to Walkelyn, Bishop of Winchester. He was appointed Abbot of Cranbourn by William Rufus, who acted on the advice of Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury, and St. Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury. Giraldus then secured the assistance of Fitz-Hamon, and the munificent endowments of the latter supplied the means for building the noble foundation at Tewkesbury. Fitz-Hamon is said to have been inspired by a wish to make atonement for the wanton destruction of Bayeux Cathedral by Henry I.
By the year 1102 Giraldus and the members of St. Bartholomew's Abbey at Cranbourn removed to Tewkesbury, which was by that time ready to receive them; and the establishment at Cranbourn, under the rule of a Prior and two monks, became in its turn (after 120 years) a cell dependent on the new Abbey of Tewkesbury. After a few years Giraldus, "having neither the inclination nor the ability to satiate the King's avarice (Henry I.) with gifts," was obliged to leave Tewkesbury and returned to Winchester, where he died in 1110.
Fitz-Hamon had died in 1107 from the effects of a wound received at the siege of Falaise, and was buried temporarily in the Chapter House, which stood on the south side of the building.
In 1123 the Abbey was complete, and was consecrated on November 20th, with much ceremony, by Theulf, Bishop of Worcester, assisted by the Bishops of Llandaff, Hereford, Dublin, and another whose name is unknown.
The main part of the church, as it now stands, is usually assigned to about 1123, and substantially is as strong now as it was then.
In the following year, 1124, Abbot Robert died, and soon afterwards Theulf, the old Bishop of Worcester, also passed away.
Of Fitz-Hamon's four daughters two became abbesses, another was married to the Earl of Brittany, and Mabel was given to Robert, one of the many illegitimate sons of Henry I. She seems to have been a business-like lady, and to have hesitated at the proposed union with a nameless lord, unless a title could be made to go with