Bells Cathedrals: The Abbey Church of Tewkesbury | Page 3

calls
them, in which they are termed "duo duces Marciorum et primi
fundatores Theokusburiæ" i.e., two Earls of the Marches and first
founders of Tewkesbury. Each knight is in armour, and bears in his
hand a model of a church. Both are supporting a shield (affixed to a
pomegranate tree) bearing the arms of the Abbey, which the blazoning
on their own coats repeats.
[Illustration: PAGE FROM THE "REGISTRUM THEOKUSBURIÆ."
(H.J.L.J.M.)]
According to the chronicle, Hugh, a great Earl of the Mercians, caused

the body of Berthric or Brictric, King of Wessex, to be 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 24-½
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