Bells Cathedrals: Wimbourne Minster and Christchurch Priory | Page 3

him and retired to the convent at Barking, and afterwards founded the convent at Wimborne. Some say that she objected to the intemperate habits of her espoused as soon as she met him; others, that having previously vowed herself to heaven, she persuaded him to release her from the engagement to him, which had been arranged without her wishes being consulted. Her sister Quinberga is stated to have been associated with her in the foundation of the religious house, and both were buried within its precincts, and both were afterwards canonised; Saint Cuthberga was commemorated on August 31st "as a virgin but not a martyr." A special service appointed for the day is to be found in a Missal kept in the Library of the Cathedral Church at Salisbury, in which the following prayer occurs:--
"Deus qui eximie castitatis privilegio famulam tuam Cuthbergam multipliciter decorasti, da nobis famulis tuis ejus promerente intercessione utriusque vitae prosperitatem. Ut sicut ejus festivitas nobiscum agitur in terris, ita per ejus interventum nostri memoria apud te semper habeatur in coelis, per Dominum etc."
There is reason to believe that the earliest date given above for the foundation (705 A.D.) is the most probable one, as Regner in his tracts mentions a letter bearing this date written by Saint Aldhelm, and taken from the register of Malmesbury, in which he includes in a list of congregations to which he grants liberty of election the monastery at Wimborne, presided over by the sister of the king. There is also some evidence for the existence of a community of monks at Wimborne, as well as of nuns. But of these original religious houses not a trace remains: the very position of St Cuthberga's Church is uncertain; we cannot be sure that the present building occupies the same site; the last resting-places of the two royal foundresses are not even pointed out by tradition. Probably the buildings were destroyed, the nuns slain or driven out, when the raiding Danes overran Wessex in the ninth century.
The next historical event that we meet with in connection with Wimborne is the burial of King ?thelred, the brother and immediate predecessor on the throne of the great West Saxon king ?lfred. As there is doubt about the year of the foundation by Cuthberga, so again there is a conflict of testimony as to the date, place, and manner of the death of ?thelred--the inscription on the brass (about which more will be said when we come to describe the interior of the minster) not agreeing with the usually accepted date for the accession of ?lfred, 871; but as the brass is itself many centuries later than the burial of the king whose likeness it professes to bear, its authority may well be questioned. Anyhow, ?thelred died either of wounds received in some battle with the Danes, in some spot which different arch?ologists have placed in Surrey, Oxford, Berkshire, or Wilts, or worn out by his long and arduous exertions while struggling with the heathen invaders; and his body--this alone is certain--was brought to Wimborne for burial. It has been conjectured that ?lfred, after he had defeated the Danes and established himself firmly on the throne of Wessex, would naturally rebuild the ruined abbey. He founded, as we know, an abbey at Shaftesbury; he is recorded to have built at Winchester and London; he had undoubtedly a taste for architecture, and he was a devout son of Mother Church, so that it is by no means improbable that he would erect a church over the grave of his brother: but no record of such building remains, and there is no trace of any pre-Norman work in the existing minster.
The original church and conventual buildings having been swept away by the Danes, whether ?lfred restored it or not is uncertain, but it is certain that a house of secular canons was established at Wimborne by a king of the name of Eadward; but again there is some uncertainty as to whether this king was the one who is sometimes called the Eadward the Elder, sometimes Eadward the Unconquered, son and successor of ?lfred, or Eadward the Confessor. Anyhow, it became a collegiate church and a royal free chapel, and as such it is mentioned in Domesday Book, and it is noticed as a Deanery in the charters of Henry III. Leland, writing in the reign of Henry VIII., says, "It is but of late time that a dean and prebendaries were inducted into it." The deanery was in the gift of the Crown, and we have a full list of the deans from 1224 up to 1547, when it was dissolved. The ecclesiastical establishment consisted of a dean, four prebendaries, three vicars, four deacons, and five singing men. It will not be needful to give any detailed