4 - Malmesbury and the late Anglo-Saxon Benedictine reform movement

Summary

The monastery at Malmesbury was in effect re-founded in the 960s as part of a wider programme of Benedictine reform in southern England promoted by King Edgar (959–75). This development involved a radical change to the Malmesbury community: the married clergy were evicted and replaced by celibate monks who followed the Rule of St Benedict under the authority of an abbot. The changes were part of a wider campaign to establish Benedictine monasticism as the form of religious life followed in a relatively small but elite and wealthy network of royal monasteries. The intellectual leaders of the movement were Dunstan (archbishop of Canterbury and previously abbot of Glastonbury) and Æthelwold (bishop of Winchester and previously abbot of Abingdon). The Benedictine campaign was linked to developments in monasticism in continental Europe, particularly in northern Francia.

With sponsorship from Edgar, and guidance from Dunstan and Æthelwold, Malmesbury became an important institution within the new network of Benedictine houses. It is possible that the Malmesbury monks, including the abbot, Ælfric I, were recruited from Dunstan's Glastonbury. Certainly, Dunstan took a close personal interest in Malmesbury, and Faricius provided a detailed account of Dunstan's ‘loving regard’ for Malmesbury.

Dunstan, hearing of the works of so great a man [Aldhelm], and seeing every day the frequent miracles he performed, began to pay loving regard to that monastery above all others, excepting only the one [Glastonbury] in which he had himself been enthroned as abbot. He began to put there from his own property many things suitable for service in church. Many are kept in the place to this day, together with his curses to be seen written on them in verse against anyone daring to remove them to the detriment of the church.

William of Malmesbury endorsed this view and copied out one of Dunstan's ‘curses’ which was inscribed on an organ.

I, Bishop Dunstan, give this organ to St Aldhelm; May he who wishes to remove it from here lose his share in the eternal kingdom.

The exact sequence of the events whereby Edgar and Dunstan relaunched celibate monasticism in Malmesbury is unclear, and William of Malmesbury misunderstood the chronology. The monastery preserved in its cartulary a charter of 974, granted by Edgar in favour of Malmesbury, which confirmed ownership of an estate at Eastcourt.