Please note: In order to keep Hive up to date and provide users with the best features, we are no longer able to fully support Internet Explorer. The site is still available to you, however some sections of the site may appear broken. We would encourage you to move to a more modern browser like Firefox, Edge or Chrome in order to experience the site fully.

The Church and Vale of Evesham, 700-1215 : Lordship, Landscape and Prayer, PDF eBook

The Church and Vale of Evesham, 700-1215 : Lordship, Landscape and Prayer PDF

PDF

Please note: eBooks can only be purchased with a UK issued credit card and all our eBooks (ePub and PDF) are DRM protected.

Description

A comprehensive account of the abbey of Evesham and its surroundings, demonstrating its full significance in the wider history of the time.

Provides a fine contribution to the rich history of the region, showing Evesham's place in the life of the medieval kingdom of England. Professor Ann Williams.

In c.701, a minster was founded in the lower Avon Valleyon a deserted promontory called Evesham. Over the next five hundred years it became a Benedictine abbey and turned the Vale of Evesham into a federation of Christian communities. A landscape of scattered farms grew into one of open fields and villages, manor houses and chapels. Evesham itself developed into a town, and the abbots played a role in the affairs of the kingdom. But individual contemplation and prayer within the abbey were compromised by its corporate aspirations. As Evesham abbey waxed ever grander, exerting a national influence, it became a ready patron of the arts but had less time for private spirituality. The story ends badly in the prolonged scandal of Abbot Norreis, a libertine whose appetites caused religion to collapse at Evesham before his own sudden downfall.
This book integrates the evidence of archaeology, maps, and documents in a continuous narrative that pays as much attention to religious and cultural life as to institutional and economic matters. It provides a complete survey over one of the most important and wealthy Benedictine abbeys and its landscape, a stage on which was enacted the tense interplay of lordship and prayer.

Dr David Cox, FSA, was until his retirement county editor of the Victoria History of Shropshire and lecturer at Keele University.

Information

Information