Minster Abbey. The roots of Minster Abbey go back to a 7th-century crime. Two brothers, members of the Mercian royal family, were staying at the court of their uncle, King Egbert of Kent. The brothers fell afoul of court intrigue and were murdered. Their elder sister, Queen Ermenburga of Mercia, came to Kent to claim the customary weregild, or compensation fee offered to the family of a murdered man. With Ermenburga came her two young daughters, Mildred and Milgitha.
Now, instead of simply taking
the weregild 'blood money', Ermenburga asked Egbert for land to found a
monastery. The contrite Egbert agreed, but according to legend, put a condition
upon the gift. For it seems that Ermenburga owned a pet deer, which she brought
with her to Kent.
Egbert agreed to donate land
on the Isle of Thanet, with the boundary to be determined by the course the
deer took if left to wander across the island on its own. In those days Thanet
was a large island, cut off from the Kentish mainland by a wide channel,
stretching from Reculver in the north to Richborough on the south coast. The
deer was duly released and took a wandering path across Thanet which eventually
took in a huge amount of land in the south of the island.
The lands between the deer's course and the Wentsum Channel was then awarded by Egbert to the newly founded abbey at Minster. The modern chapel at Minster Abbey recalls this tale; there is a large and very striking carving of Ermenburga and her deer on the side of the building.
The first monastery was built
where the large medieval parish church now stands, several hundred yards away
from the current abbey grounds, but perfectly placed for a natural harbour
which led into the Wentsum Channel. It was the harbour that led to Minster's
prosperity over the ensuing centuries, allowing grain from Kent to be shipped
to London.
Minster Abbey was consecrated
in 670 by St Theodore, then Archbishop of Canterbury. The first abbess was
Ermenburga, who had taken the name Domna Eva on taking vows. Domna Eva's
daughter Mildred later joined the abbey as well.
When Domna Eva retired in
690, Mildred became abbess of Minster. The new abbess was famed for her
generosity to the poor and was a well-loved figure in the area. She died in
725AD She was eventually beatified as St Mildred in 1388.
By 741AD the abbey had
outgrown its original buildings, with about 70 nuns having joined the
community. So the 3rd abbess, St Edburga, decided to build new monastic
buildings a short distance away, on the site of the present abbey. These
8th-century buildings were of timber, probably topped by thatch, or lead roofs.
A new chapel was erected,
dedicated to St Peter and St Paul. Under the leadership of Edburga, Minster
supported missionary work in Europe, particularly that of St Boniface in
Germany. The kings of Kent added more land to the original abbey estates, and under
Edburga, Minster eventually controlled fully half of Thanet.
in the late 8th century the
Danes appeared in the longboats, bent on plunder. The first Danish raid was
recorded in AD 753, but the Danes were a constant threat for the next 2
centuries and more.
In 797 the fifth abbess,
Seldritha, took over, but her efforts to rebuild the abbey's fortunes were
dealt an ultimately fatal blow in 840 when the Danes burned Minster to the
ground and killed the entire monastic community of nuns and servants.
With the death of the nuns,
the monastic estates reverted to the kings of Kent, and the monastery was
finished.
In 1027, over 180 years after
the final Danish raid, the monks of Canterbury petitioned King Canute to give
them the abbey lands. Canute agreed, and the monks began to rebuild the earlier
timber buildings in stone. But that wasn't all; they asked that the relics of
St Mildred be transferred to them.
The king eventually agreed,
but the townsfolk of Minster were not likely to agree to have the relics of
their beloved saint taken away. One account suggests that 4 monks of Canterbury
raided Mildred's tomb in the dead of night, stole the relics, and managed to
make it to the ferry at Sarre before the alarmed townsfolk could catch them.
Worse was to come, for after
William the Conqueror and his Normans invaded England, they laid waste to
Thanet, so that if the Danes raided they would find no food or stronghold. The
devastation of Thanet must have terrible for the inhabitants, and an account in
1097 says that the abbey chapel was roofless and neglected.
When the Danish threat
receded the inhabitants of Thanet gradually returned, and they built dwellings
on the foundations of St Mildred's monastery, and erected a church, presumably
over the saint's shrine.
Over the next few decades,
the abbey was gradually rebuilt and expanded by the Abbots of Canterbury. In
the 12th century, a single-storey hall was added to the Saxon wing, and in 1413
both were raised to 2 storeys by Abbot Thomas Hunden of Canterbury. Abbot
Hunden's monogram is engraved on the north door of the Norman wing.
The abbey was dissolved by
Henry VIII in 1538 and Minster passed through numerous hands over the following
centuries.
In 1937 a group of
Benedictine nuns from southern Germany took possession of the site and
established a new monastery at Minster. They had scarcely begun to integrate
themselves into local society when the Second World War broke out.
Being German, the nuns were
considered a security threat by the government and the nunnery was temporarily
suspended and the nuns interned for the duration of the war. In this case the
internment could have been worse, for they were sent to existing British
monasteries.
After the war they returned
to Minster, and over the ensuing decades rebuilt the medieval buildings and
added new ones. One of the most recent additions is a modern chapel, but even
there the link with Minster's past is not forgotten, for the relics of St
Mildred are stored in a reliquary within the chapel.
In the 1930s excavations
revealed the plan of the Norman chapel, but this is now buried under turf.
However, in dry weather the outline of the foundations can be seen on the lawn.
The most obvious medieval
remains are the large west tower, now a crumbling, and rather romantic, ruin.
The tower probably served as a place of refuge in times of trouble, and as a
lookout for Danish raiders.
Around the side of the tower,
set into a stone archway, is a medieval carving of Christ in Majesty. was found
in a pile of rubble by one of the post-medieval owners of the Minster estate
and rescued from oblivion.
The abbey is a practising
Benedictine community, but there are regular, free tours of the site (check the
abbey website for details).
St. Mary’s
church.
The tower is said to be
Saxon; it certainly has old stonework and a very odd turret stair, but the
material is Caen stone which only truly became popular after the Norman
Conquest.
So it may not be as old as it
appears at first glance. The turret may have simply been a shipping lookout,
for in the Middle Ages Minster had a busy port and the Wantsum Channel lapped
at the base of the churchyard wall.
The north aisle pillars have
capitals decorated with foliage carvings, while in the aisle is a wall monument
to Thomas Paramore.
Look up
at the lancet windows and you will see a stained-glass depiction of a stag, the
symbol of Thanet after the story of Ermenburga's deer.
But the real highlights in
the chancel are the wonderful medieval misericords that decorate the choir
stalls. The early 15th century stalls feature no fewer than 18 carved
misericords. These 'mercy seats' were used to provide a comfortable place for
monks to rest during long services. Unusually, these can be dated precisely to
the early fifteenth century. John Curteys, the rector in 1401-19 carved his
name on one of the stalls!
There are 18 misericords
here, probably carved in 1410, and they cover an array of subjects including a
cook with a ladle, an angel playing a stringed instrument, a serpent eating its
own tail, a king, dragons, lions, and other strange beasts.
Together these make up one of the finest collection of misericords in
the south-east of England.
I could only photograph a few this time, but I will take pictures of them all some time.
The misericords here have
unusually conspicuous “supporters” - that is the carvings either side of the
central one - and supporters are, moreover, unique to England. The “horned
headdress” was fashionable in Europe. The central figure is imposed on a
monstrous body and the supporters show some species of reptile encircling the
heads. the hind represents Domneva (or Domne Eafa), a member of the Kentish
royal house, who founded the abbey. She has crosses embedded in leaves on
either side.
Possibly the face
of Christ flanked by criminals according to the Church Guide. There is nothing
to really indicate it and there is a tradition that monks and nuns were
reluctant to rest their feelthy backsides on sacred images.
An angel plays a lute. On either side a man has the mane of a
lion, the snout of a pig and large ears. The manes represent the courage of the
men who listened to the gospels with their large ears, overcoming their
ignorance represented by their snouts.
There are several interesting
bits and bobs in the south aisle, including a cover of a wooden chained Bible
in a glass display case. At the west end is a 12th century Norman font near an
ancient iron-bound muniment chest, unusually made of elm with a lid of oak.
Spare a glance for the list
of vicars by the door. In this case there are several interesting characters
among the incumbents at Minster. One was Seth Travis (1547), the first
appointment made by the Archbishop of Canterbury after the Dissolution of the
Monastery.
Richard Clerk (1597) was one
of those learned scholars named by James I to hammer out the details of the
King James Bible. Then there is Meric Casaubon (1634) who was deposed by
Parliament in 1644 for his Royalist sympathies.
In 1652 Cromwell asked him to
write a history of the war, setting down impartially 'nothing but matters of
fact'. He declined. When Charles II came to the throne at the Restoration,
Casaubon was reinstated as vicar of Minster.
while Casaubon was suspended
during the war, however, Minster was saddled with Richard Culmer, aka 'Blue
Dick'. Culmer was a virulent iconoclast, and a bitter enemy of Episcopy. He was
best known for destroying monuments and breaking up stained glass at Canterbury
Cathedral.
So unpopular was his
appointment among the townsfolk that he had trouble collecting church tithes.
His name is conspicuous by its absence from the list of vicars. And speaking of
such lists, Henry Wharton (1688) was the first to popularise the making of such
lists of incumbents, an act he thought might impart a sense of continuity to
Church of England churches.
A later vicar, John Lewis
(1708) wrote over a thousand sermons in his time at Minster. On his death he
ordered them destroyed, fearing that vicars who followed him might find the
temptation of plagiarising his works too great.
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