Winchcombe

<Foundation charter in name of King Coenwulf (S 167).  Family monastery of Coenwulf, king of the Mercians.  His daughter Cwoenthryth was abbess; also Minster-in-Thanet and Reculver.  Dispute with Archbishop Wulfred.  Cwoenthryth later regarded as murderer of her brother Cynehelm, who was buried at Winchcombe.   Reference to the erasure of certain estates from the ‘ancient charters which are at Winchcombe’ (S 1436).>  <Fragment of a charter of King Coenwulf, referring to ?monastery at Winchcombe (S 1861).>

<Ealdorman Æthelwulf perusing the ‘hereditary charters’ of King Coenwulf which pertained to the inheritance belonging to Winchcombe (S 1442).  References to Cynethryth and Ælfflæd, apparently abbesses in the ninth century.  Settlement to restore amity between Winchcombe and Worcester.>

<Germanus and Ramsey.  Abbot Ælfwold in 993.>  <Marriage agreement 1014x1016 (S 1459).>  <In 1077, at the instigation of Bishop Wulfstan II of Worcester, the community of Winchcombe entered into association with the communities of Evesham, Chertsey, Bath, Pershore, Gloucester and Worcester (P 78).> 

<See Davis 1039, for a lost cartulary.>

Charters of Winchcombe

Royal diploma.  167.  See also 1861 (? Winchcombe).

Select bibliography

WM, GP, pp. 294-5; Mon. Angl. i. 187-91; Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) ii. 297-314; VCH Gloucs. ii. 66-72; MRH, p. 80; HRH, pp. 78-9. 

• W. Levison, ‘Winchcombe Abbey and its Earliest Charters’, in his England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Oxford, 1946), pp. 249-59;
• S. R. Bassett, ‘A Probable Mercian Royal Mausoleum at Winchcombe, Gloucestershire’, Antiquaries Journal 65 (1985), pp. 82-100;
• Sims-Williams, Religion and Literature, pp. 165–8.

<Brooks, Church of Canterbury, pp. 182–5, 190-7.>

<ML in Gneuss Festschrift, on Germanus and Ramsey.>

<Winchcombe Landboc (Davis 1037) i.18–21.>