<For the possibility that Eynsham was of some considerable importance in the earlier Anglo-Saxon period, see Blair, ‘Eynsham as a Central Place’. There was a church at Eynsham in the ninth century (S 210).> <Eynsham abbey was founded by Ealdorman Æthelmær ‘the Fat’ (son of Ealdorman Æthelweard of the Western Provinces), on a site which he acquired from his son-in-law Æthelweard (himself a West Saxon ealdorman during the early years of Cnut’s reign). The foundation of the abbey was confirmed by a charter of King Æthelred, dated 1005 (S 911), listing the several estates which formed its endowment; it emerges that Æthelmær intended to live among the community, and had appointed its first abbot (known from other sources to have been Ælfric the homilist). By the time of the Domesday survey, Eynsham was held by Remigius of Fécamp, bishop of Lincoln (GDB 155r); soon afterwards Remigius united Eynsham with Stow St Mary, in Lincolnshire, though the community returned to Eynsham in the twelfth century.>
<Check all statements relating to career of Ælfric; and summarise. Cf. new vernacular charter in lost cartulary of St Albans, re Eynsham (or Evesham); check chronology - return to Eynsham earlier?> <For Æthelweard, etc., see Keynes, ‘Cnut’s Earls’, Reign of Cnut, ed. A. Rumble.>
<The cartulary of Eynsham abbey (Davis 399), written at the end of the twelfth century, is preserved among the muniments of Christ Church, Oxford; ptd Eynsham Cartulary, ed. Salter, vol. I. The cartulary begins with the charter of King Æthelred (S 911; facsimile in Salter). Some of the operative parts of the formulation echo the Regularis Concordia, Proem, cc. 9-10 (ed. Symons, pp. 6-7); identical passages occur in the (supposed) charter of King Edgar for Thorney abbey (S 792). It is interesting, in this connection, that a charter which should have been an Eynsham title-deed (S 847, by which King Æthelred granted land at Thames Ditton in Surrey to Æthelmær, in 983) was itself preserved at Thorney; it would seem to follow that some Eynsham charters had been transferred, whether by accident or design, from Eynsham to Thorney, and it is conceivable, therefore, that S 792 was concocted some time later in the eleventh century, using a version of S 911 as its base. It is not easy to visualise the precise circumstances in which the transfer of charters might have been taken place, though it is quite often the case that texts from one house were used as models for the purposes of another; it may be that Bishop Remigius was somehow involved in the process.> <??>
<Salter, vol. I is s. xii ex. cartulary; vol. II is s. xiv/xv register (Davis 400), etc. For a lost cartulary, see Salter’s introduction.> <Reg. Conc.: John, Orbis Britanniae, p. 208, n. 1 (noting that Thorney charter has anachronistic ref. to exclusion of episcopal authority); SDK, Fellowship thesis, pp. 248-9.>
<The text of S 911 is followed directly by two charters which relate to Stow St Mary in Lincolnshire. The first is a record of the agreement between Bishop Wulfwig of Dorchester and Earl Leofric and his wife Godgifu, regarding the endowment of the church (S 1478), presumably derived from the copy of the document said to have been kept ‘in the possession of the bishop at the holy foundation’. The second purports to be a letter addressed by Godgifu (Godiva) to Pope Victor, asking him to confirm her grant of lands to the church, duly endorsed with the papal seal (S 1233).>
<Pelteret 41: vernacular writ of William I, granting lands in Notts. and Lincs. to St Mary’s, Stow, as Godgifu had them TRE, with ref. to Bishop Remigius.>
See also entry on Cerne.
Charters of Eynsham
Royal diploma. 911.
Miscellaneous. 1233; 1478.
Select bibliography
WM, GP, pp. 312-14; Mon. Angl. i. 258-65; Mon. Angl. (rev. ed.) iii. 1-32; VCH Oxon. ii. 65-7; MRH, p. 65; HRH, pp. 48-9.
• D. Bates, Bishop Remigius (forthcoming);
- J. Blair, ‘Eynsham as a Central Place in Anglo-Saxon Oxfordshire’, Eynsham Record 5 (1988), pp. 4-6;
- J. Blair, ‘Saint Frideswide Reconsidered’, Oxoniensia 52 (1988), pp. 71-127;
- M. McC. Gatch, ‘The Office in Late Anglo-Saxon Monasticism’, Learning and Literature in Anglo-Saxon England, ed. M. Lapidge and H. Gneuss (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 341-62, at 348-9 and 352-62 (on the ‘Eynsham Customary’, also known as Ælfric’s ‘Letter to the Monks of Eynsham’);
- E. Gordon, Eynsham Abbey 1005-1228 (Chichester, 1990); Robertson, Charters, p. 465; Eynsham Cartulary, ed. H. E. Salter, 2 vols., Oxford Historical Society 49 and 51 (Oxford, 1907-8);
- Wilcox, on Ælfric’s Prefaces
- S. Keynes, in Early Medieval Studies in Memory of Patrick Wormald, ed. Stephen Baxter, et al. (2009)