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previous Chapter This webpage reproduces a chapter of Handbook to the Cathedrals of England by Richard John King published by John Murray, Albemarle Street, Oxford, 1862 Text and engravings are in the public domain. This text has been carefully proofread and I believe it to be free of errors. If you find a mistake though, please let me know! next Chapter

p228 Ely Cathedral

Part II. History of the See,
with Short Notices of the principal Bishops.

A monastery for both men and women was founded at Ely by St. Etheldreda, in the year 673. It was destroyed during the great Danish invasion in 870; and in 970 was refounded by Ethelwold, Bishop of Winchester, for Benedictine monks. In 1109 this monastery was made the seat of a new bishopric, taken out of the great diocese of Lincoln, and embracing the whole of Cambridgeshire.

St. Etheldreda,1 the foundress of the original monastery, and one of the most celebrated of English saints, was the daughter of Anna, King of the East Anglians, who fell in battle with Penda of Mercia in the year 654. After his death his wife Hereswytha took refuge in the convent of Chelle, near Paris: and his four daughters, Sexburga, Ethelburga, Etheldreda, and Withburga, all, at different periods, retired from the world, and became distinguished patronesses of the monastic life. Two years before her father's death Etheldreda had become the wife of Tondberct, "King" of the South Gyrvians, or "fenmen," (gyr, A.-S., 'a fen'), whose district lay in the border-land between Mercia and East Anglia. Etheldreda received from Tondberct p229the Isle of Ely as her dower; and on her husband's death, three years after her marriage, she retired there, induced as much by the solitude as by the protection afforded by the surrounding marshes. Her widowhood continued for five years, when she was again sought in marriage by Egfrid in Northumbria. Etheldreda is said to have made a vow of perpetual virginity, which was respected by both her husbands, and in the twelfth year of her marriage with Egfrid she obtained his leave to put into execution a long-formed project, and received the veil from the hands of Bishop Wilfrid, at Coldingham in Berwickshire, where St. Ebba, aunt of King Egfrid, had founded a monastery.2 Egfrid, however, soon repented of his permission, and set out for Coldingham with a band of followers, intending to take his Queen from the monastery by violence. By the advice of the Abbess, Etheldreda fled, to take refuge in her old home at Ely; and immediately on leaving the monastery, with her two attendant nuns, Sevenna and Severa, she climbed a hill named Colbert's Head, on which she was seen by Egfrid and his followers. A miracle, however, was, according to the legend, wrought in her favour. The sea swept inland, and surrounded the hill, on which the three consecrated virgins remained in prayer for seven days, until Egfrid, who had tried in vain to approach them, retired in despair. A spring of fresh water broke forth from the rock at the prayer of Etheldreda; and the ascending p230and descending footprints of the three nuns, "impressed on the hill side as on melted wax," were long afterwards appealed to in proof of the miracle. Continuing her flight to Ely, Etheldreda halted for some days at Alfham, near Wintringham, where she founded a church; and near this place occurred the "miracle of her staff." Wearied with her journey, she one day slept by the wayside, having fixed her staff in the ground at her head. On waking she found the dry staff had burst into leaf; it became an ash tree, the "greatest tree in all that country;" and the place of her rest, where a church was afterwards built, became known as 'Etheldredestow.'

On her arrival at Ely, Etheldreda commenced (A.D. 673) the foundation of a monastery for both sexes, as was then not uncommon; the site of which she fixed at Cradendune, •about a mile south of the existing cathedral, where, according to a later tradition, a church had been founded by St. Augustine. From this place, however, the building was almost at once removed to the high ground where the cathedral now stands — from which the original church of St. Etheldreda was placed a short distance westward. St. Wilfrid, the famous Bishop of Northumbria, installed Etheldreda as abbess of the new community, which, with the exception of Peterborough, and perhaps of Thorney, was the earliest of the great monasteries of the fens.3 Etheldreda ruled it until 679, when her deathbed was attended by her "priest," Huna, who buried her in the churchyard of her monastery, and himself spent the rest of his life as a hermit, on one of the islands of the marshes.4 p231A remarkable miracle is recorded by Bede as having occurred in the year of her death. A youth named Ymma, who had been one of Etheldreda's house-thegns, was desperately wounded in a battle on the Trent, between Egfrid of Northumbria and Ethelred of Mercia. He lay senseless for a day and a night, and then, recovering, managed to drag himself from the battle-field, when he was taken prisoner by the Mercians. But no chains could bind him. They fell off perpetually at the "third hour of the day," when his brother Tunna, the abbot of a monastery, who thought him dead, used to say a mass for his soul. He was at least set free, and the merits of his former mistress, who had married Erconbert of Kent, and on his death had founded a monastery in the Isle of Sheppey, had withdrawn to Ely during Etheldreda's lifetime, and became abbess on her death. Sixteen years later she determined to translate the body of her sister into the church, and for this purpose sent out certain of the brethren to seek a block of stone from which a shrine might be made. They found a coffin of white marble among the ruins of Roman Grantchester (close to Cambridge), and in this the body of the Saint, which was found entire and incorrupt, was duly laid, and removed into the church.5 Sexburga was afterwards herself interred near it, as was her daughter Ermenilda, the third abbess. The bodies of Sexburg and Ermenilda, both of whom were reverenced as saints, were afterwards enshrined, and were removed, together with that of St. Etheldreda, into the existing cathedral. The three abbesses, p232together with St. Withburga, another sister of St. Etheldreda, who founded a monastery at Dereham in Norfolk, but whose relics were afterwards removed to Ely, were regarded as the especial patronesses of the Isle of Ely; and such was the sanctity conferred upon the soil by the holiness of their lives, and by the possession of their relics, that Thomas of Ely, who wrote the history of his monastery in the twelfth century, suggests, as a more fitting etymology than "eel's island," the Hebrew words El, 'God,' and ge, 'earth,' as though the island had been marked out from the beginning for God's especial service.6 The translation of St. Etheldreda, or St. Awdrey, as she was generally called, was celebrated on the 17th of October, when pilgrims flocked to her shrine from all quarters. A great fair was then held adjoining the monastery, at which silken chains or laces, called 'Etheldred's chains,' were sold, and displayed as 'signs' of pilgrimage. The word 'tawdry' (St. Awdrey) is said to be derived from these chains, and from similar 'flimsy and trivial' objects, sold at this fair.

St. Werburga, the fourth abbess, daughter of St. Ermenilda by King Wulfere of Mercia, was buried at Hanbury in Staffordshire, and was afterwards translated to Chester, of which church and monastery she became the great patroness. (See Chester Cathedral.) She is the last abbess whose name is recorded. The monastery was destroyed during the Danish invasion of the year 870, when Crowland and Peterborough also perished; and although a body of secular clergy was soon afterwards established on its site, Ely had entirely lost its ancient importance, when the monastery was refounded in 970, by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, who was also the restorer of Peterborough. Athelwold purchased the whole district of the Isle of Ely from King Eadgar, and settled it on his monastery, which he p233filled with Benedictines, over whom he placed Brythnoth, Prior of Winchester, as abbot. Among the king's gifts to the monastery were a golden cross filled with relics, which had been part of the Bishop's "purchase money," and his own royal mantle, of purple embroidered with gold.7

From the year of this second foundation until the Conquest, Ely continued to increase in wealth and importance, and its abbots were among the most powerful Churchmen of their time. From the reign of Ethelred to the Conquest they were Chancellors of the King's Court alternately with the abbots of Glastonbury, and of St. Augustine's, Canterbury, each holding the office for four months. It was when approaching Ely at the Feast of the Purification, when the abbot entered on his office, that Knut is said to have composed the famous verse — which, however, in its present form is at least two centuries later:—

The Atheling Alfred, son of Ethelred, after his seizure at Guildford in the year 1036, was conveyed to Ely, where his eyes were put out, and where he died. Some of the earlier years of the Confessor's life were spent in the Saxon monastery, on the altar of which he had been solemnly presented when an infant.

The history of the monastery, at the time of the Conquest, belongs to that of England. Thurstan, the abbot, was born at Wichford, near Ely, and had been brought up in the monastery from a child. He espoused the cause of Edgar Atheling; and from 1066, the year of the Conquest, to 1071, the island formed a Saxon stronghold, which was only taken at last with considerable difficulty. Hereward, the English champion, escaped at this time; but nearly p234all those who had taken refuge in the island fell into the hands of the Norman king. The Abbot had already become weary of the long resistance, and had visited William secretly at Warwick, in the hope of making his peace with him. He was condemned, however, to pay a fine of a thousand marks, and hardly escaped deposition at the council of Winchester. He died in 1072, the last Saxon abbot of Ely. Theodwin, a monk of Jumièges, and Godfrey, who had come to England with Theodwin, ruled the monastery in succession from 1072 to 1081 (the first alone with the title of abbot), but without receiving the benediction and investiture. During Godfrey's government of the monastery, its ancient rights and privileges were judicially examined by a court held at Kentford on the Suffolk border, and all were restored to it entire, as in the year of King Edward's death. In 1081 Godfrey became Abbot of Malmesbury; and

A.D. 1081‑1093. Simeon, brother of Walkelin, Bishop of Winchester, and a relative of the Conqueror, was appointed Abbot of Ely. Abbot Simeon recovered for his monastery the lands which had been allotted to the Normans during the siege of the island, and, like his brother Walkelin at Winchester, he laid the foundations of a new church (Pt. I § I). He died at the age of one hundred. On his death the temporalities of the monastery were seized by Ralph Flambard, the minister of Rufus, and no abbot was appointed until the accession of Henry I in 1100; when

A.D. 1100‑1107. Richard, son of Richard Earl of Clare, succeeded. He completed the eastern portion of the new church (Pt. I § I), and removed into it (Oct. 17, 1106) the bodies of the sainted Abbesses, St. Etheldreda, Sexburga, Ermenilda, and Withburga. According to Thomas of Ely, Abbot Richard's church was one of the noblest in the kingdom. "Ut ad perficiendum idem opus (Ric. Abbas) studiosius insisteret, et huic operi solum vacaret, totum studium specialiter admovit; tamque decenti forma p235et quantitate quantum potuit, quoad vixit, ecclesiam a predecessore suo inceptam edificavit; ut si fama non invideat, et merito et veritatis titulo (utpote mendax veritatem non detrahat) in eodem Regno cunctis ecclesiis vel antiquitus constructis, vel nostro tempore renovatis, jure quodam compositionis et subtilis artificii privilegio et gratia ab intuentibus merito videatur preferenda."— (Lib. Eliensis, ii. cap. 143). The conversion of the abbey into an episcopal see was first suggested by Abbot Richard, and was only prevented by his death. He was, however, the last abbot. Hervéº le Breton, Bishop of Bangor, who had fled from the dangers of Wales to the court of Henry, was appointed "Administrator" of the abbey, until the election of a new abbot. He found the monks not unfavourable to the proposed change, which the King also approved. The consent of the Bishop of Lincoln was procured by the grant to his see of the manor of Spaldwick, belonging to the abbey; and in 1108, the Council of London, presided over by Archbishop Anselm, consented to the creation of the new bishopric. Hervé himself proceeded to Rome for the Papal confirmation of the see, with which he returned in 1109; and on June 27, in that year, he was himself translated from Bangor, as the first Bishop of Ely. Constant disputes with the Bishop of Lincoln, concerning his rights over the monastery, were perhaps the earliest inducements to the creation of the new see; but the great size of the diocese of Lincoln is expressly mentioned in the letters of the King and of Anselm to the Pope, Paschal II; and it is also said that the King (Henry I), aware how strongly the Isle of Ely was fortified by nature, was anxious to divide the great revenues of the abbey, and thereby to render it less powerful in case of insurrection, by placing a bishop at its head.

The constitution of Ely, after its erection into a bishopric, resembled that of the other conventual cathedrals of England — Canterbury, Winchester, Worcester, Bath, p236Rochester, Norwich, and Durham; in all which sees the bishops were also regarded as, in effect, abbots of the conventual establishments attached to them.8 The immediate government of the monks, however, devolved on the prior, whose place in the choir was the first stall on the left hand. The bishop retained that on the right hand, which he had already occupied as abbot. The full number of monks in the abbey was seventy, but this was rarely complete. The election of the bishop lay, nominally, with the prior and the monks, but was in fact constantly interfered with by king and pope, as elsewhere.9

A.D. 1109‑1131. Herve le Breton, the first Bishop of Ely, was greatly occupied in arranging the government of the see, which he left "possessed of much greater privileges, rights, and immunities than most others in the kingdom."10 He divided the lands and revenues of the monastery between himself and the monks,— not altogether to the satisfaction of the latter; and "discharged himself and his successors from any obligation to support, build, or repair the fabric of the church, or any part thereof, leaving it entirely to the care of the monks."11 Succeeding bishops, however, as we have seen (Pt. I), notwithstanding this "discharge," contributed largely toward the repair and rebuilding of their cathedral.

A.D. 1133‑1169. Nigel, Treasurer of Henry I, and nephew of the powerful Bishop Roger of Salisbury (see that Cathedral, p237 Pt. II), was consecrated to the see of Ely after it had been vacant for nearly two years. Like Bishop Roger, Nigel was immersed in the troubles and intrigues of the reign of Stephen, whom he at first supported. At the council of Oxford in 1139, however, when Stephen, who seems to have feared their joining the side of Matilda, seized the bishops of Sarum and Lincoln, he would also have seized Bishop Nigel of Ely, had he not managed to escape to the castle of Devizes, then belonging to the Bishop of Sarum. Stephen laid siege to the castle, and threatened Nigel with the deaths of Bishop Roger and his son, if it were not at once surrendered. Nigel consented to the surrender on condition of his own liberty, and he withdrew to Ely, where he was joined by some of Matilda's adherents, and prepared to defend the place. But Stephen followed so rapidly that the Isle was surprised before Nigel could make any resistance. He himself escaped and joined the Empress Matilda at Gloucester. On Stephen's capture at Lincoln, Nigel recovered his see, and contrived to retain it until the King's death, in 1154. Henry II made him one of his Barons of the Exchequer, "as he was judged to have the most exact knowledge and skill in the forms and proceedings of that court," which he restored from the confusion into which it had fallen during the previous reign. At Ely Bishop Nigel built a castle, of which no traces remain; and at Cambridge he founded a hospital in honour of St. John the Evangelist, which continued under the care of his successors until 1510, when the lands and site of it were surrendered to the executors of Margaret, Countess of Richmond, who established on this foundation the present College of St. John.

A.D. 1174‑1189. Geoffry Riddell, Archdeacon of Canterbury, succeeded after a vacancy of four years. His adherence to the King's side during the struggle with Becket, and his excommunication by the Archbishop, who writes of him as "archdiabolus noster, haud archidiaconus," p238rendered it necessary for him, on his election, to take an oath that he had "in no way contributed to the death of the Archbishop." Bishop Geoffry continued in high favour with the King, Henry II, after his elevation to the see of Ely. In 1179 he was made Chief of the King's Itinerant Justices in Cambridgeshire and seven adjoining counties. He was one of the executors of King Henry's will; and died at Winchester, whilst waiting there to receive the new King, Richard Coeur de Lion, on his arrival in England. At Ely, Bishop Geoffry carried on the "new work," and the western tower (Pt. I, § 4).

A.D. 1189‑1197. William Longchamp, the Chancellor and Grand Justiciary of Richard I, who procured from the Pope Bishop William's nomination as Papal Legate, but not before he had paid a thousand marks for the dignity. On Richard's departure for the East, the Bishops of Ely and Durham were entrusted with the government of the kingdom south and north of the Trent. Longchamp, however, soon after the King's departure, arrested his colleague; and "assuming the utmost pomp and state, treated the kingdom as if it were his own, bestowing all places in Church and State on his relations and dependents." After a struggle with Prince John, the Bishop sh