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History
The first foundation of the Abbey of Whitby was in part the fulfillment of a vow made by King Oswy of Northumbria before his great victory over the heathen Penda, King of Mercia, at the battle of Winwaed in 655. Oswy undertook, in the event of victory, to found twelve monasteries, six in Deira and six in Bernicia, and further to devote his daughter Elfled to the religious life. At this time St Hilda was Abbess of Hartlepool (a monastery founded in 640) and Elfled was placed in her care. In 657, two years after the victory, Hilda set up the Abbey of Whitby as one of the six votive monasteries in the province of Deira, moved there herself and took Elfled with her. The very exposed site on the east cliff at Whitby was probably occupied at an earlier period by one of the line of coastal signal-stations set up at the end of the Roman dominion in Britain as a protection against sea-raiders. Excavation alone can establish this, but eleven late Roman coins and some equally late pottery have come to light here and it seems unlikely that pure accident determined the choice of the site of the abbey. The place was then known as Streonaeshalch, the haven of Streon, according to the modern interpretation, but according to Bede meaning 'fari sinus' or 'the haven of the watch-tower' and, if so, a very apt reference to the earlier signal-station which may well have lingered in folk memory, if not in actual fact, when the Angles came to Yorkshire.
The first establishment at Whitby was one of those double monasteries of men and women which formed a marked feature of the early Anglo-Saxon church and here, as usual, it was presided over by the abbess. Whitby figures largely in Bede's History and it rapidly achieved a high reputation both for piety and for ecclesiastical training. Bede mentions five distinguished churchmen who were educated here: Bosa and Wilfred II, Bishops of York, Actla of Dorchester, John of Hexham and Oftfor of Worcester. The monastery, furthermore, became the burial place of members of the royal house, King Oswy and his queen Eanfled, Elfled their daughter who became Abbess of Whitby, King Edwin, slain at Hatfield, whose body was moved here and buried, as a seventh-century account says, 'with certain others of our Kings,' and Hilda herself who died in 680; besides these Trumuin, Bishop of Aber-corn, and many others were buried here. When Hilda died, Begu, a nun of Hackness, had a vision of the passage of the holy abbess to heaven. The two events, however, which stand first in the history of the early abbey are the Synod of Whitby and the career of Caedmon. The Synod took place in 664 and was summoned by King Oswy to decide the difference between the Roman and the Celtic elements of the English church as to the time of the celebration of Easter and other matters. Bishop St Colman of Lindisfarne was the spokesman of the Celtic church and St Wilfrid of those following the Roman rite. The victory rested with the Roman party, as representing St Peter, to whom were entrusted the Keys of Heaven. This Synod indeed finally decided the dominance of the Roman party in the north and led to the withdrawal of many of the Celtic clergy who were not disposed to conform to the Synod's decision.
Caedmon, the most celebrated of the vernacular poets of Northumbria, was apparently a farm worker on the lands of the abbey in the days of Abbess Hilda. He was of a shy and retiring disposition and, on withdrawing one night from an entertainment, slept in a stable where he had charge of the horses. Here he had a vision of one who called upon him to sing the beginning of created things, and thus inspired, he began to do so. The matter coming to the ears of St Hilda, she induced Caedmon to enter the religious life and 'he sang the creation of the world, the origin of man and all the history of Genesis,' the story of the Exodus, the incarnation and passion of Our Lord, the preaching of the apostles, the last judgment, the pains of hell and the delights of heaven. His peaceful death and his foreknowledge thereof are related at length in Bede's History.
After the death of Bede little is known of the fortunes of the abbey until its destruction by the Danes in 867. In this year the heathen army under Halfdene, Inguar, Hubba and many other leaders, crossed the' Humber, invaded Northumbria and took York. They then, according to Simeon of Durham, 'spread themselves over the whole country and filled all with blood and grief; they destroyed the churches and the monasteries far and wide with fire and sword, leaving nothing remaining save the bare unroofed walls' so that it was difficult for a later generation to 'discover in those places any substantial memorial of their ancient dignity.' A counter-attack on York failed with the loss of both the native kings, and the sites of the ancient monasteries lay waste for over two hundred years.
During this long interval the only recorded incident relating to Whitby occurs in the account given by the early twelfth-century historian, William of Malmesbury, of the recovery of the bodies of certain Northumbrian saints and their transport to Glastonbury. Malmesbury's three accounts are not in accord the one with the other, and there is obviously something wrong with the story of Abbot Ticca who is said to have fled from the Danish devastation of the north, to have taken refuge at Glastonbury and to have become abbot there in 754, a century before the devastation itself. Malmesbury's second story is a more probable one; it is to the effect that King Edmund I, presumably after his northern expedition in 944, sent the bones of St Hilda from Whitby, of Ceolfrith from Wearmouth, and parts of the remains of St Aidan from Lindisfarne to the Abbey of Glastonbury where Edmund himself was subsequently buried.
The re founding of the monastery of Whitby originated in the pilgrimage undertaken by Aldwin, a monk (perhaps prior) of the Benedictine Abbey of Winchcombe in Gloucestershire, and two companions Elfwy and Reinfrid from the neighbouring abbey of Evesham to visit the ruined and deserted holy places of the north. Aldwin himself settled at Jarrow but Reinfrid, an unlettered monk, about 1078 withdrew to Whitby, where he settled with some companions on the site of the old abbey. This was given to them by William dc Percy, the first of his house to be established in the north country. The early years of the convent were stormy and its history is confused. The community soon incurred the enmity of the founder and was, besides, set upon and pillaged by sea-pirates and local robbers. There was probably a split within the convent itself, one part under Stephen retiring to Lastingham and ultimately to St Mary's, York, and the other, under Reinfrid, remaining at Whitby or perhaps temporarily at Hackness. Better times came when Serlo dc Percy, brother of the founder, joined the community and became prior; he was followed by William de Percy, a son of the founder, who became abbot. From the last decade of the eleventh century, the monastery flourished and became third in value of the Benedictine houses of Yorkshire, after those of St Mary's, York, and Selby. In the second half of the twelfth century there were between thirty and forty monks at Whitby. When Richard of Peterborough was abbot (1148-75) Eystein Haroldson, King of Norway, made a raid on Whitby in or about 1153, burnt the town and laid hands on all the spoil that he could carry off. The only episcopal visitation of the monastery on record is that made by Archbishop Multon in 1320, when the monastery was heavily in debt. Nothing was seriously amiss but the monks were forbidden to go out of the monastery with bows and arrows; furthermore the abbot, prior or monks were forbidden to keep their own or other people's hunting dogs in the convent and if any dog got in, it was to be caught and soundly beaten. By the end of the fourteenth century, the numbers of the convent had fallen off but there were still some twenty monks. The later abbots had the right to the use of the mitre, ring and staff. The clear value of the house before the Dissolution was estimated at .£437 2s 9d a year which means that it was one of the poorest of the great independent Benedictine houses, but a rich house by comparison with most of those of other orders. The abbey was surrendered to the King's Commissioners by Henry Davell, the last abbot, on 14 December 1539.
A few months later, on 2 March 1540, a lease of the abbey site and precinct for twenty-one years was granted to Richard Cholmley of Kingthorpe near Pickering; he was knighted at Leith in 1544 and bought the freehold of the site on 2 July 1555. The property remained in the hands of the same family till it passed by marriage to that of Fane in 1791. Many generations of Cholmleys lived in the abbey house to the south-west of the ruins. This house was rebuilt largely in timber by Francis Cholmley and his wife between 1583 and 1593 and was again largely reconstructed by. Sir Hugh Cholmley in 1633-36. The present north front was built about 1672, but this wing was damaged by a tempest at or about the beginning of the last century and was then dismantled. The domestic buildings of the abbey which have completely disappeared above ground were used, no doubt, for the construction of this house and of other buildings in the town. The abbey church, however, although robbed of its lead roofs, was suffered to survive intact, this being due probably to its value as a sea-mark; its gradual disintegration was due only to the lapse of time. For instance, the nave fell in 1762 to be followed by the south transept a year later. Much of the west front, including most of the great west window, collapsed in November 1794, the central tower fell on 25 June 1830, and a storm did some damage to the choir in 1839. Since then the ruin has been little altered, save that it was shelled by German ships on 16 December 1914 and some small damage was done to the west end. The gradual deterioration of the building can be studied in the long series of engravings of which it has been the subject. Among these Samuel Buck's view of 1711 shows the whole church standing. Two aquatints by F Gibson show the state of the church in 1789 and J Buckler's engraving of 1812 shows the tower still standing.
The abbey was handed over in 1920 to the guardianship of HM Office of Works (now the Department of the Environment).
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