In c.701, a minster was founded in the lower Avon Valley on a deserted promontory called Evesham. Over the next five hundred years it became a Benedictine abbey and turned the Vale of Evesham into a federation of Christian communities. A landscape of scattered farms grew into one of open fields and villages, manor houses and chapels. Evesham itself developed into a town, and the abbots played a role in the affairs of the kingdom. But individual contemplation and prayer within the abbey were compromised by its corporate aspirations. As Evesham abbey waxed ever grander, exerting a national influence, it became a ready patron of the arts but had less time for private spirituality. The story ends badly in the prolonged scandal of Abbot Norreis, a libertine whose appetites caused religion to collapse at Evesham before his own sudden downfall. This book integrates the evidence of archaeology, maps, and documents in a continuous narrative that pays as much attention to religious and cultural life as to institutional and economic matters. It provides a complete survey over one of the most important and wealthy Benedictine abbeys and its landscape, a stage on which was enacted the tense interplay of lordship and prayer.

Print version record.

Frontcover ; Contents; List of illustrations; Preface; Timeline; List of abbreviations; Part I. From minster to abbey (701-1078); 1 �thelred and Ecgwine; 2 A land of promise; 3 A waiting people; 4 Ecgwine and the first abbots; 5 Decay and revival; 6 On the defensive; 7 Abbot �lfweard and King Cnut; 8 Abbot Manni, the town, and the Vale; 9 Abbot �thelwig under English and Norman rule; Part II. Abbot Walter (1078-1104); 10 A new regime; 11 God's work; 12 The estates under threat; 13 Protecting the future; Part III. Twelfth-century themes (1104-1215); 14 Interested parties

15 Order and governance16 Economic realities; 17 Investment; 18 Worship; 19 Learning and writing; 20 Religious buildings; 21 Collapse and renewal; Afterword; Appendix: The abbots of Evesham to 1215; Select bibliography; Index

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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