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Medeshamstede () was the name of Peterborough in the Anglo-Saxon period.Emphasis on the syllable "ham" presumably follows the common interpretation of the name. If it is believed to mean "homestead belonging to Mede", then it would better be pronounced . It was the site of a monastery founded around the middle of the 7th century, which was an important feature in the Mercia from the outset. Little is known of its founder and first abbot, Sexwulf, though he was himself an important figure, and later became bishop of Mercia. Medeshamstede soon acquired a string of daughter churches, and was a centre for an Anglo-Saxon sculptural style.
Nothing is known of Medeshamstede's history from the later 9th century, when it is reported in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle of 864 to have been destroyed by and the Abbot and Monks murdered by them, until the later 10th century, when it was restored as a Benedictine abbey by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, during a period of monastic reform. Through aspects of this restoration, Medeshamstede soon came to be known as "Peterborough Abbey".The most recent survey of the Anglo-Saxon history of Peterborough Abbey is in Kelly, S.E. (ed.), Charters of Peterborough Abbey, Anglo-Saxon Charters 14, OUP, 2009.
An alternative description is 'Medu' meaning Mead then 'Hamme' a village on a river and 'Steð'(the ð is pronounced th) meaning a bank or sea shore(the sea was about 4.5 metres higher in early saxon times), so the 'Mead village in the valley with a landing stage' Saxonhistory.co.uk - Saxon Place names and their logical explanation
According to the Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, written in the 12th century, this name was given at the time of the foundation of a monastery there in the 7th century, owing to the presence of a spring called "Medeswæl", meaning " Medes-well". However the name is commonly held to mean "homestead in the meadows", or similar, on an assumption that "Medes-" means "meadows". A History of the County of Northampton: Volume 2, Serjeantson, R.M. & Adkins, W.R.D. (eds.), 1906. British History Online. Retrieved on 9 May 2008. A typically anachronistic account.Cf. Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names (4th edition), 1960, p. 320 ("Medstead").
The earliest reliable occurrence of the name is in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, where it is mentioned in the Genitive case Latin language form "Medeshamstedi", in a context dateable prior to the mid-670s.Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iv, 6. However the area had long been inhabited, for example at Flag Fen, a Bronze Age settlement a little to the east, and at the Roman Britain town of Durobrivae, on the other side of the River Nene, and some five miles to the west. It is possible that "Medeshamstede" began as the name of an unrecorded, pre-existing Anglian settlement, at or near the site.
Another early form of this name is "Medyhæmstede", in an 8th-century Anglo-Saxon royal charter preserved at Rochester Cathedral. Anglo-Saxon Charter S 34 Archive Rochester British Academy ASChart project. Retrieved on 11 May 2008. Anglo-Saxon charter references beginning with 'S', e.g. 'S 34', are to Sawyer, P., Anglo-Saxon Charters: an Annotated List and Bibliography, Royal Historical Society, 1968: see eSawyer. Also found is "Medelhamstede", in the late 10th century Ælfric of Eynsham’s account of the life of St Æthelwold of Winchester, and on a contemporary coin of King Æthelred II, where it is abbreviated to "MEĐEL" .Ælfric, 'Vita Æthelwoldi', in Three Lives of English Saints, Winterbottom, M. (ed.), Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, 1972, c.17. Dolley, R.H.M., 'A New Anglo-Saxon Mint – Medeshamstede', in British Numismatic Journal xxvii (3rd series, vii), 1955. These occurrences are probably related, and may represent an early corruption, which did not survive. A much later development is the form "Medeshampstede", and similar variants, which presumably arose alongside similar changes, e.g. from Old English "North Hamtun" to the modern "Northampton". Despite the fact that they are therefore strictly unhistorical, forms such as "Medeshampstede" are found in later, Historiography. A Topographical Dictionary of England, Lewis, Samuel (ed.), 1848. British History Online. Retrieved on 9 May 2008 (“Northamptonshire": uses the form "Medeshampstead").
Locally, Anglo-Saxon records use "Medeshamstede" up to about the reign of King Æthelred II, but modern historians generally use it only to the reign of his father King Edgar, and use "Peterborough Abbey" for the monastery thereafter, until it changes to "Peterborough Cathedral" in the reign of King Henry VIII.
Hugh Candidus also reports that Medeshamstede was founded in the territory of the "Gyrwas", a people listed in the Tribal Hidage, which was in existence by the mid-9th century. There, the Gyrwas are divided into the North Gyrwas and the South Gyrwas: Medeshamstede was clearly founded in the territory of the North Gyrwas.Potts, W.T.W., 'The Pre-Danish Estate of Peterborough Abbey', in Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 65, 1974: this paper contains some substantive errors, but is of interest. Cf. Hart., C., The Danelaw, Hambledon, 1992, pp. 142–3, for a similar comment regarding Medeshamstede, and Wilfrid's church at Oundle. Hugh Candidus explains "Gyrwas", which he describes in the present tense, as meaning people "who dwell in the fen, or hard by the fen, since a deep bog is called in the Saxon tongue Gyr": use of the present tense indicates that inhabitants of the area were still known as "Gyrwas" in Hugh Candidus' own time.Roffe, D., ' On Middan Gyrwan Fenne: Intercommoning around the Island of Crowland', in Fenland Research 8, 1993, p. 83.
According to Bede, Medeshamstede was founded by a man named Seaxwulf, who was also its first abbot. While it is possible that Seaxwulf was a local prince, Hugh Candidus described him as a "man of great power", and a man "zealous and religious, and well skilled in the things of this world, and also in the affairs of the Church."Mellows, 1941, pp. 3–4; Mellows, 1949, 8–9. Historian, Dorothy Whitelock, believed that Seaxwulf had probably been educated in East Anglia, given the Paganism state of Mercia prior to the mid-7th century.Whitelock, D., 'The pre-Viking age church in East Anglia', in Anglo-Saxon England 1, 1972, pp. 38–41. He was later appointed Bishop of Mercia, and his near contemporary Eddius mentions, in his Life of St Wilfrid, "the profound respect of the bishopric which the most reverend Bishop Seaxwulf had formerly ruled".Colgrave, B. (ed. & trans.), The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, Cambridge University Press, 1927 (reprinted 1985), c.xlv.
A charter, dated 664 AD, records the gift by King Wulfhere of Mercia of "some additions" to the endowment for the monastery of Medeshamstede, already begun by his deceased brother King Peada of the Middle Angles, and by King Oswiu of Northumbria. This reference is to a later, grossly expanded version of the charter. A copy of what is no doubt the original version, modest by comparison, is printed as Birch, W. de Gray, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3 vols., London, 1885–93, no.22a. This charter is a forgery, produced for Peterborough Abbey either in the late 11th century, or in the early 12th; but, like Hugh Candidus, clearly it reflects Peterborough tradition, and it is both accurate and historically interesting in a number of ways, including in the chronology of kings.See Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century The Ford Lectures Delivered in the University of Oxford in the Hilary Term 1943, Oxford University Press, 1946, pp. 217–9. Also Potts, W.T.W., 'The Pre-Danish Estate of Peterborough Abbey', in Proceedings of the Cambridge Antiquarian Society 65, 1974. Rather than Medeshamstede's 'pre-Danish estate', the materials discussed by Potts probably identify a 7th-century Tribal Hidage, which would be a unique survival: cf. Higham, N., 'The Historical Context of the Tribal Hidage', in Hill, D. and Rumble, A. R. (eds.), The Defence of Wessex: The Burghal Hidage and Anglo-Saxon Fortifications, Manchester University Press, 1996. The connection with Peada places Medeshamstede's foundation between about 653 and 656 AD.. Retrieved 21 March 2013.
Numerous local are connected to varying degrees with Medeshamstede, and many of them are Mercian royal in nature. These include:
Most if not all of the churches originally associated with these local saints were probably sponsored by Medeshamstede, with the exception of Ely. What is known of Sexwulf, combined with the identities of these local saints, suggests strongly that Medeshamstede was a major religious centre in the kingdom of Mercia, with an especially royal character.
The importance of these daughter churches, and indeed that of Medeshamstede itself, is indicated by the likely relationship with royal Repton; by the consecration of the Breedon monk as Archbishop of Canterbury in 731 AD, and his later Canonization; and by Saint Guthlac's history as a former monk of Repton.
Early buildings on the site incorporated materials, or " spolia", removed from nearby Roman Britain sites, such as the former town of Durobrivae, or possibly the very large villa at Castor. British Archaeology Issue 60, August 2001, 'Old ruins, new world'. For the villa at Castor, see 'A Guide to the Church of St Kyneburgha . Castor Church. Retrieved on 25 May 2008. Such spolia have also been identified in the foundations of later Anglo-Saxon structures on the site. Five hundred years after the event, Hugh Candidus wrote that when work on the church commenced, Sexwulf "laid as its foundations some great stones, so mighty that eight yoke of oxen could scarcely draw any of them", and claimed that Sexwulf and his colleagues were "striving to build no commonplace structure, but a second Rome, or a daughter of Rome in England".Mellows, 1941, pp. 3–4; Mellows, 1949, pp. 6, 8. At 2 oxen to the yoke, Hugh Candidus intended 16 oxen. This is reminiscent of Wilfrid's actions at Hexham Abbey.
Monastic colonies
King Wulfhere's charter, and Bede's mention of Medeshamstede's foundation, place this in the period of the Christianisation of Mercia. Documents preserved at Peterborough Abbey indicate that Medeshamstede played a central role in spreading and consolidating Christianity in Mercia and elsewhere, for example through the pastoral care provided by a string of daughter churches.Blair, J. & Sharp, R. (eds.), Pastoral Care Before the Parish, Leicester University Press, 1992, especially p. 140. See also Yorke, B., Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England, Seaby, 1990, p. 110. Apart from churches connected with the local saints mentioned above, these are held to have included, among other candidates, churches at Breedon in Leicestershire, and Bermondsey Abbey and Woking, in Surrey.Stenton, F.M., 'Medeshamstede and its Colonies', in Stenton, D.M. (ed.), Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, Oxford University Press, 1970, and Blair, J., 'Frithuwold's kingdom and the origins of Surrey', in Bassett, S. (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Leicester University Press, 1989. Other candidates, apart from Repton, are Bardney Abbey and Crowland Abbey, in Lincolnshire, Brixworth, in Northamptonshire, Hanbury, in Staffordshire, Hoo, in Kent, and Shifnal, in Shropshire. Medeshamstede has also been identified as the mother church of Repton, in Derbyshire, which has been described as an 8th-century Mercian royal mausoleum. 'An Early History of Repton', Carroll, Quinton (undated). Repton Village History Group. Retrieved on 9 May 2008. Stafford, P., The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages, Leicester University Press, 1985, especially pp. 106–8. Another charter preserved at Peterborough was written at Repton in 848 AD, and concerned Breedon. This suggests that this monastic empire continued for some considerable time.For early medieval monastic empire building, see e.g. Colgrave, B. (ed. & trans.), The Life of Bishop Wilfrid by Eddius Stephanus, Cambridge University Press, 1927 (reprinted 1985), c.xxiv, Bede, Ecclesiastical History, iii, 4 ("St Columba"), and Farmer, D.H., The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (3rd edition), Oxford University Press, 1992, pp. 127–8 (“Saint David”). Cf. Blair, J., 'Frithuwold's kingdom and the origins of Surrey', in Bassett, S. (ed.), The Origins of Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms, Leicester University Press, 1989, p. 108. However, this is the latest surviving reference to any connection between Medeshamstede and its daughter churches, and these connections probably suffered a similar fate to many of the episcopal sees of eastern England: extinguished in the later 9th century by Viking invasion.See e.g. Stafford, P., The East Midlands in the Early Middle Ages, Leicester University Press, 1985, p. 111.
Later Anglo-Saxon history
Viking destruction
Medeshamstede is traditionally believed to have been destroyed by Vikings in 870 AD. While this claim for Medeshamstede is derived from the Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and from Hugh Candidus, both of which are 12th-century sources, destruction of churches by Vikings is a common feature in post-Conquest historiography. It is part of a consensus, developed from the time of the English monastic reformation of the 10th century, that Danish Vikings had been responsible for a long period of religious decline in England.Gransden, A., Historical Writing in England Volume I c.550 – c.1307, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974, p. 278. Principal movers of the 10th-century monastic reformation were Dunstan, St Æthelwold of Winchester, and St Oswald of Worcester. However, aspects of Medeshamstede's history, including the apparent survival of some of its pre-Viking archive, suggest that it did not suffer the same fate as other sites which were not so fortunate. According to S.E. Kelly,
Tenth-century refoundation
Medeshamstede was refounded c. 970 by Bishop Æthelwold of Winchester, with the assistance of one Ealdwulf, who was the new monastery's first abbot, and later became bishop of Worcester and archbishop of York.Kelly, op. cit., pp. 32, 36–9, 41–5. The monastery was soon enclosed within a massive stone wall, and acquired the new name of "Burh", meaning "fortified place".For the wall, see Youngs, S.M. & others, 'Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1982', in Medieval Archaeology 27, 1983. See e.g. Garmonsway, G.N., The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Dent, Dutton, 1972 & 1975, p. 117, where the change of name is linked to the construction of a wall around the monastery. Hugh Candidus describes the adoption of the new name, but does not link it to the construction of the monastic wall: Mellows, 1941, pp. 19, 24; Mellows, 1949, pp. 38, 48. Kelly, op. cit., pp. 5, 36–40, suggests that Medeshamstede might have been known as "Burh" prior to the mid-10th century, to distinguish it from the nearby Castor (cf. "Chester (place-name element)"). The addition of the name "Peter", after the monastery's principal titular Saint Peter, served to distinguish it from similarly named places, such as the abbey at Bury St Edmunds, in Suffolk, and gave rise to the modern name "Peterborough".
Physical remains and archaeology
The most visible remnant of sculptural and architectural activity at Medeshamstede is the sculpture now known as the Hedda Stone, dated by Rosemary Cramp to the late eighth or early ninth century, and kept on show at Peterborough Cathedral.Cramp, R., A century of Anglo-Saxon sculpture, Graham, 1977, p. 192. This date is subject to discussion: see Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, "St Margaret, Fletton, Cambridgeshire". CRSBI. Retrieved 24 May 2008. The attribution to Hedda is a modern, antiquarian development, presumably based on a twelfth-century text known as the "Relatio Heddæ Abbatis" ("Story of Abbot Hedda"): Mellows, 1949, pp. 159–61. It is of extremely limited historical value, but was clearly a source used by Hugh Candidus, and is first found in a twelfth-century manuscript created at Peterborough called the "Liber Niger" ("Black Book": Society of Antiquaries of London, manuscript no.60, see e.g. Willetts, P.J., Catalogue of Manuscripts in the Society of Antiquaries of London , Boydell, Brewer, 2000). Remnants of Anglo-Saxon buildings on the site of Medeshamstede have been identified in modern times, though it is not clear that any are remains of the original church.See e.g. Taylor, H.M. & J., "Peterborough, Northamptonshire", in their work Anglo-Saxon Architecture (3 vols.), CUP, 1965–78, II, pp. 491–4, and Youngs, S.M. et al., "Medieval Britain and Ireland in 1982", in Medieval Archaeology 27 (1983), pp. 168–9. These include foundations under the crossing and south transept of the Cathedral.
See also
External links
Categories: History Of Peterborough, Populated Places Established In The 7th Century, Anglo-saxon Monastic Houses, Monasteries In Cambridgeshire, Former Populated Places In Cambridgeshire, Mercian Settlements, Christian Monasteries Established In The 7th Century, 7th-century Establishments In England, Burial Sites Of The Iclingas
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