Malmesbury Abbey 670–1539: Patronage, Scholarship and Scandal by Tony McAleavy (review)

Reviewed by: Malmesbury Abbey 670–1539: Patronage, Scholarship and Scandal by Tony McAleavy Daniel J. Heisey O. S. B. Malmesbury Abbey 670–1539: Patronage, Scholarship and Scandal by Tony McAleavy (Woodbridge, UK: The Boydell Press, 2023. Pp. 265. Hardcover, 85. 00. ISBN 978-1-78327-714-8). Students of monastic history will welcome this new account of a great abbey. In a single volume Tony McAleavy has brought together the often fragmentary evidence from more than a thousand years for reconstructing a history of Malmesbury Abbey. Judiciously and methodically he has relied upon archaeological reports, medieval narratives, and medieval and Tudor legal documents and court records. Ample footnotes and extensive bibliography will aid future historians of this important medieval monastery. The book consists of fifteen chapters, along with a prologue and an epilogue. These sections take the reader step by step along the path of the abbey's varied history. McAleavy's account goes from the days of an Iron Age hill fort and nearby Roman villa through Viking raids and high medieval grandeur to a sordid tale of greed and murder and then to the day in December, 1539, when the abbot and his twenty-one monks acquiesced to the royal suppression of the monastery and accepted generous pensions for retiring without objection. In November of that year, the abbot and two monks of nearby Glastonbury Abbey resisted the government's suppression of their community and were executed. For the fewer than two dozen monks left at Malmesbury, the place was not worth getting their heads chopped off. After discussing the Irish origins of Malmesbury Abbey in the early seventh century, McAleavy gives a concise account of the monastery's first great abbot, Aldhelm, and his writings. From Aldhelm's writings and from charters, McAleavy pieces together Aldhelm's efforts to secure royal patronage for his abbey, and other Anglo-Saxon abbots of Malmesbury continued this policy. In that era, royal involvement came to the fore during the monastic reforms urged by King Edgar. In Chapter 6 especially McAleavy addresses the life and writings of the monastery's second prominent man of letters, historian and biblical scholar William of Malmesbury. Drawing upon William's famous history, the Gesta Regum, McAleavy recounts an early eleventh-century monk of Malmesbury, Eilmer, who attempted to fly. Inspired by the ancient Greek legend of Daedalus, Eilmer made wings for himself and soared more than two hundred yards from one of the abbey's towers. That brave young monk's innovative efforts aloft ended up with a rough landing and injury to his legs. End Page 110 At various points McAleavy's research breaks new ground. In chapter 5 he notes that in 1963 David Knowles, in his The Monastic Order in England, asserted that one lamentable result of the Norman Conquest was Norman denigration of the cult of Anglo-Saxon saints. In contrast, McAleavy marshals evidence from contemporary sources to show that the Normans promoted the cult of such Anglo-Saxon saints as Aldhelm. In chapter 6, McAleavy offers a convincing argument for adjusting the year of birth for William of Malmesbury. Usually William's year of birth is given as around 1095. However, McAleavy argues that William was born around 1086, in part because William himself said when he was a boy, he witnessed a healing miracle at the abbey in 1095 or 1096. Moreover, around 1115, William met Queen Matilda, who commissioned him to research and write her family history. As McAleavy suggests, odds are against the queen giving such a prestigious if tedious task to a twenty year-old. In chapter 11, McAleavy delves into a sordid yet compelling period of the abbey's history. To do so, he cites hitherto unpublished records of the Court of the King's Bench. By all accounts from that era, John of Tintern, abbot of Malmesbury in the 1340s, was a criminal. In order to secure more land for his monastery, Abbot John became a mastermind of organized crime, hiring men to kill or intimidate local landowners. While arranging for five murders and two arsons, Abbot John enjoyed personal help from the wife of one of the men whose land he coveted for. . .