Foundation Documents from St Marys Abbey, York: 1085-1137 Sharpe Richard
In the wake of the Conqueror's ravaging of the North in the course of the rebellion and Danish invasion of 1069-70 the devastated city of York had to be largely rebuilt. The Conqueror himself…
Specifikacia Foundation Documents from St Marys Abbey, York: 1085-1137 Sharpe Richard
In the wake of the Conqueror's ravaging of the North in the course of the rebellion and Danish invasion of 1069-70 the devastated city of York had to be largely rebuilt. The Conqueror himself contributed a major new abbey built in the west of the city, no doubt in a spirit of penitence for the wasting of the city and county carried out by his troops. The community's origins were not straightforward. It had begun in the early 1080s as a struggling monastic settlement on the ancient site of Lastingham on the North York Moors under its charismatic leader, Stephen. Around 1085 the community was adopted by the king and translated to the western quarter of York, to a site which had previously been the burh of the earl of Northumbria. The Conqueror made a creative use of the new Norman elite of Yorkshire to endow and secure the new abbey, an enterprise adopted and extended by his son William