This week’s post highlights the history of one of Sherborne’s founding figures.
You may have noticed a small figure in a niche above the entrance to Sherborne Abbey, he also appears on the Digby Memorial playing a harp, but have you ever wondered who it is?
The first mention of Sheborne and St Aldhelm is in 705, when King Ine in Winchester divided the growing see into two by appointing his kinsman, Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury, to be the first Saxon Bishop of Sherborne.
Surprisingly there is no documentation, or any historical evidence about the town of Sherborne, its inhabitants, or even if anyone ever existed here. No remains have ever been found of a Roman or even a British town, and there is no way of discovering whether Sherborne existed before or after 705.
Some Roman remains have been excavated to the east and West of the town and on the site of the Abbey itself, but they are most likely to have been scattered farm settlements.
Nothing of Saxon origin is known to have survived.
No coins or pottery. No ornaments or weapons. No burials, or Saxon crosses.
Nothing but a Saxon name, “Scire Burn”, and just a few visible details of late Saxon architecture, which can just be seen in the 12th Century Abbey Church.
But we do know that there was a Saxon Sherborne with a history that is rooted in the 7th Century, and there were Saxon Bishops in the town for almost 400 years.
We know about the 26 Saxon Bishops that followed St. Aldhelm, as the chief sources for our information is written in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, and in a book written by Bishop Asser, ‘On The Life of King Alfred’, and also in the Sherborne Cartulary, a 12th Century manuscript now held in the British Library.
So for almost 400 years there were Saxon Bishops in this town. That is a fact.
Was this then ‘Sherborne’s Golden Age’?
Who was this Aldhelm?
Aldhelm, or as spelt in Old English, Aeldhelm.
He was a Saxon, born in 640. The son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex, and so Aldhelm was a Wessex prince.
He became one of the earliest converts to Christianity, in the Anglo-Saxon South West. He was of course very well educated, and he became a disciple of Hadrian, the Abbot of St. Augustine at Canterbury. But as he grew older, and the years passed, ill health forced him to leave Canterbury, and he moved to Malmesbury Abbey. Around 680 he became the Abbot of Malmesbury, and there he introduced Benedictine Rule.
We know from reading about him that he was a tall man with white hair and “wandering hands”, and he was a splendid and gifted musician, so he quickly gained the reputation for being the very best lute player. The crowds would flock around him as he played and sang to them. Then, having got their attention, he would start to preach to them. He really was most popular.
He was also well known as an author; among his more renown works is “De Virginitate”(“About Virginity”) which he first wrote in prose for the Abbess Hildelith and the nuns of Barking, then, a few years later, wrote a version in poetry.
As the town of Malmesbury increased and grew larger, Aldhelm founded and had built two other monasteries which became centres of learning. One was at Frome in Somerset, and the other one was at Bradford-On-Avon in Wiltshire.
The little church in Bradford-On-Avon is still standing, just as it was. A remarkable lovely little Saxon church. Well worth a visit.
So Aldhelm was in his mid sixties when he reluctantly accepted the Bishopric of Sherborne from King Ine.
Ine gave him the mission to overcome the Paganism that was in the area, and to get the Celts to accept Christianity.
Sadly though, very little is known about Aldhelm’s life here in Sherborne. He had only been in the town for about 4-5 years when he died. It was a Summer’s day, the 25th June, 709, and he had reached Doulting, near Shepton Mallet, whilst he was visiting his way around his diocese when he began to feel unwell. As the story goes, he knew that he was close to death and asked his monks to carry him into the church. Surrounded by his followers he prayed his last prayers, and then peacefully died.
We know that his body was taken back to Malmesbury, and stone crosses were set up all along the stopping places along the route. He was buried in the little Church of St. Michael, that some 40 years previously he had himself built. (Now gone, his building was the first on a site that is now home to its third Abbey incarnation, the latest having been built in the 12th Century).
Aldhelm’s original church here in Sherborne was probably a small stone single celled building , immediately to the West of the present day Abbey Church.
About the year 1000, Aldhelm was revered as a saint.
St Aldhelm’s feast day is always celebrated on 25th May.
His flag is a white cross on a red background.
The next time you pass the Abbey, look up, and you may see it flying there.