Whitby Abbey- A Virtual Tour

Introduction
Hild's Whitby
Decline, Renewal, and Dissolution of Whitby
Pictorial Tour of Whitby
Links to explore
References for further study

Introduction

Whitby Abbey was founded in the seventh century on cliffs by the sea; its haunting remains can still be seen from the sea and are a testament to the Golden Age of Northumbria.

view of the Abbey from the harbor

Although Whitby later became well-known as a sea port associated with Captain Cook and for the stairway to the parish church and monastery which inspired portions of Bram Stoker's Dracula, its legendary history began with the seventh-century abbey whose monks and nuns included such illustrious figures as Hild, Caedmon, and other of the most well-known churchmen of seventh-century Northumbria.

The famous view from the east end of the Abbey.

Hild's Whitby

The abbess Hild came here in 657 C.E. Hild was an Anglo-Saxon woman educated in the court of Edwin of Northumbria. She was among those baptized in 627 C.E. with Edwin by the missionary Paulinus. She was the sister of Hereswith who, like many Anglo-Saxon women, left England and went to the Frankish monastery of Chelles for her education.

After the death of Edwin, the progress of Christianity in Northumbria was temporarily halted. After the vistory of Oswy, however, monasticism was revived. Oswald had earlier requested that monks from Iona be sent to revive monasticism in his lands. The missionary Aidan came to Lindisfarne and was very instrumental in the conversion of the Northumbrians. Aisan stopped Hild from going abroad as her sister before her had done, and she became abbess of Hartlepool. Here, Hild acquired a reputation for prudence and discipline.

In 655 C.E. Oswy won a great battle over the Mercian King Penda at Winwaed, South Yorkshire. In gratitude for the victory, in 657 C.E. Oswy gave Hild his daughter Elfred and ten hides of land (approximately 1200 acres of land) at a place she herself chose, Streonshalh, the Anglo-Saxon name for Whitby. She became abbess of the double community of Whitby, and the Venerable Bede tells us that "she established the same Rule of life as in the other monastery [Hartlepool], teaching them to observe strictly the virtues of justice, devotion, and charity and other virtues too, but above all things to continue in peace and charity. After the example of the primitive church, no one was rich, no one was in need, for they had al things in common and none had any private property" (Bede, Ecclesiastical History).

During Hild's reign, some of the most influential Northumbrians were educated at Whitby. Whitby was also home to the poet Caedmon, a herdsman whose gift for song "specially marked out by the Grace of God" (Bede, Ecclesiastical History). This cross was erected in memory of Caedmon.

Under the leadership of Hild, Whitby developed a great reputation. Already by 664 C.E., its reputation for sanctity was such that it was chosen as the site for the Synod of Whitby. This synod was held in an attempt to reconcile Celtic and Roman customs, particularly with regard to the method for dating Easter. Due to the influence of Aidan and the Celtic foundation of Lindisfarne in Northumbria, Hild favored the Celtic customs; King Oswy, who had summoned the synod, favored the Roman customs. Oswy's support of Roman customs was primarily for political purposes, but he argued that, "since [St. Peter] is the doorkeeper I will not contradict him .. otherwise when I come to the gates of heaven, there may be no one to open them because the one who on your showing holds the keys has turned his back on me" (Bede, Ecclesiastical History). Oswy's support won the day for the Roman customs, and those who followed Celtic customs either accepted the decision of the Synod, as did Hild and her community, or retreated back to Iona, from whence the Celtic monks had come to Northumbria. After the Viking invasions, Lindisfarne itself later lost its direct ties to Iona and became a priory of Durham, a community of Benedictine monks.

Hild died in 680 C.E.. The nun Begu of Hackness, a daughter community of Whitby, had a vision of Hild's death. After Hild's death, Whitby continued to flourish. Oswy's widow, Eanfled, succeeded Hild as abbess. Elfled, his daughter, had been given to the community in early life, and she succeeded her mother as abbess. Whitby became a royal burial ground, holding the remains of these women saints as well as those of Edwin, whose conversion to Christianity had so influenced Northumbrian life, and Oswy. Wilfrid, Archbishop of York, was also buried here. When the community was rebuilt in the twelfth century, the remains of Begu were also brought Whitby.

Decline, Renewal, and the Dissolution of Whitby 867-1073 C.E.

Bede's Ecclesiastical History, completed in 731 C.E., already hints at the decline of Anglo-Saxon monasticism. Bede says that he wrote his history to inspire by the example of good deeds and good men, and to warn of the consequences of bad deeds by bad men. In his narrative, he also discusses Coldingham, a community with a reputation for lack of discipline and corruption. Although Whitby had a reputation for saintliness during the reign of Hild, some of the corruption as seen at Coldingham apparently also came to Whitby. When Whitby was excavated in the twentieth century, vast numbers of coins, along with ornamental metalwork, and other "luxurious" goods were uncovered, suggesting that the Rule's prohibition of private property was no longer respected at Whitby. Such had been the state of Coldingham as well.

The Danes sacked and destroyed Whitby in 867 C.E., and monastic life ceased there until 1078 C.E. The Norman Conquest brought a renewal of monastic life in many parts of England, perhaps best symbolized by William's foundation of Battle Abbey as an act of penance of the death of Harold. One of William's knights, Reinfrid, read about Whitby in Bede's history, visited its ruins of Whitby in 1073-1074, and was converted to the monastic life. Reinfrid and his companions later settled at Bede's monastery of Jarrow, and later also resettled Monkwearmoth. These monasteries had been the center of Anglo-Saxon monasticism under the leadership of Bede's mentor Benedict Biscop, and so, symbolically, some of the glory of the Golden Age was revived by Reinfrid's mission. In the later 1070s, Reinfird went back to Whitby and began to restore its ruins. The most active period of restoration is associated with the attempt to revive the cult of Whitby's saints in the thirteenth-century.

There is little of Hild's Whitby left today, and most of the ruins of Whitby date from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Oddly enough, although it was the ruins of Whitby which had survived the invasions of the Danes which had so moved Reinfrid, he leveled them in order to begin his own rebuilding project. The chronicle of the Abbey tells us that there were some forty buildings which had survived the Danes. Nothing of these buildings remains today save for the cloister. As fate would have it, when the cult of saints was revived by bringing the remains of many of Whitby's illustrious saints to the burial ground there, much of Reinfrid's own rebuilding work was itself leveled.

The massive rebuilding effort of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries eventually took its toll on the finances of Whitby. Already in the early fourteenth century, the abbey was in debt, partly due to the rebuilding of the glorious nave. In 1349, the Black Death came to Whitby. Among other things, the Black Death caused a financial crisis in England as well as in Europe. Wages rose as the available pool of labor decreased due to the large number of deaths; it became more and more difficult for the abbey to take in the rents from its estates that it had in the thirteenth century. The number of monks shrunk from the 40 who lived there in the thirteenth century to around 1/2 that figure, and never rose again.

Soon after Henry VIII separated the Church of England from the Roman Church, he dissolved the monasteries. At first, Henry's henchmen only focused on the smaller houses, those whose income was less than 200 pounds. Whitby's income was over 400 pounds then, and it escaped the first round of suppression. In December 1539, the king's attention finally reached the larger houses. The remains were leased in 1540 to Richard Cholmley, a local man, who purchased the entire precinct 15 years later. The Cholmley family mansion was constructed of plundered materials from Whitby.

The collapse of the nave in 1762 and the collapse of the central tower and west front later in the eighteenth century left Whitby in a state if total ruin until the excavation project began in 1920. Today, its haunting remains still stand atop the cliffs as a beacon, as they once did in the age of Hild, reminding us of the many monks and nuns whose prayers once filled the air and whose lives serve as a testament of the monastic "love of learning and the desire for God."

Pictorial Tour of the Ruins of Whitby

As we enter the monastery, one can see the fourteenth-century nave in the foreground and the earlier, thirteenth-century choir in the background. Click here for a better view of the nave and choir from the other side of the entrance.

Side View of the North Facade

The Abbey from St. Mary's parish graveyard

St. Mary's Church

Some secondary works on Anglo-Saxon monasticism and the dissolution:

Lina Eckenstein. Women Under Monasticism. contains an excellent chapter on Anglo-Saxon women's monasticism.

F.A. Gasquet, D.D. Henry VIII and The Dissolution of the Monasteries . vol. I and II. London: John Hodges, 1893.

Dom David Knowles. The Monastic Order in England: a History of Its Development from the Time of St. Dunstan to the Fourth Lateran Council 943-1216 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1941.

Introduction

Hild's Whitby

Decline, Renewal, and the Dissolution of Whitby 867-1073 C.E.

Pictorial Tour of the Ruins of Whitby

Some secondary works on Anglo-Saxon monasticism and the dissolution:

Other links to explore