The History of Evesham Author:George May Subtitle: Its Benedictine Monastery, Conventual Church, Existing Edifices, Municipal Institutions, Parliamentary Occurrences, Civil and Military Events General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1834 Original Publisher: G. May Subjects: Evesham (England) Evesham, England Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint o... more »f the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER II. FOUNDATION OF THE CONVENT -- ITS EARLIER HISTORY -- POSSESSIONS AT THAT TIME. THE Abbey of Evesham was founded at a very early period after the establishment of Christianity in the kingdom of Mercia; a and during the reign of Ethelrcd its king. The cause of its erection is attributed by its chroniclers to a vision from the Virgin, first manifested to Eoves, the swineherd of Egwin, third bishop of Worcester, and afterward to that bishop himself. b The vision is recounted in the charter of the founder, dated A. d. 714, as resulting in the erection of a monastery to the honour of Almighty God and of his holy mother; in order that the brethren, serving God according to the rule of St. Benedict, might there, without disturbance, pass their lives.0 That this charter was, however, executed at the early period assigned to it, may, perhaps, most reasonably be doubted from the last mentioned clause: seeing that the rule of St. Benedict is generally considered to have been unrecognized in England till introduced by Odo, the Anglo-saxon primate, early in the tenth century, and urged forward by Dunstan " the man who set England in flames." Butthat the document is, nevertheless, an early production, we have every reason to believe." We here allnde to the promulgation of christianity among the Anglo-saxons, by Angastine; distinguished from the primitive introduction of that relig...« less