Pershore, Worcestershire - Pershore Abbey - art postcard c.1990s

Postcard
• Picture / Image:  Pershore Abbey, Worcestershire - from watercolour painting by Judith Milne
• Publisher:  Miart
• Postally used:  yes
• Stamp:  25p red Machin
• Postmark(s):  Reading 1995
• Sent to:  Colwell, Worcestershire
• Notes / condition: 

Please ask if you need any other information and I will do the best I can to answer.

------------------------------------------------

Postage & Packing:

UK (incl. IOM, CI & BFPO): 99p

Europe: £1.60

Rest of world (inc. USA etc): £2.75

No additional charges for more than one postcard. You can buy as many postcards from me as you like and you will just pay the fee above once. (If buying postcards with other things such as books, please contact or wait for invoice before paying).

Payment Methods:

UK - PayPal, Cheque (from UK bank) or postal order

Outside UK: PayPal ONLY (unless otherwise stated) please.   NO non-UK currency checks or money orders (sorry).

NOTE: All postcards are sent in brand new stiffened envelopes which I have bought for the task. These are specially made to protect postcards and you may be able to re-use them. In addition there are other costs to sending so the above charge is not just for the stamp!

I will give a full refund if you are not fully satisfied with the postcard.

----------------------------------------------

Text from the free encyclopedia WIKIPEDIA may appear below to give a little background information (internal links may not  work) :

*************

Abbey, at Pershore in Worcestershire, was an Anglo-Saxon abbey and is now an Anglican parish church.

The foundation of the minster at Pershore is alluded to in a spurious charter of King Æthelred of Mercia (r. 675-704). It purports to be the charter by which Æthelred granted 300 hides at Gloucester to Osric, king of the Hwicce, and another 300 at Pershore to Osric's brother Oswald.^[1][2] It is preserved only as a copy in a 14th-century register of Gloucester, where it is followed by two charters listing the endowments made to the abbey until the reign of Burgred, king of Mercia (852-874).^[3][4] The 300 hides mentioned here are unlikely to be a contemporary detail, as they were intended to represent the triple hundred which later made up the area of Worcestershire.^[1] Historian H. P. R. Finberg suggests that the foundation charter may have been drafted in the 9th century, based on some authentic material.^[5] Oswald's foundation of a monastery at Pershore is not stated explicitly in the charter, but the Worcester chronicle Cronica de Anglia, written c. 1150, reports it under the annal for 683, and John Leland, consulting the now lost Annals of Pershore, places the event around 689.^[1][6] Patrick Sims-Williams suggests that the foundation by Oswald may also represent an oral tradition at Pershore, as its archives were probably destroyed in the fires of 1002 and again, 1223.^[1]

In the 9th century, Pershore comes to light again as a minster under the patronage of Mercian kings. In other charters contained in the Gloucester register, Coenwulf (r. 796-821) and Burgred are recorded as having been patrons of Pershore.^[4] A charter of King Edgar refers back to a grant of privileges by Coenwulf at the request of his ealdorman (dux) Beornnoth.^[1][7]

In the reign of King Edgar (959-975), Pershore reappears as one of the abbeys to be re-established (or restored) under the programme of Benedictine reform. Writing c. 1000, the Ramsey monk Byrhtferth relates that under the auspices of Oswald, bishop of Worcester, seven monasteries were founded in his diocese, notably including Pershore.^[8] The first abbot was one Foldbriht,^[9] whose name is sufficiently rare to suggest that he may be the same Foldbriht whom Bishop Æthelwold previously installed at Abingdon and used to be a monk of Glastonbury before that time.^[10]

The refoundation is what lies behind an exceptionally elaborate charter for Pershore, dated 972, in which King Edgar is presented as granting new lands and privileges as well as confirming old ones, such as the one granted by Coenwulf.^[7] The authenticity of this document, however, has been questioned. Simon Keynes in 1980 showed that it belongs to the so-called Orthodoxorum group of charters, so named after the initial word of their proem, which he concluded were forgeries based on a charter of Æthelred II's reign.^[11] Since then, Susan Kelly and John Hudson have vindicated the status of some of these charters, including the one for Pershore, which is written in square minuscule characteristic of some of Edgar's charters.^[12] More recently, Peter Stokes has brought to light a variant copy of the charter and suggests that two different versions may have been produced around the same time, somewhere between 972 and 1066. A possible scenario is that they were produced to make up for the loss of the original charter(s), perhaps shortly after the fire which is reported to have destroyed the abbey in c. 1002 (see below).^[13]

The 12th-century historian William of Malmesbury, who seems unaware of any pre-existing minster, claims that one Æthelweard (Egelwardus), whom he describes as ""ealdorman of Dorset"", had founded the abbey of Pershore in the time of King Edgar.^[14] Similarly, Osbert's Life of Eadburh of Winchester alleges that one Alwardus, who is styled comes and consul, was responsible for the refoundation. Both authors also attribute to him a role in the translation of some of the saint's relics to Pershore. Osbert writes that an abbess of Nunnaminster had sold some relics to Æthelweard (Alwardus), who in turn handed them over for the refoundation of Pershore.^[15] Some scholars have identified him with Æthelweard, the well-known chronicler and ealdorman of the western shires.^{[16] [note 1]}

Whatever high-level patronage the foundation may have received, it was not enough to sustain its fortunes for very long. Precisely what happened to Pershore in the later 10th century is poorly documented, but some sources seem to hint that it went into decline during the succession crisis which emerged in the wake of King Edgar's death.^[18] William of Malmesbury says that ""it, too, like the others, decayed to a pitiful extent, and was reduced by more than a half"".^[14] According to Leland, the Annals of Pershore hold an earl called Delfer responsible for depriving the abbey of several of its lands. This Delfer has been interpreted as a misreading for Ælfhere (d. 983), ealdorman of Mercia^[18] (whom Leland mentions elsewhere).^[19] While himself a patron of Ely and Abingdon, Ælfhere was also charged with despoiling reformed monasteries during Edward the Martyr's brief reign (975-978). The targets included houses refounded by Bishop Oswald or Bishop Æthelwold and considerably enriched under the patronage of Æthelstan Half-King's sons, notably Æthelwine, ealdorman of East Anglia. Evesham Abbey, for instance, as later reported by its own chronicle, also claimed to have lost several of its lands in this way, and Winchcombe was disbanded altogether. Æthelwine, in his turn, was remembered at Ely as a despoiler of its lands. Tensions between Ælfhere and Bishop Oswald, whose authorities overlapped, and between Ælfhere and Æthelwine, with whom Oswald maintained a close relationship, are therefore likely to have been the principal cause of the upheaval.^[18] Whether a liberty similar to that of Oswaldslow was an extra cause for concern, compromising Ælfhere's authority as ealdorman, cannot be ascertained from the sources.^[18]

type=printed postcards

theme=topographical: british

sub-theme=england

county/ country=worcestershire

number of items=single

period=1945 - present

postage condition=posted