Tavistock Abbey ([1834])

Hearder, G. & J. The South Devon monthly museum. Plymouth: January 1st, 1834. VOL. III. No. 13. pp. 3-7.Our attention shall be directed first to Tavistock Abbey. This sacred edifice was founded in 961, by Ordgar, Earl of Devon, and completed, by his son, Ordulph. It was dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and St. Rumon, bishop and confessor. St. Rumon's festival was celebrated at Tavistock, on the fourth of January, with a fair of three days. This saint was an Irish bishop.About thirty-six years after the foundation of the Abbey it was burnt and destroyed by those northern depredators, the Danish invaders, during the disastrous reign of King Ethelred: but it soon rose, a phoenix from its ashes, and though not so opulent as the Priory of Plympton, yet it was far superior in point of dignity and local situation; and it eclipsed every religious house in Devonshire, in the extent, conveniency, and magnificence of its buildings. The kings of England, from the conquest at least, were reputed its founders and patrons.Livingus, the second of its abbots, is entitled, from his benefactions and services to Tavistock Abbey, to be considered as its restorer after the fatal conflagration by the Danes: he died in the eleventh century and was buried at Tavistock. The conventual church is said to have been 378 feet long, without including the lady's chapel. It was finally taken down in 1670.Learning was patronized at this famous abbey, a Saxon school was supported from its revenue, and a printing press established for the circulation of books. The famous charter, "De Libertatibus Comitatus Devon," granted by King John, and its confirmation by his son, Henry III., were preserved in Tavistock Abbey. Bishop Stapeldon took copies of these originals, and has inserted them in his register.In 1517, Richard Banham obtained from Pope Leo X. a bull of such ample and extraordinary privileges as expressly to exempt the Abbey of Tavistock, with its several dependencies, from all archiepiscopal and all episcopal jurisdiction, visitation, and superiority, and to place it under the sole and immediate protection of the Holy See. As an acknowledgment for such sweeping liberality, the abbot was annually to pay to the Apostolic chamber, on the feasts of Saints Peter and Paul, half an ounce of gold, i.e. twenty shillings of lawful money of England.Several of the abbey walls and turrets still remain, monuments of its fallen grandeur. There exists a spacious arch at the principal gateway of the abbey, surmounted with a tower and spires; it appears to bear traces of the time of Henry VI. Another relic, crowned with a venerable, ivy-mantled, tower, is at present a chapel, granted to nonconformists by an earl of Bedford. The porch at its entrance is enriched with the arms of the abbey-vair, or et azure: on a chief of the first, two mullets gules[Text may be taken from a different edition than that listed as the source by Somers Cocks.]

Wood engr

87x134mm