As a Heritage Trust, we’ve long felt that Tavistock Abbey’s story has been overshadowed in the annals of history.
While school curriculums often highlight major events like the Norman Conquest, the War of the Roses, and the Tudors, the period before 1066 is frequently overlooked. Yet, the early medieval era, including the story of Tavistock Abbey, has had a profound impact on our society.
What fascinates us about the abbey are the bits that remain and the mysteries surrounding the rest.
How did the Bedford family become involved?
Historians say it was one of the wealthiest abbeys in the South West, but why?
Who were the people behind its creation, and what happened to the buildings?
Join us on this journey as we rediscover Tavistock Abbey, starting with the reign of King Edgar, whose influence and religious, economic and political policies set the stage for the abbey's founding.
To understand Tavistock Abbey’s origins, we start with Edgar the Peaceable, king from 959 to 975. At just 16 years old, Edgar strived to create a united England.
In 959 Edgar replaced his elder brother as King and as Dunstan's biographer commented: "Chosen by both peoples [Edgar] united the divided kingdoms beneath him under one sceptre"
One of Edgar's first acts on accession was to appoint a new archbishop of Canterbury - St.Dunstan who was one of the foremost advocates of monastic reform.
In 963 Edgar promoted Æthelwold to become Bishop of Winchester. Æthelwolds ardour for reform was even stronger than that of Dunstans.
A large part of this reform was that there should be ' one uniform observance'. This was regularised in a document known as Regularis Concordia [Agreement on the Rule], and this was distributed to all monasteries.
This illustration from an 11th century copy of the Regularis Concordia shows Edgar [ centre ] flanked by Dunstan and Æthelwold. This, and other sources, seem to demonstrate a strong conjunction between church and state.
Edgar was to be the shepherd and defender of monks and in return for this protection, the King and his Queen were to be constantly in the prayers of monks and nuns.
Edgar’s reign was marked by this monastic reform, including the introduction of the Benedictine Rule, which set the stage for the establishment of Tavistock Abbey.
Edgar also, either established or renewed, 40 other abbeys across England. This seems to us a key part of his strategy in uniting England and maintaining power across a new nation state.
Edgar’s third wife, Alfreda, daughter of Ordgar, Earl of Devon, played a crucial role.
Alfreda, renowned for her beauty and strength, was instrumental in commissioning an English translation of the Rule of St. Benedict. She and Edgar’s second son, Ethelred the Unready, would later face Danish invasions, including attacks on Devon and Cornwall.
This royal connection sets the stage for the creation of Tavistock Abbey by the family of Ordgar and Ordulf.
Edgar later became known as 'the Peaceable'. His 'peacemaking' was often kept through the threat and use of deadly force. Edgar ordered that thieves and robbers were to be punished by having their eyes put out, their ears ripped off, their nostrils carved open, and their hand and feet removed, before being scalped and left in the open fields at night to be eaten by wild beast and birds!
Edgar also constituted a reform of coinage. Coinage had varied from region to region, their design, weight and fineness dictated by the skills or resources of individual moneyers. Edgar instituted standardisation - all coins across the realm were the same size and weight and, for the first time, bore an identical portrait of the king. Edgar was styled Rex Anglorum - King of All Britain.
In 973, a year before the formation of Tavistock Abbey, Edgar had himself re-coronated in an imperial style ceremony in Bath - the ceremony led by Dunstan. 'Everyone whom it is fitting to describe as the nobility of this wide and spacious realm' were ordered to assemble in Bath. Edgar was re-crowned, with laurel, sat on a lofty throne with Dunstan and Oswald seated either side of him. After this imperial coronation Edgar was referred to simple as Rex - a single king of a single people.
It is in this religious and political landscape Tavistock Abbey was founded. In a new 'united' Kingdom with a strong alliance between church and state and abbeys, under a reformed Benedectine order, playing a key role in the new social, political and economic order - Tavistock Abbey was founded at the new ' emperor's ' Western most outpost.
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