Tewkesbury Abbey

The Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, is the second largest parish church in England.

Related Topics:
Abbey - Tewkesbury - Gloucestershire - Parish church - England

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The Abbey Chronicle records that the first Christian worship was brought to the area by a missionary, Theoc, from Northumbria, who built his cell in the mid-7th century near where the Severn and Avon rivers join together. The cell was succeeded by a monastery in 715, but nothing remaining of it has been identified. In the 10th century the religious foundation at Tewkesbury became subordinate to Cranbourne in Dorset, and in 1087 William the Conqueror gave it to his cousin Robert Fitzhamon, who, with Abbot Giraldus of Cranbourne, founded the present abbey in 1092.

Related Topics:
Northumbria - Severn - Avon - William the Conqueror - Robert Fitzhamon

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One of its most distinguished abbots was Alan, the biographer of Thomas a Kempis.

Related Topics:
Alan - Thomas a Kempis

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