Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

One of the earliest references to Repton Abbey and Abbess is found in a life of St. Guthlac, written by Felix, a monk of Croyland, at the command of Æthelbald, King of the Mercians. Guthlac, after a nine years’ life of plunder, obtained by fire and sword, repented of his life,

“And one sleepless night, his conscience awoke, the enormity of his crimes, and the doom awaiting such a life, suddenly aroused him; at daybreak he announced to his companions, his intention of giving up the predatory life of a soldier of fortune, and desired them to choose another leader. So, at the age of twenty-four, he left them, and came to the abbey of Repton, and sought admission there.”

This happened in the year 694, when Ælfritha was abbess. She admitted him, and under her rule he received the mystical tonsure of St. Peter, the prince of the Apostles.

For two years he submitted himself to the discipline of the monastery, but, attracted by the virtues of a hermit’s life, he left the abbey in the autumn of 696, “when berries hung ripe over the stream,” and drifted down the Trent till he reached the Lincoln Fens, where he built himself a hut, and lived in it till he died in 714. It is related that Eadburgh, Abbess of Repton, daughter of Aldulph, King of the East Angles, sent a shroud and a coffin of Derbyshire lead for his burial.

The Memorials of St. Guthlac, edited by Dr. Walter de Gray Birch, contain the full text of Felix’s life of the Saint, interleaved with eighteen cartoons, reproduced by autotype photography from the well-known roll in the British Museum.

The next event is connected with Wystan, patron saint of Repton. In an appendix to the Chronicon Abbatiæ de Evesham, written by Thomas de Marleberge, Abbot of Evesham (published among The Chronicles and Memorials of Great Britain and Ireland during the Middle-Ages), there is a life of St. Wystan. Wystan was the son of Wimund (son of Wiglaf, King of Mercia); his mother’s name was “Elfleda”; his father died of dysentery when he (Wystan) was young. On the death of Wiglaf, Bertulph, “inflamed with a desire of ruling, and with a secret love for the Queen-Regent,” conspired against his nephew Wystan. A council was summoned to meet at a place known from that day to this as Wistanstowe, in Shropshire. Hither came Bertulph and his son Berfurt. Beneath his cloak Berfurt had concealed a sword, and whilst giving a kiss of peace to Wystan he drew it and smote him with a mortal wound in the head, and so, on the Eve of Pentecost, A.D. 850, “that holy martyr, leaving his precious body on the earth, bore his glorious soul to heaven.” The body was conveyed to the Abbey at Repton, “tunc temporis famosissimum,” and buried in the mausoleum of his grandfather.

Here the body rested till the days of Canute (1016–1035), who transferred the relics to Evesham Abbey. In the year 1207 its central tower fell, smashing the presbytery and all that it contained, including the shrine of St. Wystan. The monks recovered the relics, and at the earnest request of the prior and canons of Repton granted to them “a portion of the broken skull and a piece of an arm bone.” The bearers of the precious relics were met by a procession of prior canons, and others from Repton; “with tears of joy they placed the relics, not as before in the mausoleum of St. Wystan’s grandfather, but in a shrine more worthy, more suitable, and as honourable as it was possible to make it in their own Priory Chapel.”

About twenty years after the murder of St. Wystan, the Danes again invaded the land. During the reign of Alfred, in A.D. 874, they penetrated up the river Trent into the heart of Mercia, and took up their winter quarters at Repton, as we read in the Saxon Chronicle. Here they made a camp, a parallelogram of raised earth, still in situ, by the side of the river Trent. Its dimensions are: north side, 75 yards 1 foot; south side, 68 yards 1 foot; east side, 52 yards 1 foot; west side, 54 yards 2 feet. Within the four embankments are two rounded mounds, and parallel with the south side are two inner ramparts, and one parallel with the north. The local name for it is “The Buries.” The next year, 875, they departed, having, as Ingulph relates, “utterly destroyed that most celebrated monastery, the most sacred mausoleum of all the Kings of Mercia.”

For about a century the site of the monastery remained desolate, until the reign of Edgar the Peaceable (959–975), when, as the Rev. Dr. Cox writes, “Probably about that period the religious ardour of the persecuted Saxons revived ... their thoughts would naturally revert to the glories of monastic Repton in the days gone by.” On the site of or close to the ruined abbey a church was built, and dedicated to St. Wystan. In Domesday Book Repton is entered as having a church with two priests, which proves the size and importance of the church and parish in those early days.

According to several writers it was built of stout oak beams, and planks, on a foundation of stone, and its sides were made of wattle, composed of withy twigs, interlaced between the oak beams, daubed within and without with mud or clay. The floor of the chancel, supported on beams of wood, was higher than the present one, so it had an upper and lower “choir,” the lower one being lit by narrow lights, two of which, blocked up, can be seen in the south wall of the chancel.