Identifier: greaterabbeysofe01gasq (find matches)
Title: The greater abbeys of England
Year: 1908 (1900s)
Authors: Gasquet, Francis Aidan, 1846-1929
Subjects: Abbeys
Publisher: New York, Dodd, Mead and company
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: The Library of Congress

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d the abbot builta smaller doorway in the Norman arch, which greatlyirritated the people already apparently opposed to theirremoval from the church. Leland in his Itinerary hasleft us a quaint account of what happened as the result ofthe existing popular ill-feeling. The body of the abbeychurch, he says, dedicated to Our Lady, served untila hundred years since for the chief parish church of thetown. This was the cause of the abolition of the parishchurch there: the monks and the townsmen fell at vari-ance because the townsmen took privilege to use the sacra-ment of Baptism in the chapel of All Hallows. Uponthis Walter Gallow, a stout butcher living in Sherborne,defaced clean the font stone; and after, the variancegrowing to a plain sedition, the townsmen by the helpof the Earl of Huntingdon—and the Bishop of Salisburyon the monks part—a priest of All Hallows shot a shaftwith fire into the top of that part of St. Marys Churchthat divided the east part that the monks used from (252)
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SHERBORNE ABBEY: CHOIR AND EAST WINDOW SHERBORNE what the townsmen used. This portion chancing at thattime to be thatched, the roof was set on fire, and con-sequently the whole church, and the lead and bellsmelted. The Lady chapel and the porch alone escaped,and what is called ^^ the red stain of fire may still beseen on the walls of the church. This was in 1436, and the abbot of the day—AbbotBradford—set to work at once to repair the disaster. Heforced the townsfolk to contribute towards the rebuildingof the presbytery, on the bosses of which he carved afiery arrow as a warning against further feuds. The newvaulting was constructed in the peculiar fan-tracery pat-tern of the cloister. In 1459 the Norman triforium andclerestory of five bays of the nave were pulled down, thesouth aisle was ref aced with the old materials and the newwindows inserted. Towards the close of the century theaisles were vaulted, and this was apparently the last greatwork done by the monks. Of the domestic

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