Day 121 - Get thee to a nunn'ry

In an earlier blog, we told of our walk to find Tolkien's grave. The walk took us along the Thames Path outside of Oxford and through the hamlet of Godstow. On this site, you can see the remnants of what was once a large abbey, in this case a House of Benedictine Nuns. As with any former religious site now in ruin, the abbey has a fascinating history.

The story goes that a widow in Winchester named Dame Ediva had a vision telling her to settle near Oxford until God sent her a message as to where she should build a place to serve Him. One night she heard a voice telling her to rise out of bed and walk until she found a place where the light from heaven touched the ground. At this spot she was to establish a nunnery with 24 women. She told her story to King Henry I, who helped her to build the monastery at the spot in Godsow she had found about two and a half miles northwest of Oxford on an isle in the River Thames. 

Alex and Phil approach the ruins of Godstow Abbey. When built it was on an island in the River Thames.
Picture: Angela Smith

The church was dedicated in 1139, and received funding from many wealthy benefactors including King Stephen and his wife and son. In the 12th century, it was a very aristocratic nunnery and many wives and daughters of the leading families of the time became nuns here.

In this painting by Evelyn De Morgan, Eleanor
prepares to poison Rosamund.

Henry II became King in 1154. One of Henry's long-term mistresses was Rosamund Clifford, considered to be one of the great beauties of the age. A legend has grown that, to hide the affair from Henry's queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, he had a maze built in which to meet up with fair Rosamund. The park was reputed to be in Woodstock, the current home of Blenheim Palace.

On discovering this, Eleanor is said to have penetrated the maze and confronted Rosamund. Rosamund was given the choice of dying by dagger or a bowl of poison. She chose the poison. 

Rosamund and her mother had asked to be buried at Godstow Abbey. At the time, it was considered an honour to have a King's mistress buried on your site, and when Rosamund died in 1176 at the age of 30, she was buried beneath the high altar. Much to the chagrin of the Bishop, the beautiful Rosamund's tomb began to be treated like a shrine, and in 1191 (two years after Henry II had died), he ordered that the body of "the harlot" be removed and buried outside. Her burial place could still be visited outside the nuns' Chapter House, until it was destroyed by Henry VIII in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

All that remains of the interior of the Abbey is the exterior
wall and parts of the church. The rest was destroyed by
Henry VIII.  Picture by: Angela Smith

Perhaps it was because Rosamund had been buried there and times and morals changed, but by the late 13th century rumours began to surface that the nuns were providing sexual services to the scholars at nearby Oxford as well as to local priests and monks. The Archbishop at the time ordered that the nuns not speak to any Oxford scholars and that they make their confessions in full public view at the altar. These rules and rumours persisted well into the 15th century.