Whitby, St Peter and St Hild (Whitby Abbey)

The religious community of Streoneshalh founded in 657 had a church dedicated to St Peter, probably underneath the present Abbey church of St Hild.

On the site of what is now Whitby Abbey King Oswiu of the Northumbrians founded a religious community under the direction of Abbess Hild in 657 called Streoneshalh (for identification: Coates 1981; Styles 1998; Hough 2002-3; Hough 2003-4; Barnwell et al 2003; Pickles 2016, pp. 267-9). The history of this community in the seventh and early eighth century is known from Bede’s Ecclesiastical history of the English people, from two Lives of St Cuthbert, and from a Life of Pope Gregory the Great written by a member of the religious community itself (HE iii.24 [pp. 292-3]; HE iii.25 [pp. 298-9]; HE iv.23-4 [pp. 404-21]; VCA, iv.10 [pp. 126-9]; VCB, c. 34 [pp. 260-5]; VG, cc. 18-19 [pp. 100-5]). Amongst other things, they record the existence of a daughter community at Hackness (HE iv.23 [pp. 412-13]), and an estate supplied with a church at Osingadun (All Saints, Easington?) (VCA, iv.10 [pp.126-9]; VCB, c. 34 [pp. 260-5]; Pickles 2016, pp. 270-2). One or more churches related to this religious community may lie beneath the present Abbey ruins and the nearby parish church of St Mary’s, Whitby, but there is as yet no evidence for their form. Archaeological excavations in the twentieth century revealed buildings, cemeteries, and stone sculpture deriving from this community, including architectural fragments and a seventh-century cemetery with a possible mortuary chapel (Wilmott 2017 for overview). Based on topographical proximity, the source and style of stone fragments, and later patterns of landholding and parishes, it has been suggested that Whitby also founded a church, perhaps a cell or oratory, on the site of St Oswald’s, Lythe (Pickles, 2016, pp. 270-1). The subsequent history of this community is not known from contemporary written sources, but the stone sculpture suggests it may have continued to exist into the ninth century (CASSS VI, pp. 231-66: Whitby). Those who re-founded the community from 1078 related a tradition that vikings destroyed the community in the ninth century (WC, I, pp. 1-10, Nos 1-3), but fragments of tenth-century stone sculpture (CASSS VI, Whitby 32, Whitby 33, Whitby 35) and the place-name préosta-bý(r) (Pickles 2009) raise the possibility that a church and perhaps a small community of priests existed in the intervening period. Any church under the present Abbey site was superseded by the Abbey church, built in the twelfth century and then rebuilt from the thirteenth century onwards. Any church under St Mary’s was replaced by the earliest phase of the present church, dating from the twelfth century, which was the parish church of Whitby. In Domesday Book (1086x1088) Whitby seems to have been a royal estate on loan to an earl, comprising a manor with outlying dependent lands (berewicks and sokelands) (GDB fos 305r, 373r, 380v [I, 305a, 4 N 1; II, 373a, CN 1; II, 380c, SN L 1-5]). St Mary’s was mother church for the surrounding townships of Aislaby, Eskdaleside, Hawsker cum Stainsacre, Newholm cum Dunsley, Ruswarp, and Ugglebarnby, encompassing these lands (Kain and Oliver 2001, pp. 44, 102, 108, 121, 165, 187, 200, 221, 233). This block of lands and mother parish may reflect an earlier land unit on which a church was founded and for which it became pastorally responsible (Pickles 2016, pp. 272-4).

Certain.

Identification

• Administrative Region – Yorkshire and the Humber
• Administrative County – North Yorkshire
• Diocese (Current) – York
• Diocese (Historic) – York
• Parish – Whitby
• Historic Vill/Township/ Parish – Whitby
• Place and Name – Whitby Abbey
• Dedication (Current) – St Hild
• Dedication (Historic) – SS Peter and Hild
• Designation – Grade I Listed Building (No. 1316347, 23rd Feb. 1954): https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1316347
• Scheduling - Scheduled Building (No. 1017941, 19th Apr. 1915) https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=1017941&resourceID=5 and Scheduled Monument (No. 13284, NY SMR MNY8773 https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MNY8773&resourceID=1009)
• Church Environment Record – No Entry
• Post Code – YO22 4JT
• Coordinates - Longitude: -0.6078836, Latitude: 54.4883316
• Elevation: 51m / 167feet

Context

According to Bede’s Ecclesiastical history of the English people, completed c. 731, King Oswiu of the Northumbrians founded a religious community (Latin monasterium) at Streoneshalh (now Whitby) two years after his victory over the pagan King Penda of the Mercians at the battle of Winwæd (?Went Bridge) in 655, that is in 657. Oswiu was a descendant of the royal lines of the Deirans (modern Yorkshire) and Bernicians (modern County Durham and Northumberland): the religious community was ruled by Hild, great-neice of King Edwin of the Deirans; Oswiu married Eanflæd, daughter of King Edwin, and the religious community included their daughter Ælfflæd; Hild ruled the community until her death in 680, when Eanflæd and Ælfflæd became joint abbesses (HE iii.24 [pp. 292-3], iii.25 [pp. 298-9], iv.23-4 [pp. 404-21]).

Within the stories Bede relates about Hild it is revealed that the community included a range of buildings: a church (Latin ecclesia) dedicated to St Peter the apostle, where Edwin, Oswiu, Eanflæd, Ælfflæd and many other nobles were buried (HE iii.24 [pp. 292-3]; a remote building for novices (HE iv.23 [pp. 414-15]); and an infirmary building for the sick (HE iv.24 [pp. 418-19]). It is also revealed that Hild had founded another religious community (Latin monasterium) at Hackness, thirteen miles away, in 680 (HE iv.23 [pp. 412-13].

A Life of Pope Gregory the Great written by a member of the religious community at Streoneshalh between 704 and 714 relates the translation of King Edwin’s relics from Hatfield Chase to the community, confirming the existence of a church of St Peter the apostle, but adding that it included one altar dedicated to St Peter and another to St Gregory, with the burials of the kings on the south side of the altar of St Peter and the east side of the altar of St Gregory (VG, cc. 18-19 [pp. 100-5]).

Two Lives of St Cuthbert suggest that the religious community also acquired a smaller religious community and estate (Latin possessio, monasterium) called Osingadun (?Easington), half a day’s travel away from Streoneshalh, worked by lay brethren, to which Cuthbert travelled to dedicate a church (Latin ecclesia) in 685-6 (VCA, iv.10 [pp. 126-9]; VCB, c. 34 [pp. 260-5]; Pickles 2016, pp. 270-2).

The religious community may have been founded adjacent to the site of a Roman signal station. An analysis of the distribution and form of Roman signal stations on the coastline of Yorkshire has argued for the existence of an additional site on the headland, originally inter-visible with those at Goldsborough and Ravenscar, but now lost to coastal erosion (Bell 1998). Bede’s Ecclesiastical history of the English people, completed c. 731, states that the Old English place-name Streoneshalh can be interpreted as Latin Sinus Fari, ‘bay/ bosom of the watchtower’ (HE iii.25 [pp. 298-9]). A scatter of Roman finds has been discovered during excavations at the Abbey.

The presumed location of the seventh- and eighth-century church is the present site of the thirteenth-century Abbey church. Excavations around this structure and across the Abbey headland have revealed contemporary buildings, memorials, and a cemetery (Peers and Radford, 1943; Rahtz 1962; Rahtz 1967; Rahtz 1976; Cramp 1993; Wilmott 2017).

To the north of the Abbey church there were stone-footed buildings separated by pathways and a probable female cemetery with memorial stele.

To the north-west of the Abbey church there was extensive and intensive settlement, including a rectangular hall-like building, post-built rectangular structures, wells, pits, ditches, and gullies; a hearth produced archaeomagnetic dates of AD 605-805.

To the north-east of the Abbey church on the headland there was a hall-type building (6m x 4m) with glass-working debris.

To the south of the Abbey church there was a mixed cemetery with a rectangular structure interpreted as a mortuary chapel and 225 graves of adult males and females and juveniles. A cremation produced radiocarbon dates of AD 610-80 at 95 % confidence. A Series E, Type 6 sceatta coin was discovered dating to AD 700-40.

A large boundary ditch was encountered in several places, enclosing the headland, and in one place had a coin of Archbishop Eanbald II (796-830) in its uppermost fill.

By the eleventh century Domesday Book (1086x1088) shows that the manor of Whitby included a dependent holding called préosta-bý(r), which seems to have denoted the Abbey headland. The name combines the Old English genitive préosta, ‘of the clergy or priests’, with Old Norse bý(r), ‘estate, farm’. A study of names of this type argues that they formed through the expropriation of religious communities and the re-organization of their lands in the eighth, ninth, tenth and early eleventh centuries, leaving a small holding for clergy. This raises the possibility that the Streoneshalh community’s land was expropriated but that a small community of endowed clergy continued to exist after this occurred (Pickles 2009).

Building

Principal church of a religious community.

Group

The church of St Peter was perhaps part of a linear complex including another church under what is now the parish church of St Mary.

General Information

<Excavation Plan following Rahtz/ Wilmott>

The existing evidence suggests two church buildings belonging to different phases.

Liturgical structures

• Panels: Four stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church may derive from architectural panels of the seventh, eighth, or ninth century – CASSS VI Whitby 43; Whitby 44; Whitby 45; Whitby 46. They might have belonged to any one of a number of features, including screens or a shrine.

• Seat: Two stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as a late seventh- or early eighth-century chair-arm on account of their unusual shape and the decoration on three sides – CASSS VI Whitby 52a-b.

• Supports: Two stone baluster shafts discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as late seventh- or early eighth-century supports for openings in any one of a number of features, including an altar screen, shrine, or window – CASSS VI Whitby 53; Whitby 54

• Crosses: Twenty-one stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as late seventh-century or early eighth-century crosses which stood indoors, some or all in a church, because of the lack of weathering on their surfaces and in some instances the lack of decorations on one side, which may indicate a monument stood against a wall – CASSS VI Whitby 1; Whitby 2; Whitby 3; Whitby 4, Whitby 5; Whitby 6-8; Whitby 9; Whitby 10; Whitby 11; Whitby 12, Whitby 13; Whitby 14; Whitby 15; Whitby 16; Whitby 17; Whitby 18; Whitby 20; Whitby 21; Whitby 32. Two of these – Whitby 20 and Whitby 21 – have inscriptions incised into their surfaces, suggesting they served a commemorative purpose.

Liturgical structures

• Panels: Four stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church may derive from architectural panels of the seventh, eighth or ninth century – CASSS VI Whitby 43; Whitby 44; Whitby 45; Whitby 46. They might have belonged to any one of a number of features, including screens or a shrine.

• Shrine: Four stone fragments discovered during excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as part of late eighth- or early ninth-century architectural panels, perhaps from shrines, serving commemorative functions, on account of their shape and the inscriptions incised into their surfaces – CASSS VI Whitby 47; Whitby 48; Whitby 49; Whitby 50; Whitby 51.

• Crosses: Fourteen stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as eighth- or ninth-century crosses (and in one case a stele) which stood indoors, some or all in a church, because of the lack of weathering on their surfaces and in some instances the lack of decorations on one side, which may indicate a monument stood against a wall – CASSS VI Whitby 19; Whitby 22; Whitby 23; Whitby 24; Whitby 25; Whitby 26; Whitby 27; Whitby 28; Whitby 29; Whitby 30; ?Whitby 34; Whitby 36; Whitby 37 (stele); Whitby 64. Five of these – Whitby 22, Whitby 23, Whitby 24, Whitby 25, Whitby 64 – have inscriptions suggesting that they served a commemorative purpose.

• Grave Covers: Five fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church have been interpreted as eighth- or ninth-century grave covers which stood indoors, some or all in a church, because of their size and shape and the lack of weathering on their surfaces – CASSS VI Whitby 38; Whitby 39; Whitby 40; Whitby 41; Whitby 42.

Crosses: Three stone fragments discovered in excavations north of the present Abbey church derive from crosses dated to the late ninth or tenth century, which may imply the church remained a focus for worship, burial or commemoration in this period – CASSS VI Whitby 32; Whitby 33; Whitby 35.

Chronology and dating:

The placing of the liturgical structures into two phases is tentative, deriving from the art historical chronological framework developed to interpret Anglo-Saxon stone sculpture.

Key Primary Sources

Historical sources

Great Domesday Book, ed. and trans. M. L. Faull and M. Stinson, Domesday Book: Yorkshire (Chichester: Phillimore, 1986).

HE: Bede, Ecclesiastical history of the English people,

ed. and. trans. B. Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors (Oxford: Clarendon Press,

1969).

VCA: Anonymous Monk of Melrose, Life of Cuthbert, ed. and

trans. B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940).

VCB: Bede, Life of Cuthbert, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave, Two Lives of Saint Cuthbert (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1940), c. 34 (pp. 260-265).

VG: Anonymous Monk of Streoneshalh (Whitby), Life of Gregory the Great, ed. and trans. B. Colgrave (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

WC: Cartularium Abbathiae de Whiteby, ed. J. C. Atkinson, 2 vols (Durham: Surtees Society, 1879-1881).

Archaeological sources

Cramp (1993): Cramp, R., ‘A Reconsideration of the Monastic Site of Whitby’, in R. M. Spearman and J. Higgitt (eds), The Age of Migrating Ideas (Stroud: Sutton, 1993), pp. 64-73.

Peers and Radford (1943): Peers, C. R., and C. A. R. Radford, ‘The Saxon Monastery at Whitby’, Archaeologia, 89 (1943), pp. 27-88.

Rahtz (1962): Rahtz, P. A., ‘Whitby 1958’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 40 (1962), pp. 604-8.

Rahtz (1967): Rahtz, P. A., ‘Whitby 1958: Site Two’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 42 (1967), pp. 72-3.

Rahtz (1976): Rahtz, P. A., ‘The Building Plan of the Anglo-Saxon Monastery of Whitby’, in D. M. Wilson (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England (London: Methuen, 1976), pp. 459-62.

Wilmott (2017): Wilmott, T., ‘The Anglian Abbey of Streonaeshalch-Whitby: New Perspectives on Topography and Layout’, Anglo-Saxon Studies in Archaeology and History, 20 (2017), pp. 179-83.

Sculptural sources

CASSS VI: Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture, Vol. VI: Northern Yorkshire, ed. J. T. Lang (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).

Onomastic sources

PNNRY: Smith, A. H., The Place-Names of the North Riding of Yorkshire, EPNS 5 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1928).

Parochial sources

Kain and Oliver (2001): Kain, R., and R. Oliver, Historic Parishes of England and Wales: an electronic map of boundaries before 1850 with a gazetteer and metadata (Colchester: History Data Service, 2001).

Key Secondary Sources

Barnwell, Butler and Dunn (2003): Barnwell, P., L. Butler and C. Dunn, ‘The Confusion of Conversion: Streanaeshalch, Strensall and Whitby and the Northumbrian Church’, in M. Carver (ed.), The Cross Goes North: processes of conversion in northern Europe, AD 300-1300 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2003), pp. 311-26.

Bell (1998): Bell, T., ‘A Roman Signal Station at Whitby’, Archaeological Journal, 135 (1998), pp. 303-22.

Coates (1981): Coates, R., ‘The Slighting of Strensall’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 13 (1981), pp. 50-3.

Hawkes (1999): Hawkes, J., ‘Statements in Stone: Anglo-Saxon Sculpture, Whitby, and the Christianization of the North’, in C. Karkov (ed.), The Archaeology of Anglo-Saxon England: Basic Readings (New York and London: Garland, 1999), pp. 403-21.

Hough (2002-3): Hough, C., ‘Strensall, Streanaeshalch and Stronsay’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 35 (2002-3), pp. 17-24.

Hough (2003-4): Hough, C., ‘Another (ge)strêones halh’, Journal of the English Place-Name Society, 36 (2003-4), pp. 61-2.

Page (1923): Page, W. (ed.), A History of the County of York North Riding: Volume 2 (London: Victoria County History, 1923), pp. 506-528.

Pickles (2009): Pickles, T., ‘Biscopes-tún, Muneca-tún and Préosta-tún: Dating, Significance and Distribution’, in E. Quinton (ed.), The Church in English Place-Names (Nottingham: English Place-Name Society, 2009), pp. 39-108.

Pickles (2016): Pickles, T., ‘Streanaeshalch (Whitby), its Satellite Churches and Lands’, in T. Ó Carragáin and S. Turner (eds), Making Christian Landscapes in Atlantic Europe: Conversion and Consolidation in the Early Middle Ages (Cork: University of Cork Press, 2016), pp. 265-76.

Styles (1998): Styles, T., ‘Whitby Revisited: Bede’s Explanation of Streanaeshalch’, Nomina, 21 (1998), pp. 133-48.

Heritage Gateway: https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/gateway/

Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England: www.pase.ac.uk

Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Stone Sculpture – Volume VI: https://chacklepie.com/ascorpus/catvol6.php

Digital Survey of English Place-Names: https://epns.nottingham.ac.uk/

Key to English Place-Names: https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/research/groups/ins/resources/kepn.aspx

Information About the Entry

25/06/24

Thomas Pickles

Good.

Complete.