The Churches of Medieval Exeter
Nicholas Orme
Impress Books £14.99
(978-1-907605-51-2)
Church Times Bookshop £13.50
A FEW years after the Norman Conquest, the monks of Battle Abbey
founded a priory in Exeter. Never large, it was, none the less,
prestigious, acquiring important patrons, substantial landholdings
- including a foothold in Ireland; and also amassing popular
support, not least because of its charitable activities.
At the Reformation, however, the priory was suppressed; many of
its buildings were pulled down, and much of its stone used to
repair a bridge near by. Bought by an upwardly mobile Devonian,
what was left soon became a comfortable family home. It is now a
museum, devoted not to the history of the monastic community, but
to the people who benefited from its dispersal.
The Priory of St Nicholas was just one of dozens of churches,
chapels, and religious communities founded in medieval Exeter. Many
have been lost. Others survived - though their subsequent history
has left them similarly unrecognisable. To explore them is to
resurrect another world: a world of monks and nuns; of chapels for
lepers; and delightful, whimsical details such as the whistling
weathercock on the spire of a church, which so irritated Catherine
of Aragon that it was taken down in 1501. The rioting women who
invaded St Nicholas's to defend it from the Reformers provide
another, intriguing sidelight on its history.
Professor Nicholas Orme has been engaged in the process of
historical resurrection for the whole of his career. This short
study is, as a consequence, like the tip of an enormous iceberg of
research. After a scholarly essay on the subject, it offers an
invaluable gazetteer to every one of the religious sites of
medieval Exeter. It contrasts developments in the city with those
of the wider Church, and links Exeter to the world beyond. The book
will be of value to anyone interested in Exeter, or church history
more broadly.
The Revd Dr William Whyte is Senior Dean, and Tutor of St
John's College, Oxford, and Professor of Social and Architectural
History in the University of Oxford.