Earlier in this blog, in ‘Through the Golden Valley to the Dark Tower’, I recounted a book-collecting expedition in the Welsh/English Marcher country with two friends, staying in Abbey Dore and journeying via Francis Brett Young country at Urishay to Hay-on-Wye.
Delving further into this numinous realm, I consulted A Definitive History of Dore Abbey edited by Ron Shoesmith & Ruth Richardson (1997). The abbey is one of those where the church itself (though not the other abbey buildings) survived ruination because it was kept on for use by the parish. It is thus rather a grand edifice for this remote little village.
The dissolution here was carried out relatively peaceably. The Abbott accepted a pension and retired, as did other clergy. It was formally suppressed on 1 March (St David’s Day), 1537, when there were about 9 monks and 16 or so lay servants. A sale of goods was held the same day and records of this survive that give a picture of the Abbey’s material possessions.
Most were bought (cheaply) by the agent of the dissolution, the Crown Receiver, John Scudamore. The abbey steward, Thomas Baskerville, also bought some items. The vestments included five chasubles, four tunicles, and three copes: the last abbot, John Redbourne, bought a cope of ‘blue silk with angels’, a chasuble and two tunicles. He was later accused of concealing from the Visitation “a little relic cross” of gold, and a “gospel book plated with silver”. The editors suggest he “only wished to protect that which was holy”.
All the gold plate was delivered to London, but some plate of lesser monetary value remained, in particular a “parcel-gilt chalice” which was kept, as the contemporary account records, “because of the clamour made about it by the parishioners”. What is parcel-gilt? A thin layer of gold leaf applied to parts of an object in sections or ‘parcels.’ There are other examples of parcel gilt chalices where the stem is gilded and ornate and the silver bowl is plain.
This brief remark set me wondering. Why the
clamour, of sufficient force to deter even the King’s rapacious agent? Why was
this vessel particularly important to the local people? Was it linked to some
especial veneration or legend, such as those of Celtic healing cups and the
Grail evoked by Evelyn Underhill, Arthur Machen, Charles Williams and others? And what became of it? Where is the Chalice of Dore now? Could it still be preserved and concealed in some oaken aumbry?
It is one of those brief historical vignettes that opens out possibilities. And if ever its story were to be accompanied by a soundtrack, there would be no need to look far. For, in a nice synchronicity, at the same time as I was reading the book, I was delighted to hear that Mike Simmons, a composer of electronic music, had recently released an evocative album inspired by this same region. Traces in a Landscape: Herefordshire includes pieces devoted to Dore Abbey and to other local antiquities, including Arthur’s Stone, Kilpeck, The Rose Garden, and Wigmore Castle. Mike also provides short notes about these historic and legendary places.
Thanks for that, Mark, it's much appreciated.
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