The Chronicle of the Abbey of Evesham is a remarkable medieval history of one of England’s great Benedictine monasteries. Beginning with the abbey’s legendary and royal foundations, it traces the fortunes of Evesham through centuries of religious devotion, political conflict, legal struggle, rebuilding, reform, and royal patronage. At the heart of the chronicle is the abbey’s determination to defend its ancient liberties. Its monks record disputes with bishops, appeals to popes and papal legates, contested elections of abbots, lawsuits over lands and privileges, and the long struggle to preserve Evesham’s exemption from episcopal control. Alongside these institutional battles are vivid accounts of saints and miracles, including St Ecgwine, St Odulf and the royal martyr St Wistan, whose relics and cult formed an important part of the abbey’s identity. The chronicle also preserves a wealth of detail about everyday monastic life. It describes the building and repair of churches, cloisters, chapels, halls, mills, granges and fishponds; the acquisition of estates and revenues; the making of vestments, shrines, bells and liturgical books; and the provision of food, clothing, recreation and medical care for the monks. Successive abbots emerge not merely as religious superiors but as administrators, builders, patrons, diplomats and defenders of the community. Extending into the later Middle Ages, the narrative reflects the changing political world around Evesham, from the Norman Conquest and the Angevin kings to the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII. The result is both a history of a single monastery and a richly detailed record of medieval English religious, legal, economic and political life. This edition offers modern readers direct access to one of the most important monastic chronicles of medieval England, revealing how the monks of Evesham understood their saints, their privileges, their rulers and their place in history.

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Ffynnon Druidion Burial Chamber, Fishguard, Pembrokeshire, South West Wales, British Isles [Map]

Ffynnon Druidion Burial Chamber is in Ffynnon Druidion, Fishguard, Prehistoric Wales Neolithic Burials.

                    Archaeologia Cambrensis 1872 Pages 81-143. Within a short distance is a place called "Ffynnon Druidion [Map]," and another "Llan Druidion [Map]," whence Fenton draws the conclusion that these names, as well as the numerous megalithic monuments there, prove that this was a favourite residence of the Druids. But has the word "Druidion" anything to do with Druids? The Welsh for a Druid is "Derwydd." "Ceryg y Druidion," in Merioneth, popularly translated stones of the Druids, is said by Welsh scholars to be rather stones of brave or strong men. "Druidion" seems to be the English word Druid with a Welsh plural suffix; and it is difficult to conceive how such a barbarous word can be of such antiquity as might be assigned to names of places in Wales. The assigning of it in these two instances, where megaliths abound, only shews that these stones were thought, in later times, to be Druidical by those who gave the names. But then remains the difficulty, how such a hybrid word as "Druidion" could have come into existence in a district where English is hardly to this day understood. "Drudion" means "heroes" or "brave men."
                
                    Near Ffynnon Druidion was once a small dolmen, now so entirely demolished that only one or two of its stones are left to mark where it stood; but it was here that five flint  celts were discovered, and which had, no doubt, been buried with the corpse. 
                
                    A little lower, to the westward, was in Fenton's time a circle of stones, in the centre of which was discovered a stone hammer. One of the flint celts and hammer are figured by Fenton. He does not state the kind of stone of which the hammer is made. The flint weapons are well worked, and must have been brought from a great distance.