The History Of Alvingham Priory
The village of Alvingham is near Louth in Lincolnshire which is in East Anglia, England. Alvingham village is featured in the Domesday Book as Aluigham. The Domesday Book is a survey of England and Wales that was commissioned by William the Conqueror, or William I of England, and was completed in the year 1086. It documented who owned what land and property in England and Wales, and was used for collecting taxes. It was called the Domesday Book to echo the last account of the Day of Judgement, the decisions of which are unalterable. The aim of this was to avoid people trying to argue about the taxes they owed. The meaning of the name Aluigham, the name for Alvingham that was mentioned in the Domesday Book, is “Homestead of the Aelfingas (the tribe of Aelf)”.
Alvingham is well known for its priory. A priory is a religious residence of men and women, headed by either a prior or a prioress. They may follow religious orders such as the Augustinians, Carmelites, Dominicans or Gilbertines. Alternatively they may be monasteries of monks and nuns such as the Carthusians. The priory at Alvingham was of the Gilbertine order and is believed to have been established by Hugh de Scotney or someone associated with him. The Gilbertine order was the only religious order that was totally English. It was established in the year 1130 by Saint Gilbert, who was the parish priest in the town of Sempringham in Lincolnshire. The Gilbertine order ceased to exist in the sixteenth century during the period of the dissolution of the monasteries.
Work started on the construction of Alvingham priory in the year 1148 and the building work was completed in the year 1154. The priory was set up as a ‘double house’ so that both men and women could be accommodated, and consisted of two churches and living quarters set up around two cloisters. Cloisters are enclosures in the form of rectangular spaces surrounded by covered walk ways that run beside buildings on each side. The word cloister also means monastery, and a cloistered life refers to the life of monks and nuns in monasteries.
The Domesday Book refers to Hamelin the Dean of Alvingham who gave land to the priory. The Dean of Alvingham priory was a gentleman called Hamelin the Dean. He later gave up the post of Dean, and instead became a canon which is a type of monk, and joined the priory as a monk. As mentioned previously, there were male and female monks who live at the priory, but the different sexes did not communicate with eachother. The monks of both sexes would have black clothes with white cloaks on top and their heads would be shaved. There were 40 canons and lay brothers, and 80 nuns and lay sisters at the priory.
Alvingham Priory was made larger in 1232 when its owner bought some adjoining land that was owned by John de Melsa, who owned the manor of Alvingham. A chapel featuring the Virgin Mary was installed at the entrance gate of Alvingham Priory in the year 1402 by Pope Boniface IX, who was a good friend of the King of England of the time, Richard II. Sadly, most of the inhabitants of Alvingham priory died of Black Death, which was a pandemic bubonic plague that swept across China, Europe and the Mediterranean during Medieval times. The priory was demolished in the year 1538.
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