Abbot of Shrewsbury

The recorded abbots of Shrewsbury run from c 1087, a scant four years after Shrewsbury Abbey's foundation, to 1540, its dissolution under Thomas Cromwell. The abbey was large and well-endowed and the abbots were often important political figures as well as ecclesiastical leaders. They varied greatly over the centuries in ethnic and social origins, intellectual attainments and holiness of life. The first two, Fulchred and Godfred, were imported from Normandy. The remainder seem to have been born in Britain and most, but not all, were elected, or at least selected, from the chapter of the abbey. As important territorial magnates, the abbots were always called to take part in the sessions of Parliament from its very beginnings as an institution in 1265. As important figures in the Western Catholic Church, abbots were permitted by the Pope to wear the pontifical ring from 1251 and the mitre from 1397.

For the earlier abbots, dating and detail are uncertain as most of the evidence comes from chroniclers, whose focus generally lay elsewhere, although Orderic Vitalis was close to events in the first few decades. Any chronicles of the abbey itself are lost. It is impossible to be sure that any listing of abbots is complete. From the reign of Henry III of England key dates become easier, as the abbey was under royal patronage and the published Patent Rolls record key events in the succession of abbots. These are:

These events only give clues to the dates of abbots' successions, although they are generally helpful. Actual election dates, and the dates of deaths and resignations, are sometimes in the records of the Diocese of Lichfield, but these are far less full than the royal records in the Patent Rolls. There was an obvious temptation for kings in need of money to prolong the process at any point in order to milk the abbey's resources, as Henry VII seems to have done.

Shrewsbury Abbey was founded in 1083 by Roger de Montgomery, on the instance of Ordelirius, one of his clerks, and using the site of St Peter's church, which Roger had previously granted to Ordelirius. The founding colony consisted of two monks brought from St Martin's Abbey in Séez, southern Normandy: these were Reginald and Frodo. The first abbot,Fulchred (Foucher in modern French), is not mentioned as present before the organised conventual life of the abbey was inaugurated. This was probably late in 1087, as Orderic Vitalis, son of Ordelirius the clerk, and very likely an eye-witness of the events, attests that this was in the reign of William Rufus. Orderic describes Fulchred as "eloquent" and quotes at length an important specimen of his oratory. A monk of Gloucester Abbey had vision, in which a divine prediction of the imminent death of William Rufus was delivered.Abbot Serlo wrote to the king, informing him of the vision. On the Feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, 1 August 1100, Fulchred was a guest preacher at Gloucester and mounted the pulpit to deliver a diatribe against the state of the country under Rufus.

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