Cratendune
| Cratendune | |
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 Reconstruction of an Anglo-Saxon village in West Stow |
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 Cratendune
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| Cratendune shown within Cambridgeshire | |
| OS grid reference | TL54138029 |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| EU Parliament | East of England |
Cratendune (Medieval Latin: vallis Cracti) is the name of the lost village reported in the Liber Eliensis, the history of the abbey, then Ely Cathedral, compiled towards the end of the 12th century, as the 500th anniversary of the traditional founding date drew near. As no direction is indicated in Liber Eliensis, a number of archaeological sites are therefore candidates for this lost village.
Reading from the Liber Eliensis MS folio 2, which is a 12th century Benedictine history of Ely written in Latin, Bentham describes Æthelberht of Kent, Chief of the Saxon Kings, founding a church at the insistence of Augustine (died 26 May 604). The church, dedicated to the Virgin Mary, was located about 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) from what is now Ely Cathedral at a place called Cratendune. The date mentioned for this founding was the year 607, three years after Augustine's death. This incongruity was attributed by Bentham to a mistake by the monk transcribing this history.
Fairweather, translating the same Latin text, records the site 1.6 kilometres (1 mi) from the present site of the Cathedral:
In times of old , so it is said, there was a vill, that is, in Latin, vallis Cracti a mile away from the city which now exists. There one frequently finds implements of iron-work and the coinage of past kings, and the fact that it was for a long time a place inhabited by men is clear from various pieces of evidence. But after Æthelthryth, beloved of God, chose to dwell there, ...she sited her living-quarters near the course of the river, on higher ground
Staffed by Benedictine monks, the church was abandoned, perhaps destroyed in around 650 by or on the orders of the pagan Penda of Mercia.
No direction is indicated in Liber Eliensis; a number of archaeological sites, therefore, are candidates for this lost village. Two candidate locations are based on the survival of the toponym Cratenden. One, Cratendon Field, was identified as the lost site by the antiquarian James Bentham just south of the city of Ely, and the identification was repeated by James Sargant Storer, in The Antiquarian Itinerary, 1816. Janet Fairweather notes that in the Ely Coucher book Cratendune Field is listed next to Grunty Fen, corroborating this identification. Cratendune also survived as a toponym associated with Chettisham in a 1251 survey.
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