Missenden Abbey
"Missenden Abbey" - country house dating from 1574
|
|
 Location within Buckinghamshire
|
|
| Monastery information | |
|---|---|
| Order | Arrouasian (Augustinian) |
| Established | 1133 |
| Disestablished | 1538 |
| Mother house | Arrouaise Abbey |
| Diocese | Diocese of Lincoln |
| People | |
| Founder(s) | William de Missenden |
| Site | |
| Location | Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire |
| Coordinates | 51°42′03″N 0°42′10″W / 51.700759°N 0.702853°WCoordinates: 51°42′03″N 0°42′10″W / 51.700759°N 0.702853°W |
| Grid reference | SP8901 |
Missenden Abbey (also referred to as Great Missenden Abbey) was a former Arrouasian (Augustinian) monastery, founded in 1133 in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom. The abbey was dissolved in 1538, and the abbey church demolished. In 1574 a house, also known as Missenden Abbey, was constructed on the site of the monastic cloisters, incorporating some of the monastic remains. The house was altered several times, gaining its current "Regency Gothic" style at the beginning of the 19th-century. The house was "gutted" by fire in 1985 and subsequently rebuilt.
The abbey of Missenden was founded c.1133, by William de Missenden, the lord of Missenden manor. Two of the abbey's foundation charters (those issued by King Henry I, and by Alexander, Bishop of Lincoln) state there were originally seven canons, who came to Missenden from "the church of St. Mary 'de Bosco (or de Nemore) de pago Terresino". This church - thought to have been in Ruisseauville, France - was a daughter house of Arrouaise Abbey, also in France. Missenden thus became the home of the first abbey in Buckinghamshire and the second Arrouasian community in England, after Warter Abbey in East Yorkshire.
"The Arrouasian canons differed very little from other Augustinians, and sometimes abandoned at an early date the slight distinctions they originally had". The Arrouasian Order "never seem to have been really an independent order with special privileges", and thus often were not distinguished from canons of the Augustinian Order.
During a visit conducted between 1431 and 1436, William Grey, Bishop of Lincoln, found that the abbey did not have enough canons to perform its religious duties, and that some of the abbey's buildings were in need of repair.
...
Wikipedia