Ramsey Abbey

Ramsey Abbey is a former Benedictine abbey located in Ramsey, Cambridgeshire, England, southeast of Peterborough.

Ramsey Abbey was founded in 969 by Saint Oswald, Bishop of Worcester through the gift of a local magnate, Æthelwine. The foundation was part of the mid-10th century English Benedictine reform, in which Ely and Peterborough were also refounded. It paid 4000 eels yearly in Lent to Peterborough Abbey for access to its quarries of Barnack limestone. The important Ramsey Psalter or Psalter of Oswald (British Library) appears to have been made for it around 980. This is not to be confused with another Ramsey Psalter in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York (MS M. 302), made between 1286 and 1316.

A Prior and twelve monks formed the original foundation. The Abbey itself was then situated on a peninsula of gravel, known as Bodsey Island, with the impassable fen to three sides. The chapel was replaced by a large, stone-built church over the next five years and thus remained until the Norman Abbot created a much grander project in the 12th century. It was thought to have been founded by Earl Ailwyn (Æthelwine), an effigy of whom is thought to be within the Abbey dating from 1230.

Considerable damage was inflicted upon the Abbey by Geoffrey de Mandeville in 1143; he expelled the monks and used the buildings as a fortress.

In the order of precedence for abbots in Parliament, Ramsey was third after Glastonbury and St Alban's.

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