St Benet's Hulme

St Benet's Abbey

St Benet's Abbey and wharf from the River Bure
Location within Norfolk
Monastery information
Other names	St Benet's Abbey, Holme
Order	Order of St Benedict
Established	9th century
Diocese	Norwich
People
Important associated figures	Saint Suneman; Saint Wulfric; Abbot Elsinus; Abbot Aelfwold; King Canute; John of Oxnead; Conrad, prior of Christ Church Cathedral Priory, Canterbury; Hugh, abbot of Lagny; Sir John Fastolf; Bishop William Rugg
Site
Location	Norfolk, England
Coordinates	52°41′11″N 1°31′29″E / 52.6864°N 1.5247°E / 52.6864; 1.5247
Visible remains	gatehouse, lower walls of sanctuary and earthworks
Public access	yes
Other information	Property of Norfolk Archaeological Trust, Diocese of Norwich

St Benet's Abbey was a medieval monastery of the Order of Saint Benedict, also known as St Benet's at Holme or Hulme. It was situated on the River Bure within the Broads in Norfolk England. St Benet is a medieval English version of the name of St Benedict of Nursia, hailed as the founder of western monasticism. At the period of the Dissolution of the Monasteries the abbey's possessions were in effect seized by the crown and assigned to the diocese of Norwich. Though the monastery was supposed to continue as a community, within a few years at least the monks had dispersed. Today there remain only ruins.

The early history of the monastery has to be told tentatively since it is difficult to reconcile the surviving sources which what is known of the bigger picture of the development of the area. It is said that St Benet's was founded on the site of a ninth-century monastery where the hermit Suneman was martyred by the Danes. About the end of the tenth century it was rebuilt by one Wulfric. A generation later, c. 1022, King Canute conferred on it his manors of Horning, Ludham and Neatishead..

Canute appears to have endowed at the same time another Benedictine monastery that was later Bury St Edmunds Abbey, at Beodricsworth, afterwards known as St Edmundsbury, where since the early 10th century, the relics of the martyred king, St Edmund had been venerated. With this new endowment, under the auspices of the Bishop of Elmham and Dunwich, the original community was reinforced or replaced by a party consisting of half of the monks of St Benet's Abbey under Prior Uvius or Ufi. They arrived bearing half of all the furniture, books, sacred vestments and other worship items belonging to St Benet's. Ufi became Bury's first abbot and governed until his death in 1043. He was blessed as abbot by the Bishop of London. His successor (1044–1065) was Leofstan, another of the former St Benet's monks.