Local historians approve Colchester YAC's "Tudor Web" trail


 Colchester YAC's trail has been approved and checked for historic accuracy by two leading local historians and is set to be updated on Monday
 One of our teenage members is writing up some of the tragic stories of the ordinary people who were caught in the web and suffered an extraordinary fate. Two other members have made a study of the Reformation and will write up their findings, highlighting the terrible fate which befell the last abbot of St Johns Abbey.
    We have received more enquiries for membership in the past week. Hopefully they can all be accommodated as the worst of the pandemic subsides are we are able to ensure we have enough volunteers to monitor them at meetings. We are also planning an event, at the end of July, at Roman Circus House and gardens. All potential members will be invited to that. We will also showcase the research and artworks members and volunteers have produced for our project "Caught in a Tudor Web" and the trail of the town we explored in January, (using the John Speed 1610 map, above). 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Colchester infirmary caught in the "Tudor Web"

Image
The church of St Helen and the Holy Cross. This artist's impression places it in the position it held in Crouch Street, Colchester. I received two items posted through my letterbox this week which relate to our project "caught in a Tudor Web". These included some notes and puzzles on the Reformation from a new ten-year-old member of the club. She had studied the reformation and provided additional information on the religious houses in Colchester, which were closed and demolished in the Tudor period. She writes:- "Crutched Friars or The Hospital of the Holy Cross and St Helen, was founded before 1230 by William de Lanvelli, became a secular hospital or free chapel. Dissolved 1538.   Greyfriars, founded before 1237 by Robert, Lord Fitzwalter, dissolved 1538."   Articles in copies of "The Colchester Archaeologist" confirm the Hospital of the Holy Cross and St Helen, was indeed founded to support the poor and the sick. Those services were lost when it was
Read more

Caught and destroyed in the "Tudor Web"

Image
 Upheavals and reform in the Tudor period transformed the built environment in Essex. All that is left of a once great Benedictine Abbey, south of Colchester's town walls is its magnificent gatehouse. YAC Adam writes:- "St John's Abbey was founded in 1096 by Eudo Dapifer with the order of St Benedict (Benedictines). The Abbey was the largest abbey in Colchester and the fourth largest abbey in England. It was built where "miraculous voices" could be heard. Eudo even claimed to have witnessed a miracle at that site. Eudo is also known to have laid the first stone of the Abbey and the Abbey was burned partially in a large fire that affected the town in 1133. The Abbey also received a vial of St Thomas a Becket's blood from a monk named Ralph. This vial was the Abbey's most important relic. The Abbey was the victim of a mob attack during the peasant's revolt. The Abbey was also believed to have supported the Plantagenets leading to Richard lll's mothe
Read more

A from "ordinary to extraordinary" story

Image
   Here is the story which "inspired" the YACs and school children:-   A cricket pavilion overlooking Great Bentley village green was built on the exact spot of the cottage of William Munt, his wife, Alice Munt, and her twenty-year-old daughter, Rose.    In 1556 they had such strong beliefs and faith, that, with twenty-two other protestants, they were arrested and sent to London. They were cross examined by Queen Mary Tudor’s Bishop Bonner. He sent them back to their home after deciding they were no threat to the authority of the Catholic Church and the Pope.    William Munt was a farm labourer. His wife Alice, and her daughter Rose, were “spinsters”. That does not necessarily mean they were unmarried but that they spun wool into yarn for the cloth trade. The Earl of Oxford from Hedingham Castle, Lord Darcy and Master Tyrrell both of St Osyth were among those Justices and commissioners who had ordered their arrest.    Protestants were people who questioned the authority, trad
Read more