Many - or maybe even most - medieval monasteries constructed a

foundation legend for themselves. The most well-known of these is probably

the myth surrounding the role of Joseph of Arimathea in the foundation of

Glastonbury Abbey.

Overall, though, these legends have been mostly ignored by historians

and literary scholars alike. For historians, it seems, these legends, with their

fantastical elements, were just to frivolous to consider as ‘real’ sources, while

scholars interested in literature seem to have considered them too much of a

historical source to be worthy of their attention. The last ten years, however,

have seen a slight raise in interest in these legends, especially since the

publication of Amy Remensyder’s 1995 Remembering Kings Past: Monastic

Foundation Legends in Southern France. Until now, however, no

comprehensive study of the foundation legends of English monasteries exists

– even though a lot of the source material has always been relatively easily

available to scholars in printed editions of local chronicles and other records.

Sadly , the majority of these legends from English monasteries have not

been passed down to us in written form. In my research, I have only come

across roughly fourty foundations in England written records of their

foundations, either in Chronicles or Fundationes. And while this more

comprehensive study is clearly outside of the scope of this paper, I will use

legend surrounding the foundation of the abbey of Waltham as an example

for how many of these monastic communities created a legend that not only
provided them with an identity, but also allowed them to tie that identity to a

specific place in time and space.

Before talking about the legend, I would just like to take a few

moments to also talk about the chronicle in which is occurs. The Waltham

Chronicle “an account of the discovery of the holy cross at Monatcute and its

conveyance to Waltham” has only survived in thirteenth and fourteenth

century manuscripts. The chronicler, who, as is typical, is anonymous, must

have started writing shortly after the secular college at Waltham was

dissolved in 1177. While it doesn’t seem likely that he had any other

narrative sources of the house to draw upon – he did draw heavily on other

sources such as the foundation charter of King Edward, lists of valuables,

treasures, relics and a number of other legal documents.

The legends opening lines take on a tone that almost reminds one of a

fairy tale: “When Cnut was on the throne ruling the English, there lived in a

place called Montacute, which my fellow-countrymen called Ludgersbury, a

man who was a smith by trade. He was a very honest, good-natured and

benevolent man who feared Gand and shunned evil, one of the kind of men

God loves with a holy regards for their piety.” Indeed, the opening chapter

goes into great detail about the live of this smith. We learn that he was

entrusted with the responsiblility of looking after the water, fire and the

lamps of the parish church – even a “model of how to live.”

 One night, though, most likely around 1035, the smith had a vision. In

this vision, a figure, bathed in light, orders the smith to tell the priest that

God wishes the congregation of the town to climb upon a hill (which hill is

interestingly not specified here) and dig, so that “through a revelation of

God’s grace, they find a treasure hidden for generations; a cross, the symbol

of our Lord’s holy passion.”

As is typical for this kind of story, he is dissuaded by his wife at first,

but the repetition of this vision over the next few nights, as well as the threat

and eventual reality of violence by the holy figure, which “looking at him

fiercely and uttering threats” and in addition to those threats “it did

something frightening, for it gripped the smiths arm with such violence that

it left clear imprints of its sharp fingernails and weakened the power of his

arm for wielding the hammer” – this violent reaction leads him to run to the

priest, show the marks on his body.

After calling the parish together, they finally climb the hill and discover

two crosses (one large, one small), a bell, and a book at the top of the hill –

clearly a case of the angel underpromising and overdelivering. The local lord,

Tovi the Proud, a prominent advisor to Cnut, promises the cross to all the

large cathedral cities in England, yet the oxen who draw the wagon the cross

was loaded on refuse to move until Tovi finally mentions the small town of

Waltham and the cart starts moving. On its way, the cross already starts

performing numerous miracles. “countless numbers of people who were

suffering from all sorts of diseases were restored to health. Of these 66

dedicted themselves to the service of the holy corss to the end of their

lives.”I think it is important to note here that the author very explicitly draws

a connection between the miracles of the cross and monasticism.

Tovi and his wife later become important benefactors to the church at

Waltham where the cross is installed.

The reason I have to spend so much time telling you the foundation legend is

because as far as monastic foundation legends go, this one is very, very

detailed. The Waltham Chronicle consists of 33 chapters. The author

dedicated exactly one-third of these to the telling of the foundation legend.

This is an interesting phenomenon, because the author, in the later

part of the chronicle, tends to place a lot of emphasis on the fact that he

either has talked to witnesses for the events described (no matter how

miraculous they might be) or that he has been a witness himself.

While studying the foundation legends surrounding the establishment

of English monasteries between the 11th and 13th century, one thing that

quickly becomes apparent is how often these legends speak of the exact

location of where the foundation was to be built. The legend of Wroxhall

provides a good example for this, with not just one, but two instances of this

clear geographical delineation of a sacred space in its legend.

Eliade defines the sequence through which a space becomes sacred as

follows: “A sacred space constitutes a break in the homogeneity of space;

this break is symbolized by an opening by which passage from one cosmic

region to another is made possible (from heaven to earth and vice versa;

from earth to the underworld); communication with heaven is expressed by

one or another of certain images, all of which refer to the axis mundi: pillar,

ladder, mountain, tree, vine, etc.” Sometimes, though, a theophany or

hierophany is not even needed for the creation of a sacred space. According

to Eliade, any sign that can be explained as not belonging to this world can

potentially be interpreted to indicate the sacredness of a place. Eliade

argues that ‘religious man’, as he puts it, needs to create a sacred space set

aside from profane space, because “the irruption of the sacred does not only

project a fixed point into the formless fluidity of profane space, a center into

chaos; it also effect a break in plane, that is, it opens communication

between the cosmic planes […] and makes possible the ontological passage

from one mode of being to another.”

Eliade terms these irruptions of the sacred ‘hierophanies,’ which he

defines as an “act of manifestation of the sacred” where “something sacred

shows itself to us”. It is through these hierophanies, for example, that a tree,

a stone, or a place becomes different from the profane world. Eliade also

argues that man inherently needs these profane spaces, as it is through

them that he is able to explain and order the profane world. As an example

for how this takes a concrete form, Eliade cites how medieval city walls were

often consecrated as “a defense again the devil, sickness, and death.”

Clearly, while this in itself is not a hierophany, the city wall, now that it is

consecrated stands in a different plane from the profane world.

Our author, I think uses these hierophanies in the foundation legend of

Waltham in order to create an identity for his own house that is set very

purposely in a specific geographical location. The author dedicates almost

the whole 9th chapter to what is basically a litany of all the great cathedrals

in England, where Tovi promises the relics to Canterbury and Glastonbury

and London and Winchester, only to have the cross stubbornly stay put.

However, “Remembering at last an abode of his of which he was very fond at

Reading, he prayed to Christ with many tears that He be pleased to grant the

reomoval of the relics to that place to be a protection and an honour to Tove

and his descendants.” But clearly Christ was not very pleased with this idea,

as the cross still refuses to move.

But, at last, Tovi remembers “a lowly hut which he had begin to build in

a woodland region which is now called Waltham, a pleast place surrounded

by luxurious woods, provided with a river full of fish which is called the Lea,

its picturesque, fertile meadowes made it a delightful spot.”

The chronicler here almost sounds like he is writing a tourist guide, but

his choice of words here is also clearly not accidental. This is the first time

Waltham is mentioned in its own chronicle, one third into the text, and so it

seems only right to praise this place, where the author and most of the

readers he is writing for have spend the largest part of their lives. At the
same time, the chronicler has set this scene up very carefully as well. The

place mentioned before, Reading, had, in the life-time of the author seen the

foundation of Reading Abbey in 1121 by Henry the 1st. One might wonder if

the author is making a sly political comment here against

In the course of its history, Waltham becomes very closely associated with

Harold II, who not only builds a larger church for the cross, and installs the

monastic community there in 1030, but also donates a large number of relics

to the abbey (including a piece of the True Cross) (NOTE archeological find!)

and makes it his last place to pray before going into battle at Hastings. After

his death, the monks, according to the Chronicle, ask the Conqueror for his

body and bury him in the church. However, while the Conqueror looks

benevolently upon the abbey (and the chronicler goes through great pains to

stress this), his successors feel no such connection and the fortunes of the

monks start waning rapidly. In 1177, Henry II dissolves the community and

installs a group of Augustinian canons there instead. This event is bemoaned

early on by the chronicler who himself was a member of the original group of

monks installed by Harold. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the house

profited from this and quickly became one of the wealthiest Augustinian

houses and profited greatly from the royal patronage, which, in some ways,

might explain why it was also to become the last of all English monasteries

to be dissolved (1540).
 Scholars have often assumed that the Waltham Chronicle is only an

incomplete document. However, as I will argue in this paper, I think that the

author has actually carefully crafted the legend of the invention of the cross

with a framing narrative that reaches from the discovery of the cross to the

dissolution of the early community. Not only did the chronicler provide the

monastic community at Waltham with a clear sense of identity, but he also

helped them to explain the rise and fall of the original monastic community

at Waltham.