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Malmesbury History
Eilmer
Malmesbury - History
Eilmer was a monk of Malmesbury Abbey who in circa 1010 attempted to fly from the top of the Abbey using a ‘glider’ he had fashioned for himself. He managed to cover more than a furlong (just over 200m) in active flight before falling and breaking both of his legs. When he attributed his lack of proper success to having to tail, and wished to try again, the Abbot refused to allow him and he returned to his talents in astronomy, living to a good age.
St. Aldhelm
Malmesbury - History
Aldhelm, Saxon by birth and possibly closely related to the Kings of Wessex, succeeded Maildulph as the head of Malmesbury Abbey circa 675. After being ordained as a priest, he became perhaps the first Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey.
King Athelstan
Malmesbury - History
Athelstan, born in 895, was the favourite grandson of Alfred and was elected to succeed him upon his death, although it required him to ‘remove’ two opponents also in competition for the throne. He was the first king to be crowned on the Kings Stone at Kingston-on-Thames, the first to be knighted by a king, the first to be anointed at a coronation and, perhaps most significantly, the first king of all ‘Britain’. He was also the first king in England to introduce a common currency; silver coins were imprinted with his head.
Maildulph
Malmesbury - History
Maildulph was a 7th century Irish-Celt monk who founded a Hermits Cell (settlement where a group of Christian Hermits would live religiously, in seclusion) on the site of the present Abbey in around the year 600. He also became a famous religious teacher, founding a small monastery school for sons of the nobility. He either retired or died around 675, to be succeeded by Aldhelm who would later become the town’s first Abbot.
