Agricultural History Review, Volume 56 Part 2 (2008), p. 215

This lavish production owes much to the injection of Local Heritage Initiative funding. It provides an extensive analysis of the development of Leominster from the foundation of its Saxon minster c. 660 until the Dissolution in 1539 of the successor priory established by Henry I (not Henry II as the back cover proclaims) as a dependency of Reading Abbey. There is a list of abbreviations along with a single set of notes, undivided by chapter, running to 24 pages in double column and, even more frustrating, a single index of persons, places and subjects; a proper bibliography and footnotes would greatly have facilitated the volume’s scholarly use. The volume is copiously illustrated.

Much is made of the seventh-century minster of Sts Edfrith, Hæmma and Æthelmod, its precinct built on an island site and the huge 12-mile wide dependent parochia. Its parallels as a site of historical significance with Glastonbury are explored. But apart from the Secgan, most of this is extrapolation to fit in with Leland’s stories; in reality we know so little of these early institutions as is shown by the dearth of historical data for Brixworth, Clapham’s ‘most imposing architectural memorial of the seventh century surviving north of the Alps.’

Leominster seems to have become a double house, perhaps a daughter of the nunnery of Shaftesbury, by the early eleventh century: Wulfgeat of Donnington’s will and John of Worcester’s obit for Earl Leofric of Mercia (cited p.269, n.111) both use the word cœnobium of Leominster, rather than monasterium. It is assumed that the minster priests became prebendaries serving both the nuns and the parochia: in fact what evidence there is for this phenomenon comes primarily from the royal nunneries of Wessex.

There are interesting, and attractively illustrated, chapters discussing the fabric of the Romanesque priory church, the parochial nave and their decoration. Others examine Leominster’s library and relic collections. Those cataloguing the priory’s influence on the location, development and shape of the borough are somehow less convincing.