THE ABBOTS OF BORDESLEY: A PROVISIONAL LIST
Although the structural history of Bordesley abbey, Redditch
(Worcs, England), is now relatively well-known through the important
excavations at the site,1 the documentary history of this important
Cis-tercian house remains largely neglected.2 The present paper is intended
to go a little way towards redressing this neglect by offering a provisio—
nal list of the abbots of Bordesley from the time of its foundation in
1138 until its dissolution four centuries later in 1538. This is by no
me-ans the first attempt to reconstruct the abbatial succession for the
hou-se. For example, lists of abbots were offered by antiquaries such as
Browne Willis, Thomas Tanner, Treadway Nash, and the later editors
of William Dugdale's Monasticon Anglicanum, as well as by more
re-cent scholars and historians.3 However, on closer analysis, these (what
I shall term) «antiquarian lists» prove to be lacking in various respects,
while the most recent and scholarly list of abbots of Bordesley does not
go beyond 1222.4
l. P. A. RAHIZ and S. M. HIRST. Bordesley Abbey [I], Redditch, Hereford-Worcestershire: First Report on Excavations 1969-1973, B.A.R., British Series, 23 (Oxford, 1976); S. M. HIRST, D. A. WALSH, and S. M. WRIGHT, Bordesley Abbey 1!: Second Report on Excavations at Bordesley Abbey, Redditch, Hereford-Worcestershire, B.A.R., British Series, 111 (Oxford, 1983); G. G, As‘rILL and S. J. ALLEN, A Medieval In-dustrial Complex and its landscape: The Metalworking Watermills and Workshops of Bordesley Abbey. Bordesley Abbey III, C.B.A., Research Report, 92 (York, 1993).
2. Since the publication of J. M. Woodward's now out-dated The History ofBordesley Abbey, in the Valley oft/1e Arrow, near Redditch, Worcestershire (London & Oxford, 1866), there has been only one no-table (but unpublished) study of the house: S. PRICE, «The Early History of Bordesley Abbey» (M.A. dis-sertation, University of Birmingham, 1971). Otherwise, see M. DICKENS, A Thousand Years of Tardebig— ge (Birmingham, 1931), esp. abs 3 and 4; Victoria County History: Worcestershire, edd. H. A. Doubleday et (11., 5 vols (London, 1901-26), 11, 151-54; and, S. WRIGI-rr, «Historical notes», in RAHU and HIRS'I‘, Bor— desley Abbey [I], pp. 16-23.
3. B. WILLIS, An History oft/1e Mitred Parliamentary Abbies, and Conventual Cathedral Churches, 2 vols (London, 1718-19), 11, Appendix p. 29; T. TANNER, Notitia Monastica,‘ or, an Account ofall the Abbies, Priories, and Houses of Friers, formerly in England and Wales, and also ofall the Colleges and Hospitals founded before A.D. MDXL (Cambridge, 1787), p. xlviii; T. R. NASH, Collections for the History and Anti-quities ofWorcesters/Iire, 2 vols (London, 1799), II, 407; W. DUGDALE, Monasticon Anglicanum,‘ A History of the Abbies and other Monasteries, Hospitals, Frieries, and Cathedral and Collegiate Churches, with their Dependencies, in England and Wales, rev. ed. by J. CALEY, H. ELLIS, and B. BANDINEI., 6 vols in 8 parts (London, 1817-30; repr. Famborough, 1970), V, 407. See also: WOODWARD, History ofBordesley, pp. 72— 76; DICKENS, Tardebigge, p. 32; VCH Worcs., II, 154; N. S. BAUGH, A Worcestershire Miscellany compiled by John Northwood, c. 1400 edited from British Museum MS. Add. 37,787 (Philadelphia, 1956), pp. 32-33.
4. D. KNOWLES, C. N. L. BROOKE and V. C. LONDON, The Heads ofReligious Houses. England and Wales 940-1216 (Cambridge, 1972), p. 127.
