Colchester Abbey

Colchester Abbey

Colchester Abbey was an Benedictine abbey in Colchester (Grid reference TL994242 or TL994266).

In 1120 Eudo Dapifer, steward to William I and Henry II, was buried there, whilst May 1157 Henry II held a trial in the Abbey concerning the right of the pope to over rule him on matters of religion.

John Ballard, an archer, captured the archdeacon of Paris during the latter part of the fourteenth century. He deserted from the army before entering Calais and smuggled his prisoner into Colchester Abbey and finally sold him in London for £50.

1523 John Rainsford was accused by Richard Vynes, an ex-servant of the abbot of Colchester, of committing a murder within the sanctuary of Colchester Abbey. Rainsford's answer to the evidence against him was that he had been conversing with the victim when two men entered and killed him after a struggle in which Rainsford's efforts to protect him failed because he was unarmed at the time; not realizing the seriousness of the victims wounds, Rainsford had tried to succour him and was thus found with the body.

In 1539 Colchester abbey was dissolved and its abbot, Thomas Marshall, hanged outside its gates for refusing to sign it over to Henry VIII.


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