Alnesbourn Priory and the lost parish of Hallowtree
As recorded in Domesday 1066 [1], beside the river Orwell between Nacton and Ipswich was Aluesbrunna, a tiny settlement consisting of only 4 households, 1 lord’s plough team, 6 acres of meadow and 60 sheep [2].Whilst Aluesbrunna no longer exists and is believed to lie under the site of Alnesbourn Priory some 1.2km to the southwest, the priory at Alnesbourn was to become one of the smallest Austin priories in Suffolk with just 12 clerics following canon law in liturgy, preaching and social activities in 1291.
Alnesbourn was in the now lost ancient parish of Hallowtree, in the deanery of Colneis. Numerous spellings have been recorded over the centuries since being first recorded as a parish in 1254 [3], Halghetree, Halwetr, Haletre, Halewecr, Halwetree or Halghtre before it was abolished in 1934 with parts of the parish going to Ipswich and the parish of Nacton shortly after the ecclesiastical boundary change that created Ipswich St. Augustine in 1928.
The priory of Alnesbourn was founded in the 13th Century by Albert de Neville and dedicated to St. Mary. It was a satellite of Woodbridge Priory with the church being granted to the priory in 1301, before being annexed by the priory of Woodbridge in 1452 before becoming ruinous around 1514 [4].
For such a small parish, it appears, as records are somewhat disputed, that it contained a variety of ecclesiastical buildings. The lease and tithe deeds of 1530 of the ‘chyrche of Halowtre’ implies that there were 3 separate locations or buildings for the priory, chapel and a church, though Anthony Breen [5] favours the site originally being that of the parish church of St. Felix at Hallowtree which was later rededicated as a chapel to St. Petronilla, meaning they were one and the same [6]. Bizarrely, in 1530 Alnesbourn was leased to a Thomas Alvard on condition that he did not permit the setting up of pews within the chapel of St. Petronilla, [7] the daughter of St. Peter. Interestingly, the skull of St. Petronilla, or Pernell, was preserved as a holy relic by the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds [8].
The name Hallowtree comes from ‘Holy Tree’ and whilst it does not appear in Doomsday, with the earliest references to the parish appearing in medieval deeds from the late 1220’s onwards [9] trees often appear as early forms of religious symbols. Despite the Christian conversion, trees and posts that would have been supplanted by wooden or stone crosses, continued to retain a firm symbolic place in the early medieval landscape [10]. In England in the 11th Century, laws were passed prohibiting the veneration of trees under the Laws of the Scandinavian King Knut that outlawed the ‘veneration of pagan gods.’
Throughout late antique England, trees marked significant meeting places where important political decisions were made, maintaining ideological ties with human and supernatural authority. The wild woodlands of the British Isles were the equivalents of the desert wildernesses in the Bible, unmastered, untamed and places sought out by saints in order to wrestle with demons and to test their faith [11]. Landscape features such as an ancient tree or a well could be sites of numinous power as the landscape became a palimpsest, remodelled and repurposed for the laity, overlaying existing sites rather than having to create new ones [12].
References
1. Rumble, A. (ed.) (1986) Domesday Book – Suffolk.
2. Oxford Archaeology (2013) Excavation Report No: 1507 Archaeological Excavation at Site 1b, Nacton Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IPS718.
3. Scarfe, N. (1976) Suffolk: A Shell Guide.
4. British History Online. A History of the County of Suffolk: Volume 2. Houses of Austin canons: Priory of Alnesbourn.
https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/suff/vol2/p91
5. Breen, A. (2008) Appendix 4 Documentary Survey, in Loader, T (2009) Archeological Excavation Report, Larks Meadow, Purdis Farm PFM 008. SCCAS REPORT No. 2009/256.
6. Loader, T. (2009) Archeological Excavation Report, Larks Meadow, Purdis Farm PFM 008. SCCAS REPORT No. 2009/256.
7. Breen, A. (2008) Appendix 4 Documentary Survey, in Loader, T (2009) Archeological Excavation Report, Larks Meadow, Purdis Farm PFM 008. SCCAS REPORT No. 2009/256.
8. Clay, R.M. (2013) Mediaeval Hospitals of England.
9. Breen, A. (2008) Appendix 4 Documentary Survey, in Loader, T (2009) Archeological Excavation Report, Larks Meadow, Purdis Farm PFM 008. SCCAS REPORT No. 2009/256.
10. Bintley, M.D.J & Shapland, M.G. (2013) Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World. Oxford University Press. Oxford
11. Hooke, D. Christianity and the ‘Sacred Tree’, in Bintley, M.D.J & Shapland, M.G. (2013) Trees and Timber in the Anglo-Saxon World. Oxford University Press.
12. Blair, J. (2005) The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford University Press.