Benedictine Site Excavations
March 1934
THE STORY OF THE BENEDICTINE MONASTERY, AND DISCOVERIES ON ITS ANCIENT SITE
The story of the Benedictine Monastery is one of great interest to all Coventry people and to thousands who have never entered the city. It would appear that long before this Monastery was founded, a Nunnery stood on the site, named "St. Osburg, a holy Virgin," but very little is known about this. It was destroyed by Edric the Traitor when he fired several places in Warwickshire.
Pool Meadow, which years ago was a low lying meadow, and took the overflow from the River Sherbourne, is mentioned in 1480 as "St. Osburg's Pool," and would at the period of the Nunnery be a pool for fishing. Only 27 years elapsed after the destruction of the Nunnery when Earl Leofric and Countess Godiva founded a Monastery for 24 Benedictine monks, and a Charter of Edward the Confessor, discovered in 1887 by Mr. Walter de Grey Birch, F.S.A, has thrown additional light on the early history of Coventry. Mr. Samuel Timmins, F.S.A., says it has helped to confirm rather than to correct the details already given.
It is said this Charter was overlooked by Dugdale, although he knew of Leofric's Charter (1043), the Papal Bull, of Pope Alexander (1043), and William the Conqueror's Charter (1086). Edward the Confessor's Charter is a single sheet of parchment 91/2-ins. by 71/2-ins., contains twenty-three lines written in the sharp upright letters of that period, and in ink (now) of a dark yellow tint. Leofric is said to have founded the Abbey Church on the north of the "Vil" of Coventry.
The spelling of "Coventry" is varied in these Charters; in Edward the Confessor's Charter it is "Covaentre"; in Leofric's and the Pope's, "Countr"; in the Conqueror's it is spelt "Coventrea."
Next month a copy of the Charter above mentioned will be printed in my article on the Benedictine Monastery. - J.B.S.
