Queen Cynethryth of Mercia's Lost Abbey

Gone Medieval

History Hit

History

4.6 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2021

⏱️ 31 minutes

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Summary

Queen Cynethryth of Mercia was one of the most distinguished rulers of Anglo Saxon Britain. Wife to King Offa, ruler of the Mercians (the most powerful kingdom in Anglo-Saxon Britain) and the only woman to have coinage minted in her image. So how did she end up in Cookham Monastery in Berkshire? After the exciting excavation and discovery of the monastery this past summer, Cynethryth’s story is finally being told. In today’s episode, Cat is joined by Professor Gabor Thomas, an associate professor in archaeology at the University of Reading, and the archaeologist in charge of excavating the Cookham Monastery. Together they discuss Cynethrtyh’s importance as a medieval Queen and the roles medieval monasteries played beyond being a place of worship.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Have you ever wondered why one of Ruan Cathedral's towers is called the Tower of Butter, or what
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0:34.2	Hello and welcome to Gone Medieval by History Hit. I'm Dr. Kat Jarman. This summer saw the
0:40.6	announcement that a previously lost monastery dating to the 8th century had been discovered
0:46.0	in Berkshire by a team from the University of Reading. The monastery is associated with a very
0:51.2	unique and powerful queen of the kingdom of Mercia, Cornithrith, who was the wife of the slightly
0:56.7	more familiar name King Offer. This week I'm talking to the archaeologist in charge of those
1:02.0	excavations and asking him not just what he discovered, but also to tell me more about
1:07.5	Cornithrith's remarkable career as a Mercia queen and also their roles for these monasteries,
1:12.8	which were far more than just places for monks and nuns to hide out and pray.
1:17.6	I'm delighted to welcome to the podcast today, Dr. Gabor Thomas, who is an associate professor in
1:25.9	the Department of Archaeology at the University of Reading, and he specialises in the early medieval
1:31.4	period and particularly settlements and religious sites. So thank you so much for joining us
1:37.0	today Gabor. Thank you for inviting me. Now congratulations on your big discovery on excavations
1:44.3	this year. That's really great news. Yeah, well this is the sort of stuff that I'm really into,
1:49.3	so it's a great privilege to be back on the trail of an Anglo-Saxon monastery. Yeah, fantastic. We're
1:55.6	also excited to hear about it. So we're going to get to that later on, but I was hoping that before
2:01.3	we talk about the actual dig and what you found, to get a bit more context for a listness and sort
2:07.1	of bring us back to 8th century Mercia. And so I wanted to ask a little bit more about this
	...

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