Bermondsey Abbey

Bermondsey Abbey was an English Benedictine monastery. Most widely known as an 11th-century foundation, it had a precursor mentioned in the early eighth century, and was centred on what is now Bermondsey Square, the site of Bermondsey Market, Bermondsey, in the London Borough of Southwark, southeast London, England.FoundationA monastery is known to have existed at Bermondsey before 715 AD, when it was a Surrey colony of the important Mercian monastery of Medeshamstede, later known as Peterborough. Though surviving only in a copy written at Peterborough in the 12th century, a letter of Pope Constantine (708-715) grants privileges to a monastery at Vermundesei. This monastery likely continued, probably as a secular minster, at least until the 9th-century Viking invasions.Nothing more is heard of any church at Bermondsey until 1082, when, according to the "Annales Monasterii de Bermundeseia", a monastery was founded there by one Alwinus Child, with royal licence. Given the trend to continuity of sacred sites, this church most likely was founded on the site of the earlier monastery. This foundation possibly was a direct successor to the church last mentioned in the early 8th century.