Haughmond Abbey, West Midlands, England

Haughmond Abbey, also known as the Abbey of St. John the Evangelist, began as a small religious community, established at Haughmond at the end of the 11th Century. Around 50 years later, it formally became an Augustian Abbey in 1135.  The patrons of the monastery were the FitzAlan family, who were Lords of Oswestry and Clun.  This guaranteed the Abbey generous gifts and endowments and this prosperity can be seen in the extent of the Abbey buildings, as well as their decoration. 

Everyday day the Canons at Haughmond, like other monastic communities, would meet in the chapter house to discuss business with the Abbot and to deal with other matters affecting the Abbey.  These meetings always began with a reading to the ‘Chapter’, from the rules of the order, which is where the name chapter house comes from. 

Augustian orders of Canons or Canonesses, were known as the Black Canons. They based their rules and the way they organised their lives, on the writings of St. Augustine of Hippo, after whom the order was named.  The Canons were ordained Priests, which distinguished them from Monks, of whom only some were Priests. Augustian Canons did not necessarily lead secluded lives but instead, often worked or travelled outside their monasteries, often attending to the needs of local communities. 

An ordinance of 1332, called for the upgrading of the cooking and dining facilities at Haughmond, as well as the improvement in the ‘simple’ food eaten in the refectory.  A new kitchen was to be built quickly and using reliable local sources, meat and fish, fuel, flour, peas and all kinds of pottage, bronze cooking vessels, cheese and butter, were to be purchased out of the Abbey funds.  Furthermore, pigs were to be reared in a pigsty outside the Abbey gate and 20 supplied each year to the kitchen, together with two consignments of wheat per year, for baking and making pastry.  This was after the Earl of Chester granted the Abbey the use of a boat on the River Dee and the rights to purchase, on special terms, up to 6,000 herrings per year at Chester. 

Reference was also made to the ‘cellarer’, which tells us that ale was drunk and possibly brewed on the premises.  Mead may also have been brewed from honey, as in the mid-12th Century, as the Canons were granted half of a swarm of bees, in the woods at Hardwick. 

Augustinian monastic communities were often quite small and modestly appointed. During the middle ages, over 200 Augustian houses were established in Britain, with particular concentrations located in the Midlands and East Anglia. 

Many carvings of Saints appear around the Chapter house. Even in their worn state, they can still be identified.  The detailed figure of St. Winifred for example, whose shrine was at the Benedictine Abbey of Shrewsbury, only a few miles from Haughmond.  Shrewsbury Abbey had ‘acquired’ the Saint’s relics in 1138.

In the early 16th Century, during a visit to the Abbey, it was noted that the buildings were found to be in a poor state of repair.  It was also said that there were failing moral standards and a lack of discipline.  These were stated in the reports of official visitations to the Abbey.  It was noted that Novices were not receiving proper instruction and that Canons visited nearby Shrewsbury too often, that a ‘woman of ill-repute’ was twice named as frequenting the Abbey and that boys had been found in the dormitories.  More serious still was the disciplining of the Abbot Christopher Hunt, in 1522, for fornication and a generally poor administrative record.