St Mary's Church, Reculver, was founded in the 7th century as either a minster or a monastery on the site of Regulbium, the Roman fort at Reculver, which was then at the north-eastern extremity of Kent in south-eastern England. In 669, the site of the fort was given for this purpose by King Ecgberht of Kent to a priest named Bassa, beginning a connection with Kentish kings that led to King Eadberht II of Kent being buried there in the 760s, and the church becoming very wealthy by the beginning of the 9th century. From the early 9th century to the 11th the church was treated as essentially a piece of property, with control passing between kings of Mercia, Wessex and England and the archbishops of Canterbury. Viking attacks may have extinguished the church's religious community in the 9th century, although an early 11th-century record indicates that the church was then in the hands of a dean accompanied by monks. By the time of Domesday Book, completed in 1086, St Mary's was serving as a parish church.
The original building, which incorporated stone and tiles scavenged from the Roman fort, was a simple one consisting only of a nave and an apsidal chancel, with a small room, or porticus, built out from each of the church's northern and southern sides where the nave and chancel met. The church was much altered and expanded during the Middle Ages, including the addition of twin towers in the 12th century; the last addition, in the 15th century, was of north and south porches leading into the nave. This expansion coincided with a long period of prosperity for the settlement of Reculver: the settlement's decline led to the church's decay and, following unsuccessful attempts to prevent the erosion of the adjacent coastline, the building was almost completely demolished in 1809.
The church's remains were preserved by the intervention of Trinity House in 1810, since the towers had long been important as a landmark for shipping: preservation was achieved through the first effective effort to protect the cliff on which the church then stood from further erosion. Some materials from the structure were incorporated into a replacement church, also dedicated to St Mary, built at Hillborough in the same parish. Much of the rest was used for the building of a new harbour wall at Margate, known as Margate Pier. Other, surviving remnants include fragments of a high cross of stone that once stood inside the church, and two stone columns from a triple arch between the nave and chancel: the columns formed part of the original church and were still in place when demolition began. The cross fragments and columns are now kept in Canterbury Cathedral, and are among features that have led to the church being described as an exemplar of Anglo-Saxon church architecture and sculpture.
Origins
The first church known to have existed at Reculver was founded in 669, when King Ecgberht of Kent gave land there to Bassa the priest for this purpose. The author of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle "clearly considered this to be a significant event", and it may be that King Ecgberht's intention in founding a church at Reculver was to create an ecclesiastical centre with a strong English element, to counterbalance domination of the Canterbury Church by Archbishop Theodore, from Tarsus, now in Turkey, Abbot Hadrian of St Augustine's, from North Africa, probably Cyrenaica, and their equally "non-native followers." Historians vary over whether to call the church a minster or a monastery – thus Susan Kelly uses the former term, but Nicholas Brooks uses the latter, commenting that:
[w]e do not know whether the Kentish monasteries had been founded as communities of monks and nuns dedicated to the service of God [and living in monasteries and nunneries], or whether the male communities were from the start bodies of secular clergy [operating from minsters] who, like the archiepiscopal familia at Canterbury, accepted a degree of communal (or monastic) discipline and who were responsible for the pastoral care of extensive rural areas. ... [T]he distinction between the regular and secular clergy was blurred from the very beginning in England. Indeed the word monasterium does not necessarily refer to a house of monks in the eighth and ninth centuries, but like its English equivalent, minster ..., was also the normal term for a church served by a body of clergy. ... By the ninth century the communities of the Kentish monasteries were certainly composed of priests, deacons, and clergy in lesser orders, just like the cathedral community at the 'head minster', [Canterbury Cathedral].
— Nicholas Brooks, The Early History of the Church of Canterbury, 1984
The foundation of this church, sited within the remains of the Roman fort of Regulbium, exemplifies the "widespread practice [in Anglo-Saxon England] of re-using Roman walled places for major churches"; the new church was built "almost completely from demolished Roman structures". The building formed a nave measuring 37.5 feet (11.4 m) by 24 feet (7.3 m) and an apsidal chancel, which was externally polygonal but internally round, and was separated from the nave by a triple arch formed by two columns made of limestone from Marquise, in the Pas-de-Calais region of northern France. The arches were formed using Roman tiles, but the columns were made for the church rather than being Roman in origin, and their form has been attributed to late-Roman and early Byzantine architectural influences, probably transmitted via the contemporary architecture of Merovingian France. Around the inside of the apse was a stone bench, and two small rooms, or porticus, forming rudimentary transepts were built out from the north and south sides of the church where the nave met the chancel, from which they could be accessed. The presence of a stone bench around the inside of the apse has been attributed to influence from the Syrian Church, at a time when its followers were being displaced. The walls of the church were rendered inside and out, giving them a plain appearance and hiding the masonry.
Ten years after the foundation of the church, in 679, King Hlothhere of Kent granted lands at Sturry, about 6.2 miles (10 km) south-west of Reculver, and at Sarre, in the western part of the Isle of Thanet, across the Wantsum Channel to the east, to Abbot Berhtwald and his "monastery". The grant was made at Reculver, and the charter in which it was recorded was probably written by a Reculver scribe. The grant of Sarre in particular is significant:
Sarre was a highly strategic place, overlooking the confluence of the Wantsum and the Great Stour, [and] directly linked to Canterbury ... In the early 760s it was the site of a toll-station, where the agents of the Kentish kings collected dues on trading ships using the Wantsum route ... The grant of Sarre to Reculver must be regarded as a sign of enormous royal favour to the [church there] ... and it may be that the [church at Reculver] received a share of the royal tolls levied at Sarre.
— Susan Kelly, "Reculver Minster and its early charters", 2008
In the original, 7th-century charter recording this grant, Reculver is referred to as a civitas, or city, but this is probably a reference to either its Roman past or the church's monastic status, rather than a large population centre. In 692 Reculver's abbot Berhtwald was elected Archbishop of Canterbury, from which position he probably offered Reculver patronage and support. Bede, writing no more than 40 years later, described Berhtwald as having been well educated in the Bible and experienced in ecclesiastical and monastic affairs, but in terms indicating that Berhtwald was not a scholar.
Further charters show that the monastery at Reculver continued to benefit from Kentish kings in the 8th century, under abbots Heahberht (fl. 748x762), Deneheah (fl. 760) and Hwitred (fl. 784), acquiring lands in Higham and Sheldwich and exemption from the toll due on one ship at Fordwich near Canterbury, and King Eadberht II of Kent was buried in the church in the 760s. Properties belonging to Reculver in the 7th and 8th centuries are indicated in passing by otherwise unrelated records, such as the estate at Higham, land probably in the High Weald area of Kent, from which iron may have been sourced for use or sale at or on behalf of Reculver, and an unidentified property named Dunwaling land in the district of Eastry. Such records also identify other abbots of Reculver, namely Æthelmær (fl. 699), Bære (fl. 761x764), Æthelheah (fl. 803), Dudeman (fl. 805), Beornwine (fl. 811x826), Baegmund (fl. 832x839), Daegmund (fl. 825x883) and Beornhelm (fl. 867x905).
By the early 9th century the monastery had become "extremely wealthy", but from then on it appears in records as "essentially a piece of property". For most of the period from 764 to 825 Kent was under the control of kings of Mercia, beginning with Offa (757–96), who treated Kent as part of his patrimony: he may also have claimed direct control of Reculver, as he did with similar churches in other areas. In 811 control of the monastery appears to have been in the hands of Archbishop Wulfred of Canterbury, who is recorded as having deprived it of some of its land. But by 817 Reculver was in the hands of King Coenwulf of Mercia (796–821), together with the nunnery at Minster-in-Thanet, through which he would also have had strategically lucrative control of the Wantsum Channel: Coenwulf had by then secured a privilege from Pope Leo III that gave him the right to "dispose of his ... monasteries in [England] at will". In that year a "monumental showdown" began between Archbishop Wulfred and King Coenwulf over the control of monasteries, featuring Reculver and Minster-in-Thanet in particular. The dispute over Reculver continued until 821, when Wulfred "made a humiliating submission to [Coenwulf]", surrendering to him an estate of 300 hides, possibly at Eynsham in Oxfordshire, and paying a fine of £120, to secure the return of Reculver and Minster-in-Thanet. The record of the dispute indicates that Wulfred continued to be denied control of Reculver and Minster-in-Thanet after 821 by Cwoenthryth, Coenwulf's heir and abbess of Minster-in-Thanet, until a final settlement was reached at a synod at Clofesho in 825.
From 825 control of Kent fell to the kings of Wessex, and a compromise was reached between Archbishop Ceolnoth and King Egbert in 838, confirmed by his son Æthelwulf in 839, recognising Egbert and Æthelwulf as lay lords and protectors of monasteries and reserving spiritual lordship, particularly over election of abbots and abbesses, to bishops. One copy of the record of this agreement was preserved either at Reculver or at Lyminge. A factor leading to this abandonment of Wulfred's strict policy may have been the increasing intensity of Viking attacks, which had begun in Kent in the late 8th century and had seen the ravaging of the Isle of Sheppey in 835. An army of Vikings spent the winter of 851 on the Isle of Thanet and the same occurred on the Isle of Sheppey in 855. Reculver, like most of the Kentish monasteries, lay in an exposed coastal location, and would have presented an obvious target for Vikings in search of treasure. By the 10th century the monastery at Reculver had ceased to be an important church in Kent and, together with its territory, it was in the hands of the kings of Wessex alone. In a charter of 949 King Eadred of England gave Reculver back to the archbishops of Canterbury, at which time the estate included Hoath and Herne, land at Sarre, in Thanet, and land at Chilmington, about 23.5 miles (37.8 km) south-west of Reculver.
Monastery to parish church
Reculver may have remained home to a religious community into the 10th century, despite its vulnerability to Viking attacks. It is possible that the abbot and community of Reculver took refuge from the Vikings in Canterbury, as the abbess and community of Lyminge did in 804. A monk of Reculver named Ymar was recorded as a saint in the early 15th century by Thomas Elmham, who found the name in a martyrology, and wrote that Ymar was buried in St John's Church, Margate: Ymar was probably killed by Vikings in the 10th century, and hence regarded as a martyr. The Church in East Kent seems broadly to have "preserved its primary ... character against all the odds", but evidence for the monastery at Reculver is lacking: by the 11th century the monastery had "dropped out of sight entirely". The last abbot is recorded as Wenredus: although it is unknown when he was abbot, it must have been after 890 – possibly 905 – when the name of Abbot Beornhelm last appears in Anglo-Saxon charters. The church was last described as a monastery in about 1030, when it was governed by a dean named Givehard and was home to monks, two of whom are named as Fresnot and Tancrad: these names indicate the presence of a religious community from the European continent, probably Flemings. This may have been nothing more than a temporary "resurgence of communal life at Reculver, at least for a period in the earlier eleventh century. ... [Perhaps] the old minster ... was provided as a refuge for a body of foreign clerics".
By 1066 the monastery had become a parish church, with no baptismal function. In 1086, Reculver was listed in Domesday Book among lands belonging to the archbishop of Canterbury: in practice, however, it must previously have been lost to him again, since William the Conqueror is recorded as having returned it to the archbishop, along with other churches and properties, at his death, which occurred in 1087. The value of the manor of Reculver in 1066 is given as £14, but in 1086 it was worth a total of £42.7s. (£42.35): this can be compared with, for example, the £20 due to the archbishop from the manor of Maidstone, and £50 from the borough of Sandwich. Included in the Domesday account for Reculver, as well as the church, farmland, a mill, salt pans and a fishery, are 90 villeins and 25 bordars: these numbers can be multiplied four or five times to account for dependents, as they only represent "adult male heads of households".