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The Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin at Sherborne ( Dorset , England ), usually called '''Sherborne Abbey''', has been a Saxon Cathedral ( 705 - 1075 ) and a Benedictine abbey ( 998 - 1539 ) and has remained a Parish Church ever since. There may have been a Celtic Christian church called "Lanprobi" at the site, but the first reliable historical records are of the Saxon cathedral founded there in 705 by Aldhelm , whom his kinsman King Ine Of Wessex appointed the first bishop of the see of Western Wessex , with his seat at Sherborne. Fragments of that original cathedral survive in the present building. Aldhelm was the first of twenty-seven bishops of Sherborne. The twentieth bishop was Wulfsige III (or St Wulfsin ). In 998 he established a Benedictine abbey at Sherborne and became its first abbot. In 1075 the bishopric of Sherborne was transferred to Old Sarum , so Sherborne remained an abbey church but was no longer a cathedral. The bishop (in Old Sarum) remained the nominal head of the abbey until 1122 , when Roger de Caen, Bishop Of Salisbury , made the abbey independent. The abbey was rebuilt in the 12th Century , in Norman style, and again in the 15th Century , in Perpendicular Style . The Fan-vaulting in the choir for which Sherborne is still famous was added in that 15th century remodeling by Abbot John Brunyng (1415-1436). The Benedictine foundation at Sherborne ended in the Dissolution Of The Monasteries in 1539, but instead of surrendering the abbey to King Henry VIII , the people of Sherborne (as the people of many other places did) bought the building to be their parish church, which it still is. In 1550 King Edward VI issued a new charter to the school that had existed at Sherborne since 705, and some of the remaining abbey buildings were turned over to it. LINKS Greater Churches Group |
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