page_title: Aldhelm
section_title: Abbot of Malmesbury
hierarchical_section_title: Aldhelm / Life / Abbot of Malmesbury
caption_attribution_description: Wall plaque at the Catholic Church of St Aldhelm, Malmesbury. It says “St Aldhelm 639-709, Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, Latin Poet and Ecclesiastical Writer." Taken by Adrian Pingstone in February 2005 and released to the public domain.
context_page_description: Aldhelm, Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex. He was certainly not, as his early biographer Faritius asserts, the brother of King Ine. After his death he was venerated as a saint, his feast day being the day of his death, 25 May.
context_section_description: When Máeldub died, Aldhelm was appointed in 675, according to a charter of doubtful authenticity cited by William of Malmesbury, by Leuthere, Bishop of Winchester (671–676), to succeed to the direction of the monastery, of which he became the first abbot.
  Aldhelm introduced the Benedictine rule and secured the right of the election of the abbot by the monks themselves. The community at Malmesbury increased, and Aldhelm was able to found two other monasteries as centres of learning, at Frome, Somerset and at Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire. Following a pilgrimage to Rome, he was given permission by Pope Sergius I in a Papal Bull of 701 to establish the monastery at Frome, where he had already built a church circa 685. The Anglo-Saxon building of St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon dates back to his time, and may safely be regarded as his. At Malmesbury he built a new church to replace Máeldub's modest building, and obtained considerable grants of land for the monastery.
caption: Wall plaque at the Catholic Church of St Aldhelm, Malmesbury. The inscription says 'St Aldhelm 639–709, Abbot of Malmesbury and Bishop of Sherborne, Latin Poet and Ecclesiastical Writer.'
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