Lastingham - St Mary's Church

St Mary's Church

There is reason to believe that the original name for Lastingham was Læstingau. Læstingau first appears in history when King Ethelwald of Deira (651-c.655) founded a monastery for his own burial. Bede attributes the initiative to Ethelwald's chaplain Caelin, a brother of Cedd, Chad and Cynibil. Bede records that Cedd and Cynibil consecrated the site, and that Cynibil built it of wood. Cedd ruled the monastery as the first abbot until his death, combining this position with that of missionary bishop to the East Saxons. In 664, shortly after the Synod of Whitby, in which he was a key participant, St. Cedd died of the plague at Læstingau. Bede records that a party of monks from Essex came to mourn him and all but one were all wiped out by the plague. Cedd was first buried outside the wooden monastery but, at some time between 664 and 732, a stone church was erected, and his body was translated to the right side of the altar. The crypt of the present parish church remains a focus for veneration of Cedd. His brother St. Chad took his place as abbot.

Not much is known of this house, though all who spoke of it spoke well. Perhaps the best indication of its standards is that, in 687, one of its graduates, Trumbert, transferred to Wearmouth-Jarrow and became scriptural tutor to a youthful Bede.

We have no knowledge of what became of the Anglo-Saxon house. Destruction by the Danes is nowhere attested, and seems to be entirely the product of modern conjecture. A start was made on rebuilding the monastery in 1078, when St. Stephen, prior of Whitby, and a band of monks moved from Whitby due to a disagreement with William de Percy, who was abbot of Whitby at the time.

They received support from King William 1 and Berenger de Todeni in the means of one carucate of land in Lastingham, six carucates at Spaunton, and other lands in Kirkby etc. They only remained for eight years however, due to persistent harassment by bandits. In 1086 they moved to York, and founded St. Mary's Abbey, to which they annexed the lands of the monastery at Lastingham.