In writing the second volume of my History of the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, I am faced with the same insoluble problem that faces all monastic historians: the subject does not always lend itself to periodization. It is, therefore, for convenience – to make the subject controllable – that I use as the backbone of this study the rule of two abbots, Simon of Luton (1257–79) and John of Northwold (1279–1301), who dominated the period and, as will be seen, imparted a distinctive flavour to their time in office. Beginning with basic biographical information about each abbot, my study proceeds to address this period thematically: abbatial governance, financial problems, religious life and reform, and intellectual and cultural life. The importance of continuity cannot be overemphasized since tradition was an essential element in the monastic psyche.

Since the publication in 2007 of Bury St Edmunds Abbey [i], 1182–1256, much remains the same, but much also has changed. Thus, my general comments are equally appropriate to the second half of the thirteenth century as to that of the first half – that is, general works on monastic history tend to ignore St Edmunds or to treat it in a cursory manner. For instance, one respected and highly regarded monastic historian who reviewed the first volume for a standard English periodical located St Edmunds’ Liberty of the eight and a half hundreds in West Sussex and misdated the death of St Edmund as being 843 instead of 869. Again, although Bond in his very interesting and substantial book on monastic sites does cite examples based on printed sources, archaeological evidence and personal observation, he does not exhaust the printed and easily accessible material on Bury St Edmunds; he mainly cites Anglo-Saxon, twelfth-century, late medieval and even Post-Reformation sources. The most notable publication relating to monastic history is Joan Greatrex’s masterly work which is based on meticulous study of manuscript sources, but of course is not concerned with the great exempt Benedictine abbeys such as St Edmunds. Of specialist books on St Edmunds the most outstanding is Robin J. Eaglen’s The Abbey and Mint of Bury St Edmunds to 1279, a detailed study, fully illustrated with tables and photographs of the coinage of Bury Mint, set against the background of the abbey’s history.