From The Abbeys of Great Britain, by H. Claiborne Dixon, London: T. Werner Laurie (undated); pp. 82-83.
“Hugh, Abbot of Reading, and his convent, reciting by their deed that King Henry I. had erected that abbey for the maintenance of monks then devoutly and religiously serving God, for the receipt of Strangers and Travellers, but chiefly Christ’s poor people, they therefore did erect an Hospital without the gate of the abbey there to maintain 26 poor people; and to the maintenance of Strangers passing that way they gave the profits o their mill at Leominstre. Also Aucherius, Abbot of Reading, built near this abbey a house for lepers that was called St Mary Magdelene’s, allotting for their sustenance sufficient of all things as well in diet as in other matters.”
The foregoing extract from Dugdale’s Monasticon indicates the pious and generous motives which inspired the endowment of the once important mitred 83 abbey of Reading. The abbots of Reading ranked next to those of Glastonbury and St Albans, their influence extending far beyond the precincts of the monastery.
Built upon the site of an ancient nunnery, the abbey ruins are beautifully situated on an eminence overlooking the river Kennet to the south and the Thames to the north. From the remaining portions it can be seen that the abbey church consisted of a nave and choir, both with aisles, transepts with eastern chapels, and also a Lady chapel — the entire length being 420 feet. The chapter-house on the east side of the cloister adjoins the south transept and possessed an apse in which were five large windows. On the south side of this cloister garth stood the Norman refectory. The stone facings of the buildings have been removed, leaving only flintstone, but fortunately the abbey mill still stands intact. Henry I. and his two queens, Matilda and Adeliza, were buried in Reading Abbey, though by some strange fancy of disseveration the king’s bowels, brains, heart, eyes and tongue were buried at Rouen. Many real or fancied relics of saints were presented to the abbey. Among other singular objects of the time was one assumed to be the head of the Apostle James — later the hand of this Apostle was brought from Germany by the Empress Maud — carefully enclosed in a case of gold, of which it was afterwards stripped by Richard I. It seems like some curious pioneer movement of foreign missions when one reads that the “maintenance of two Jewish female converts” was imposed on this house by King Henry III.
[For another longer and earlier article on Reading Abbey by Timbs, go HERE. You will note a remarkable and unattributed similarity of language in this later book to Timbs. — Elf.Ed.