Anglo-Saxon Winchester: The Royal City

Anglo-Saxon Winchester: The Royal City. Winchester Cathedral. King Alfred the Great was buried in Old Minster in 899. Three years later his body was moved to the New Minster, and later moved again to Hyde Abbey. Alfred is one of our nation's great men, religious, scholarly, a wise ruler. Wessex under his leadership was the only one of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to survive the Danish attacks of the ninth century. England was unified in the next century by the efforts of his son and grandsons. Winchester, the principal royal city, developed rapidly during these years. The city defences were restored and the pattern of streets still use today was laid out., On and after Alfred's death two new religious foundations were created within the walls. Ealhswith, Alfred's queen, founded Nunnaminster, a nunnery, on the site of the present Abbey Gardens. King Edward the Elder, Alfred's son, founded New Minster in 901 close along the north side of Old Minster. In 964 bishop Aethelwold, one of the three leaders of English Monastic reform, reorganized all three Winchester minsters, introducing monks and nuns living under a strict Benedictine Rule. He removed the bishop's household from Old Minster, building a palace at Wolvesey, where the bishop still lives today. By the year 1000 the entire southeast corner of Winchester was a royal and monastic quarter dominated by three minsters and the palaces of bishop and king.