Elstow Abbey was a community for religious women founded in 1078 by Countess Judith, niece of William the Conqueror. The monastery was located in the County of Bedfordshire, not far from the town of Bedford. The nuns of Elstow Abbey followed the Rule of St Benedict, a sixth-century blueprint for the conduct of communal religious life. Elstow Abbey was home to women from the highest social levels of the time.

 

The monastery was economically successful and remained in operation until Henry VIII’s Second Act of Dissolution in 1539. The community’s confiscated land and buildings were granted to Edmund Harvey and, by 1580, roughly half of the eastern end of the abbey church had been demolished. In 1616, Thomas Hillersdon purchased the remaining monastic buildings, which were incorporated into a private dwelling. The shortened church now serves an active parish within the Church of England. 

 

Elstow Abbey was excavated in the 1960s and 1970s under the direction of archaeologist David Baker. Over the course of four field seasons, Baker and his students made important discoveries about the construction of the abbey church, surrounding monastic buildings, and cemetery. The team excavated 90 burials from Elstow’s monastic period, located to the east and north of the church. One of these was ELS215, the burial designation of the woman whose story we tell here.