Hagnaby

Title

Hagnaby

Also Known As

Hagheneby, Hagnebi, Hagneby, Hagnenabicensis, Haunby, Hauneby

Dates

Founded 1175/76; dissolved 1536

Dedication

Thomas Becket

Affiliation

Welbeck

Medieval Diocese

Lincoln

Circary

Mid England

History

Hagnaby was founded 1175/76 as a priory by Agnes de Orreby. It was elevated to an abbey in 1250. Hagnaby was never a large house.

The abbey was dissolved in 1536 and the site passed into private hands. Some ruins are visible on the site today beneath the ruins of a later manor house.

Heads of Community

Priors

Thomas, fl. ca. 1200
William I of Fultorp, fl. ca. 1228
Peter, fl. ca. 1230

Abbots

Roger de Rethford, 1250-1270
John I of Barwe (or Barrow), 1270-1291
John II, 1291-1300
Alanus, 1300-?
William II, fl. 1310
Walter, 1312-?
William III, 1343-1346
John III de Fordington (Forthyngton), fl. 1370s/1380s
John IV de Wynthorp, 1412-?
John V Wodthorpe, 1440-?
William IV Anderby, ?-1475
Robert Alforde, 1475-ca. 1488
John VI Boston, ca. 1491-1503
Richard Starton, fl. 1509
John VII Hathnes, 1522-?
Edmund Toft (or Warter), ?-1536

Status

Priory; abbey from 1250

Archival Sources

Cambridge, Gonville and Caius Library

MS 190/223.

London, British Library

Cotton MS Vespasian B XI. (Chronicle)

Royal 13 A XXI.

Royal 5 F V. (13th c.)

Bibliography

Dudding, Reginald C. “A Papal Bull from Hagnaby Abbey.” Lincolnshire Notes & Queries 24 (1936): 17–18.

———. “Hagnaby Abbey.” Lincolnshire Notes & Queries 18, no. 1 (1924): 10–13. https://books.google.com/books?id=QZnkAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA10.

Page, William, ed. “Houses of Premonstratensian Canons: The Abbey of Hagnaby.” In A History of the County of Lincoln, 2:205–6. London, 1906. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/lincs/vol2/pp205-206.

Prestwich, Michael C. “Document: Edward I’s Wars in the Chronicle of Hagnaby Priory.” The Journal of Medieval Military History 10 (2012): 197–214.

Walker, R. F. “The Hagnaby Chronicle and the Battle of Maes Moydog.” Welsh History Review 8 (1976): 125–38.

Image Credit

Aerial view of site of Hagnaby Abbey, 2023. Wikimedia.

Files

Collection

Mid England

Citation

“Hagnaby,” A Premonstratensian Atlas, accessed October 16, 2026, https://yvonneseale.org/atlas/items/show/108.

Geolocation