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Chronicle of the Abbey of Evesham

The Chronicle of the Abbey of Evesham is a remarkable medieval history of one of England’s great Benedictine monasteries. Beginning with the abbey’s legendary and royal foundations, it traces the fortunes of Evesham through centuries of religious devotion, political conflict, legal struggle, rebuilding, reform, and royal patronage. At the heart of the chronicle is the abbey’s determination to defend its ancient liberties. Its monks record disputes with bishops, appeals to popes and papal legates, contested elections of abbots, lawsuits over lands and privileges, and the long struggle to preserve Evesham’s exemption from episcopal control. Alongside these institutional battles are vivid accounts of saints and miracles, including St Ecgwine, St Odulf and the royal martyr St Wistan, whose relics and cult formed an important part of the abbey’s identity. The chronicle also preserves a wealth of detail about everyday monastic life. It describes the building and repair of churches, cloisters, chapels, halls, mills, granges and fishponds; the acquisition of estates and revenues; the making of vestments, shrines, bells and liturgical books; and the provision of food, clothing, recreation and medical care for the monks. Successive abbots emerge not merely as religious superiors but as administrators, builders, patrons, diplomats and defenders of the community. Extending into the later Middle Ages, the narrative reflects the changing political world around Evesham, from the Norman Conquest and the Angevin kings to the Wars of the Roses and the reign of Henry VIII. The result is both a history of a single monastery and a richly detailed record of medieval English religious, legal, economic and political life. This edition offers modern readers direct access to one of the most important monastic chronicles of medieval England, revealing how the monks of Evesham understood their saints, their privileges, their rulers and their place in history.

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Sophie Germain 1776-1831

See Mathematicians.

On 1st April 1776 Sophie Germain was born to Ambroise-Francois Germain.

1804. Carl Friedrich Gauss Letter to Heinrich Olbers: "Recently I had the pleasure to receive a letter from Le Blanc [Sophie Germain [aged 27]], a young mathematician in Paris, who made himself enthusiastically familiar with higher mathematics and showed how deeply he penetrated into my Disquisitiones Arithmeticae."

1807. Carl Friedrich Gauss Letter to Sophie Germain [aged 30]: "But how can I describe my astonishment and admiration on seeing my esteemed correspondent Monsieur Le Blanc metamorphosed … But when a woman, because of her sex, our customs and prejudices, encounters infinitely more obstacles than men, in familiarizing herself with their knotty problems, yet overcomes these fetters and penetrates that which is most hidden, she doubtless has the most noble courage, extraordinary talent, and superior genius."

On 8th January 1816 Sophie Germain [aged 39] became the first woman to win a prize from the Paris Academy of Sciences for her paper "Recherches sur la théorie des surfaces élastiques" i.e. "Research into the theory of Elastic Surfaces". She later published her paper in 1821 at her own expense.

On 27th June 1831 Sophie Germain [aged 55] died from breast cancer at 13 rue de Savoie, Paris. She was buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.