During the tenth century, there were intimate connections between the English Church and the French abbey of Fleury, which was at that time one of the foremost intellectual centres in Europe. A number of leading English churchmen,such as Archbishop Oswald (d.992) and Abbot Germanus, went to Fleury for their training, and it was from Fleury that Abbo, perhaps the most learned man in the Europe of his day, came to England to spend two years teaching at thefenland monastery of Ramsey (985-7). The “Winchcombe Sacramentary’, which may have been written at Ramsey at this time, is the earliest complete surviving English sacramentary, and a product of the links between England and Fleury. Though written by an English scribe, it had been taken to Fleury by the early eleventh century, and remained there during the middle ages. The fascinating combination of English and continental liturgical rite represented in this manuscript is elucidated for the first time by Fr Anselme Davril.

Fr ANSELME DAVRIL, foremost living authority on tenth-century Fleury, is a monk of the Benedictine community at Fleury.