The origin of Abingdon, whose very name is said to mean “the Abbey town,” was purely ecclesiastical, for it came into existence as a dependency of the great Abbey founded here in the seventh century. Legends, indeed, tell us of an earlier Abingdon, called “Leavechesham,” in early British times, and make it even then an important religious centre and a favourite residence of the kings of Wessex, but they—the legends and the kings alike—are of the vaguest. [Illustration: ABINGDON.] Leland, in the time of Henry the Eighth, wrote of the town: “It standeth by clothing,” and it did so in more than one sense, for it not only made cloth, but a great deal of traffic between London and Gloucester, Stroud, Cirencester, and other great West of England clothing centres, came this way, and had done so ever since the building of Abingdon (or Burford, _i.e._ Boroughford) bridge and the bridge at Culham Hithe in 1416, had opened a convenient route this way. The town owed little to the Abbey, for the proud mitred abbots, who here ruled one of the wealthiest religious houses in England, and sat in Parliament in respect of it, were not concerned with such common people as tradesfolk, and did not by any means encourage settlers. They trafficked only with the great, and aimed at keeping Abingdon select. From quite early times they had adopted this attitude: perhaps ever since William the Conqueror had entrusted to the monastery the education of his son Henry, afterwards Henry the First—an education so superior that, by reason of it, Henry the First lives in history as “Beauclerc.” It was a highly-prosperous Abbey, and smelt to heaven with pride, and had a very bad reputation for tyrannical dealings with those who had managed to settle here. The Abbot refused to allow the people to establish a market, and in 1327 the enmity thus caused broke out into riot. From Oxford there came the Mayor and a number of scholars, to help the people of Abingdon in their quarrel, and part of the Abbey was burnt, its archives destroyed, and the monks driven out. But this was a sorry, and merely a temporary, victory; for the Abbot procured powerful assistance and regained his place, and twelve of the rioters were hanged. The scandalous arrogance and state of the Abbots of Abingdon aroused the wrath of Langland, a monk himself, but one of liberal views, who some few years later wrote that prophetic work, _The Vision of Piers Plowman_, in which the downfall of this great Abbey is directly and specifically foretold: “Eke ther shal come a kyng, And confesse yow religiouses, And bete you as the Bible telleth For brekynge of your rule. … And thanne shal the abbot of Abyngdone, And al his issue for evere, Have a knok of a kyng, And incurable the wounde.” When the Abbey was suppressed in 1538, its annual income was £1,876 10_s._ 9_d._, equal to about £34,000, present value.