The Collegiate Church of Wimborne Minster, Dorset, has a long and well-documented history from its foundation by Cuthburga, sister of King Ine, in 718, to Lady Margaret Beaufort's refoundation in the fifteenth century. During this period it passed through a number of different institutional stages. Analysis of this development provides a case-study in the ever-changing nature of the English parish church.
Originally founded as part of a nunnery and a double monastery, the minster was also intended to promote conversion, and the establishment of royal and ecclesiastical government. Following the Norman Conquest, the fortunes of the church declined but it re-emerged in the twelfth century as a small collegiate royal free chapel of secular canons. Miss Coulstock's history of Wimborne Minster offers a glimpse of the dynamism of an institution which, while responsible to the local community, was also a community in itself.

PATRICIA COULSTOCK was awarded an M.Phil. from the University of Manchester for her work on Wimborne Minster.