Eynsham Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Eynsham, Oxfordshire, in England between 1005 and 1538. King Æthelred allowed Æthelmær the Stout to found the abbey in 1005. There is some evidence that the abbey was built on the site of an earlier minster, probably founded in the 7th or 8th centuries. The first abbot of the abbey was the prolific writer Ælfric (c.955-c.1010). The abbey flourished in the Middle Ages, although there were probably never more than 25 or 30 monks. A well known abbot was Adam of Eynsham, a writer, who wrote a hagiography of Saint Hugh of Lincoln.