Westminster Abbey
This article refers to the church in London. For the Benedictine monastery in British Columbia, see Westminster Abbey (British Columbia).
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The Abbey's western façade |
The Collegiate Church of St Peter, Westminster, which is almost always referred to as
Westminster Abbey, is a mainly
Gothic church, on the scale of a
cathedral, in
Westminster,
London, just to the west of the
Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of
coronation and
burial site for
English monarchs.
According to
tradition a shrine was first founded in
616 on the present site, then known as
Thorn Ey (Thorn Island); its tradition of miraculous consecration after a fisherman on the
River Thames saw a vision of
Saint Peter justified the presents of salmon from the Thames fishermen that the Abbey received. In the 960s or early 970s
Saint Dunstan, assisted by King
Edgar planted a community of
Benedictine monks here. The stone Abbey was built around
1045–
1050 by King
Edward the Confessor, who had selected the site for his burial: it was consecrated on
December 28,
1065, immediately before the Confessor's funeral. It was the site of the last Saxon coronation of his successor King
Harold.
The only extant depiction of the original
Abbey, in the
Romanesque style that is called
"Norman" in England, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster, is in the
Bayeux Tapestry. Increased endowments supported a community increased from Dunstan's dozen to about eighty monks (Harvey 1993 p 2).
The Abbot and learned monks, in close proximity to the royal Palace of Westminster, the seat of government from the later twelfth century, became a powerful force in the centuries after the Norman Conquest: the Abbot was often employed on royal service and in due course took his place in the House of Lords as of right. Released from the burdens of spiritual leadership, which passed to the reformed
Cluniac movement after the mid-tenth century, and occupied with the administration of great landed properties, some of which lay far from Westminster, "the Benedictines achieved a remarkable degree of identification with the secular life of their times, and particularly with upper-class life", Barbara Harvey concluded, to the extent that her depiction of daily life (Harvey 1993) provides a wider view of the concerns of the English gentry in the High and Late Middle Ages. The proximity of the Palace of Westminster did not extend to providing monks or abbots with high royal connections; in social origin the Benedictines of Westminster were as modest as most of the order. The abbot remained lord of the manor of Westminster as a town of two to three thousand persons grew around it: as a consumer and employer on a grand scale the monastery helped fuel the town economy, and relations with the town remained unusually cordial, but no enfranchising charter was issued during the Middle Ages (Harvey 1993 p 6f). The abbey built shops and dwellings on the west side, encroaching upon the sanctuary.
The Abbey became the coronation site of Norman kings, but none were buried there until
Henry III, intensely devoted to the cult of the Confessor, rebuilt the Abbey in
Anglo-French Gothic style as a shrine to honour
Edward the Confessor and as a suitably regal setting for Henry's own
tomb, under the highest Gothic nave in England. The Confessor's
shrine subsequently played a great part in his canonisation. The work continued between
1245-
1517 and was largely finished by the architect
Henry Yevele in the reign of King
Richard II.
Henry VII added a
Perpendicular style chapel dedicated to the
Virgin Mary in
1503 (known as the
Henry VII Chapel). Much of the stone came from
Caen, in
France (
Caen stone), the
Isle of Portland (
Portland stone) and the
Loire Valley region of France (
tuffeau limestone).
In 1535, the Abbey's annual income of [pounds]2400-2800 during the assessment attendant on the
Dissolution of the Monasteries rendered it second in wealth only to
Glastonbury Abbey.
Henry VIII had assumed direct royal control the previous year and closed in
1540. Westminster was a cathedral until
1550, its royal connections saving it from the destruction wrought on most other English abbeys. The expression "robbing Peter to pay Paul" may arise from this period when money meant for the Abbey, which was dedicated to
St Peter, was diverted to the treasury of
St Paul's Cathedral. It suffered damage during the turbulent
1640s, when it was attacked by
Puritan iconoclasts, but was again protected by its close ties to the state during the
Commonwealth period.
Oliver Cromwell was given an elaborate funeral there in
1658, only to be disinterred in January
1661 and posthumously hanged from a nearby gibbet.
The Abbey was restored to the Benedictines under the Catholic
Queen Mary, but they were again ejected under
Queen Elizabeth I in
1559. In
1579, Elizabeth re-established Westminster as a "
Royal Peculiar" — a church responsible directly to the
sovereign, rather than to a diocesan bishop — and made it the
Collegiate Church of St Peter, (that is a church with an attached chapter of canons, headed by a dean). The last Abbot was made the first Dean.
The abbey's two western towers were built between
1722 and
1745 by
Nicholas Hawksmoor, constructed from
Portland stone to an early example of a
Gothic Revival design. Further rebuilding and restoration occurred in the
19th century under Sir
George Gilbert Scott.
Until the 19th century, Westminster was the third seat of learning in England, after
Oxford and
Cambridge. It was here that the first third of the
King James Bible Old Testament and the last half of the New Testament were translated. The
New English Bible was also put together here in the
20th century.
Since the coronations in 1066 of both
King Harold and
William the Conqueror, all English and British monarchs (except
Lady Jane Grey (although it is highly debatable whether she was, in either theory and practice, the Queen of England),
Edward V and
Edward VIII, who did not have coronations) have been crowned in the Abbey. The
Archbishop of Canterbury is the traditional
cleric in the
coronation ceremony.
St Edward's Chair, the throne on which
British sovereigns are seated at the moment of coronation, is housed within the Abbey; from 1296 to 1996 the chair also housed the
Stone of Scone upon which the kings of Scotland are crowned, but pending another coronation the Stone is now kept in Scotland.
According to
H.V. Morton's
In Search of London, a ghostly monk is said to appear in the Abbey on the eve of a monarch's coronation. The book states that the monk was last seen prior to the coronation of
George VI in 1937. (The book was published in 1951; it is unknown if the monk was seen prior to
Queen Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953.)
Henry III rebuilt the Abbey in honour of the Royal Saint
Edward the Confessor whose relics were placed a in a
shrine in the sanctuary. Henry III was interred nearby in a superb
chest tomb with
effigial monument, as were many of the
Plantagenet kings of England, their wives and other relatives. Subsequently, most Kings and Queens of England were buried here, although
Henry VIII and
Charles I are buried at
St George's Chapel,
Windsor Castle, as are all monarchs and royals since
George II.
In 2005 the original ancient burial tomb of
Edward the Confessor was discovered, beneath the 1268
Cosmati mosaic pavement, in front of the High Altar. A series of royal tombs dating back to the 13th and 14th centuries was also discovered using
ground-penetrating radar.
Aristocrats were buried in side chapels and monks and people associated with the
Abbey were buried in the Cloisters and other areas. One of these was
Geoffrey Chaucer, who was buried here as he had apartments in the Abbey where he was employed as master of the Kings Works. Other poets were buried around Chaucer in what became known as
Poets' Corner. Abbey musicians such as
Henry Purcell were also buried in their place of work. Subsequently it became an honour to be buried or memorialised here. The practice spread from aristocrats and poets to generals, admirals, politicians, scientists, doctors, etc., etc. These include:
Buried
Nave
*
Clement Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee*
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts*
Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald*
Charles Darwin*
Saint Edward the Confessor*
George Graham*
Ben Jonson*
David Livingstone*
James Clerk Maxwell*
Sir Isaac Newton*
Ernest Rutherford, 1st Baron Rutherford *
Robert Stephenson*
Ludovic Stewart, 2nd Duke of Lennox*
J.J. Thomson*
William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin*
Thomas Tompion*
The Unknown Warrior*
George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham*
Charles LyellNorth Transept
*
William Ewart Gladstone*
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham*
William Pitt the YoungerSouth Transept
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The North entrance of Westminster Abbey |
Poets' Corner*
Robert Adam*
Robert Browning*
William Camden*
Thomas Campbell*
Geoffrey Chaucer*
William Congreve*
Abraham Cowley*
William Davenant*
Charles Dickens*
John Dryden*
Adam Fox*
David Garrick*
John Gay*
George Frederick Handel*
Thomas Hardy*
Dr Samuel Johnson*
Rudyard Kipling*
Thomas Macaulay*
John Masefield*
Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier*
Thomas Parr*
Dante Rossetti*
Richard Brinsley Sheridan*
Edmund Spenser*
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron TennysonCloisters
*
Aphra BehnNorth Choir Aisle
*
Henry Purcell*
Ralph Vaughan WilliamsChapel of St Paul
*
Sir Rowland HillCommemorated
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Standard of Westminster Abbey |
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Christian martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues above the Great West Door |
*
William Shakespeare, buried at
Stratford-upon-Avon*
Sir Winston Churchill, buried at
Bladon,
Oxfordshire*
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, buried at
Hughenden Manor,
Buckinghamshire*
Adam Lindsay Gordon, buried in
Australia*
Lord Baden-Powell, buried in
Nyeri, Kenya*
Paul Dirac, buried in
Florida*
Oscar Wilde (in a stained glass window unveiled in 1995), buried in Paris [
1]
*
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, buried at
Cambridge, Massachusetts* Ten 20th-century Christian
martyrs from across the world are depicted in statues above the Great West Door. Unveiled in
1998 by Her Majesty The Queen, these are, from left to right:
** St.
Maximilian Kolbe**
Manche Masemola**
Janani Luwum**
Grand Duchess Elizabeth of Russia**
Martin Luther King, Jr. **
Ã"scar Romero**
Dietrich Bonhoeffer**
Esther John**
Lucian Tapiedi**
Wang ZhimingRemoved
The following were buried in the abbey but later removed on the orders of
Charles II:
*
Oliver Cromwell,
Lord Protector*
Admiral Robert BlakeWestminster School and
Westminster Abbey Choir School are also in the precincts of the Abbey. It was natural for the learned and literate monks to be entrusted with education, and
Benedictine monks were required by the Pope to maintain a charity school in
1179; Westminster School may have been founded even earlier for children or novices, and the legendary
Croyland Chronicle relates a story of
11th century king
Edward the Confessor's Queen
Editha chatting to a schoolboy in the cloisters, and sending him off to the Palace larder for a treat.
*Nearest
London Underground stations:
**
St. James's Park (District, Circle lines)
**
Westminster (Jubilee, District, Circle lines)
The Abbey is a collegiate church organised into the College of St Peter, which comprises the Dean and four residentiary Canons (one of whom is also
Rector of
St Margaret's Church, Westminster, and Speaker's Chaplain), and seventeen other persons who are members ex officio, as well as twelve
lay vicars and ten choristers. The seventeen are the
Receiver-General and
Chapter Clerk, the
Registrar, the
Auditor, the Legal Secretary and the
Clerk of the Works (the administrative officers). Those more directly concerned with liturgical and ceremonial operations include the
Precentor, the Chaplain and
Sacrist, the Organist, and the (honorary) High
Steward and High
Bailiff. The Abbey and its property is in the care of the Librarian, the Keeper of the Muniments, and the Surveyor of the Fabric. Lastly, the educational role of the Abbey is reflected in the presence of the Headmaster of the Choir School, the Headmaster and Under Master of
Westminster School, and the Master of The Queen's Scholars.
The Abbey is governed by the Dean and Chapter established under the Elizabethan statute of 1560. This consists of the Dean and the four residentiary Canons.
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Westminster Abbey, as seen from the west |
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Westminster Abbey's West Door in sunshine |
Image:Westminster.abbey.westfront.london.arp.jpg|The west frontImage:westminster.abbey.tombofhenry.london.arp.jpg|The tomb of King Henry III in the Abbey. Henry was crowned king at the age of nine, reigning from 1216 to 1272.Image:Westminsterabbeyfromeye.jpg|Rear side view from the nearby London Eye*
List of churches and cathedrals of London*
List of other famous burial sites*
The Unknown Warrior* Simon Bradley and
Nikolaus Pevsner:
The Buildings of England - London 6: Westminster pp. 105–207. Yale University Press 2003. ISBN 0-300-09595-3.
*Barbara Harvey, 1993.
Living and Dying in England 1100-1540: The Monastic Experience (Oxford: Clarendon Press). Daily life in Westminster Abbey.
*
H.V. Morton, 1951.
In Search of London (London: Methuen).
*
Satellite view of Westminster Abbey at WikiMapia*
Westminster Abbey*
Keith Short - Sculptor Images of stone carving for Westminster Abbey
* Carved Crests for the Knights of the Bath; http://www.heraldicsculptor.com/bathcres.html
